Events / Program: Europe-Asia Research Platform on Forced Migration

	Title	Date	Type	Speakers	Register
	Ukrainian War, Refugees, and Human Rights in a Global Context	Wed, 06.07.2022	Panels and Discussions	Giorgia Donà Ranabir Samaddar Randall Hansen Ayşe ÇağlarAlex Aleinikoff, Grażyna Baranowska, Olena Fedyuk		Ukrainian War, Refugees, and Human Rights in a Global Context Wed, 06.07.2022 Speakers: Giorgia Donà Ranabir Samaddar Randall Hansen Ayşe ÇağlarAlex Aleinikoff, Grażyna Baranowska, Olena Fedyuk Series: Panels and Discussions The Ukrainian war unleashed unprecedented displacements in Europe, unseen since WWII. Most of the borders in Europe and throughout the world were opened to Ukrainians - in contrast to the restrictive border regimes many recent refugee movements to Europe, such as the Syrian or Afghani refugees fleeing war, were subject to. A series of schemes were developed to welcome Ukrainian refugees and emplace them into the labor markets and educational systems of their host countries. Instead of approaching the current Ukrainian refugee movement as unique and singular, this panel aimed to situate its dynamics within a broader context of refugee movements in Europe and beyond. It further placed it in conversation with the historical, political, and social contexts that cause such movements in the first place and seeks to explore it in relation to and together with other refugee movements globally. Read more
Ukrainian War, Refugees, and Human Rights in a Global Context Wed, 06.07.2022 Speakers: Giorgia Donà Ranabir Samaddar Randall Hansen Ayşe ÇağlarAlex Aleinikoff, Grażyna Baranowska, Olena Fedyuk Series: Panels and Discussions The Ukrainian war unleashed unprecedented displacements in Europe, unseen since WWII. Most of the borders in Europe and throughout the world were opened to Ukrainians - in contrast to the restrictive border regimes many recent refugee movements to Europe, such as the Syrian or Afghani refugees fleeing war, were subject to. A series of schemes were developed to welcome Ukrainian refugees and emplace them into the labor markets and educational systems of their host countries. Instead of approaching the current Ukrainian refugee movement as unique and singular, this panel aimed to situate its dynamics within a broader context of refugee movements in Europe and beyond. It further placed it in conversation with the historical, political, and social contexts that cause such movements in the first place and seeks to explore it in relation to and together with other refugee movements globally. Read more
	"Difficult to Settle" Refugees in Post-War Trieste	Wed, 11.05.2022	Seminars and Colloquia	Ayşe ÇağlarPamela Ballinger		"Difficult to Settle" Refugees in Post-War Trieste Wed, 11.05.2022 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarPamela Ballinger Series: Seminars and Colloquia As the principal city of a border region long imagined as straddling Europe’s East-West divide, Trieste became a critical hub in the post-1945 landscape of European refugee relief. Under Anglo-American Allied Military Government until 1954 as a result of the protracted territorial dispute between Italy and Yugoslavia, the city remained an important transit point for persons displaced out of the newly established socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe well into the 1960s. Read more
"Difficult to Settle" Refugees in Post-War Trieste Wed, 11.05.2022 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarPamela Ballinger Series: Seminars and Colloquia As the principal city of a border region long imagined as straddling Europe’s East-West divide, Trieste became a critical hub in the post-1945 landscape of European refugee relief. Under Anglo-American Allied Military Government until 1954 as a result of the protracted territorial dispute between Italy and Yugoslavia, the city remained an important transit point for persons displaced out of the newly established socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe well into the 1960s. Read more
	As the West Goes to War, Crafting Peace Today	Mon, 25.04.2022	Panels and Discussions	Paula Banerjee Ranabir SamaddarMarcello Musto, Sandro Mezzadra	Register Here (external)	As the West Goes to War, Crafting Peace Today Mon, 25.04.2022 Speakers: Paula Banerjee Ranabir SamaddarMarcello Musto, Sandro Mezzadra Series: Panels and Discussions As Europe, broadly the West, goes to war and the media grimly predicts a third world war, this panel discussion asks pertinent questions about the meaning of this war for the working people of the world and in particular the rest of the world. The 'third' world or the 'global south' has historically been crucial in the construction of Europe as the dominant and civilized other. What are the geopolitical implications of the present war in Europe for the rest of the world? How does this war hinder the prospect of global peace and people’s security? What is the impact of the war on food security, energy security, and in general security of nations? Is there any necessity for the weaker and smaller nations and the working people to take side in the war? Must they support military alliances? Is this war, which includes weaponised policies of economic sanctions and discriminatory policies of protection of refugees, essential to save “democracy”? What, in fact, will be the definition of peace in this context? How can we articulate the politics of peace in this time? Read more
As the West Goes to War, Crafting Peace Today Mon, 25.04.2022 Speakers: Paula Banerjee Ranabir SamaddarMarcello Musto, Sandro Mezzadra Series: Panels and Discussions As Europe, broadly the West, goes to war and the media grimly predicts a third world war, this panel discussion asks pertinent questions about the meaning of this war for the working people of the world and in particular the rest of the world. The 'third' world or the 'global south' has historically been crucial in the construction of Europe as the dominant and civilized other. What are the geopolitical implications of the present war in Europe for the rest of the world? How does this war hinder the prospect of global peace and people’s security? What is the impact of the war on food security, energy security, and in general security of nations? Is there any necessity for the weaker and smaller nations and the working people to take side in the war? Must they support military alliances? Is this war, which includes weaponised policies of economic sanctions and discriminatory policies of protection of refugees, essential to save “democracy”? What, in fact, will be the definition of peace in this context? How can we articulate the politics of peace in this time? Read more
	The “Migrant” in the Middle: How the Struggle for Decolonization and the Struggle against Fascism Are Linked	Wed, 20.04.2022	Seminars and Colloquia	Ayşe ÇağlarGregory Feldman		The “Migrant” in the Middle: How the Struggle for Decolonization and the Struggle against Fascism Are Linked Wed, 20.04.2022 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarGregory Feldman Series: Seminars and Colloquia The “migrant” – as the figure outside the polity – stands at the intersection of two global struggles: that of decolonization and that against fascism. An emancipatory politics for all involved will remain elusive until 1) the link between these two struggles is clarified; and 2) those structurally aligned with the category of “white citizen” realize that they, too, are impoverished by the dehumanization of the Other. This paper firstly explains how fascism is baked into modern sovereign power beginning with Hobbes’s Leviathan and fully expressed in Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. By fascism, I mean the inclination of an atomized and insecure national-cum-racial majority to form homogenous mass movements that regard the state with suspicion and that targets all others as existential threats. The paper secondly argues that this sovereign arrangement also diminishes the “white citizen” in the majority because that person must sacrifice their own perspective to find safety in conformity, but at the expense of becoming monstrous versions of themselves as they support a politics of oppression. Dismantling fascism’s enabling logic corresponds to decolonization as both struggles necessarily question the basis of modern politics: the atomized individual. The paper, then, draws on Frantz Fanon and James Baldwin who, each in their own way, outline an alternative (and more realistic) political subject that is both inherently related to others and utterly unique in its own worldly perspective. However fleetingly, this subject is poised for an alternative sovereign action premised upon the fact of human plurality rather than myth of national-cum-racial homogeneity. Read more
The “Migrant” in the Middle: How the Struggle for Decolonization and the Struggle against Fascism Are Linked Wed, 20.04.2022 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarGregory Feldman Series: Seminars and Colloquia The “migrant” – as the figure outside the polity – stands at the intersection of two global struggles: that of decolonization and that against fascism. An emancipatory politics for all involved will remain elusive until 1) the link between these two struggles is clarified; and 2) those structurally aligned with the category of “white citizen” realize that they, too, are impoverished by the dehumanization of the Other. This paper firstly explains how fascism is baked into modern sovereign power beginning with Hobbes’s Leviathan and fully expressed in Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. By fascism, I mean the inclination of an atomized and insecure national-cum-racial majority to form homogenous mass movements that regard the state with suspicion and that targets all others as existential threats. The paper secondly argues that this sovereign arrangement also diminishes the “white citizen” in the majority because that person must sacrifice their own perspective to find safety in conformity, but at the expense of becoming monstrous versions of themselves as they support a politics of oppression. Dismantling fascism’s enabling logic corresponds to decolonization as both struggles necessarily question the basis of modern politics: the atomized individual. The paper, then, draws on Frantz Fanon and James Baldwin who, each in their own way, outline an alternative (and more realistic) political subject that is both inherently related to others and utterly unique in its own worldly perspective. However fleetingly, this subject is poised for an alternative sovereign action premised upon the fact of human plurality rather than myth of national-cum-racial homogeneity. Read more
	Governance of Forced Migration in South Asia	Tue, 05.04.2022	Seminars and Colloquia	Ayşe ÇağlarSabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury		Governance of Forced Migration in South Asia Tue, 05.04.2022 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarSabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury Series: Seminars and Colloquia The world has been witnessing frequent mixed and massive flows of population in the recent times, when refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrants on the move together can hardly be differentiated. The New York Declaration 2016, and its two Global Compacts—the “Global Compact on Refugees” (GCR) and the “Global Compact on Safe Orderly and Regular Migration” (GCM)—raised expectations for better governance of international human migration by committingitself to securing the rights and protection of refugees and migrants in the context of human rights discourse and working toward sustainable development. But even this laudable initiative seems to have been triggered specifically by Europe’s reaction to its 2015 “crisis” and the disconcerting images that circulated as migrants and refugees from different parts of the world crossed the Mediterranean to reach European shores, with many perishing in the sea. Read more
Governance of Forced Migration in South Asia Tue, 05.04.2022 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarSabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury Series: Seminars and Colloquia The world has been witnessing frequent mixed and massive flows of population in the recent times, when refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrants on the move together can hardly be differentiated. The New York Declaration 2016, and its two Global Compacts—the “Global Compact on Refugees” (GCR) and the “Global Compact on Safe Orderly and Regular Migration” (GCM)—raised expectations for better governance of international human migration by committingitself to securing the rights and protection of refugees and migrants in the context of human rights discourse and working toward sustainable development. But even this laudable initiative seems to have been triggered specifically by Europe’s reaction to its 2015 “crisis” and the disconcerting images that circulated as migrants and refugees from different parts of the world crossed the Mediterranean to reach European shores, with many perishing in the sea. Read more
	The Conundrum of Trafficking and Statelessness in West Bengal	Mon, 28.02.2022	Seminars and Colloquia	Ayşe Çağlar Paula Banerjee		The Conundrum of Trafficking and Statelessness in West Bengal Mon, 28.02.2022 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Paula Banerjee Series: Seminars and Colloquia Statelessness is a problem that has been plaguing states, human rights activists, the UNHCR and other international organizations and the vulnerable and displaced population groups of the world. Statelessness does not respect borders; it robs the stateless of their rights and dignity, rights over their bodies and dignity of life. It deprives them of the ability to protest rampant exploitations. It also robs the states of its human face. Stateless men, women and children become insecure because they can be displaced any time that the state or the majority community so desires. Even states are unable to fathom what to do with stateless people, where to return them if need be. The Rohingya women in Bengal jails are a case in point. Read more
The Conundrum of Trafficking and Statelessness in West Bengal Mon, 28.02.2022 Speakers: Ayşe Çağlar Paula Banerjee Series: Seminars and Colloquia Statelessness is a problem that has been plaguing states, human rights activists, the UNHCR and other international organizations and the vulnerable and displaced population groups of the world. Statelessness does not respect borders; it robs the stateless of their rights and dignity, rights over their bodies and dignity of life. It deprives them of the ability to protest rampant exploitations. It also robs the states of its human face. Stateless men, women and children become insecure because they can be displaced any time that the state or the majority community so desires. Even states are unable to fathom what to do with stateless people, where to return them if need be. The Rohingya women in Bengal jails are a case in point. Read more
	Digitized Migrants	Mon, 07.02.2022	Conferences and Workshops			Digitized Migrants Mon, 07.02.2022 Speakers: Series: Conferences and Workshops The two Global Compacts for protection of refugees and migrants have advocated the increased use of digital technologies to enhance the protection, welfare, and development of refugees and migrants. Read more

	The Post-Coloniality of Asylum Infrastructure	Mon, 13.12.2021	Seminars and Colloquia	Ayşe ÇağlarPaolo Novak		The Post-Coloniality of Asylum Infrastructure Mon, 13.12.2021 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarPaolo Novak Series: Seminars and Colloquia This presentation takes as its object of analysis and investigation asylum seekers’ reception centres in a central Italian province. It builds upon literature concerned with the logistification of asylum to conceive these centres as nodes of the EU humanitarian border, yet it moves beyond the exclusive concern with the migrant-border dialectic that characterises most literature on the subject. In its attempt to dig deeper into the social ontology of the humanitarian border, the presentation de-centres the logistical gaze cast on asylum management characterising this literature by foregrounding instead the productive relation between the humanitarian border and the place-specific social dynamics that explain its emergence and reproduction in concrete settings. Accounting for the multiple and variegated histories, stories, agencies and trajectories that become entangled in the rooms of these reception centres, the paper argues that critical border scholars need to move beyond an exclusive concern with the border-migrant dialectic, and to reorient our attention towards an appreciation of borders’ place-specific configurations. In bringing to the fore the unevenness of these entanglements in each of these reception centres, the presentation also suggests recalibrating contemporary concerns with the coloniality of asylum, of migration, and of infrastructure. The expression ‘postcoloniality of asylum infrastructure’ wants to entangle colonial world-making legacies with everyday practices of place-making. Read more
The Post-Coloniality of Asylum Infrastructure Mon, 13.12.2021 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarPaolo Novak Series: Seminars and Colloquia This presentation takes as its object of analysis and investigation asylum seekers’ reception centres in a central Italian province. It builds upon literature concerned with the logistification of asylum to conceive these centres as nodes of the EU humanitarian border, yet it moves beyond the exclusive concern with the migrant-border dialectic that characterises most literature on the subject. In its attempt to dig deeper into the social ontology of the humanitarian border, the presentation de-centres the logistical gaze cast on asylum management characterising this literature by foregrounding instead the productive relation between the humanitarian border and the place-specific social dynamics that explain its emergence and reproduction in concrete settings. Accounting for the multiple and variegated histories, stories, agencies and trajectories that become entangled in the rooms of these reception centres, the paper argues that critical border scholars need to move beyond an exclusive concern with the border-migrant dialectic, and to reorient our attention towards an appreciation of borders’ place-specific configurations. In bringing to the fore the unevenness of these entanglements in each of these reception centres, the presentation also suggests recalibrating contemporary concerns with the coloniality of asylum, of migration, and of infrastructure. The expression ‘postcoloniality of asylum infrastructure’ wants to entangle colonial world-making legacies with everyday practices of place-making. Read more
	The Precarious Lives of Syrians: Temporary Protection and the Turkey/EU Deal	Tue, 30.11.2021	Seminars and Colloquia	Ayşe ÇağlarFeyzi Baban	Register here	The Precarious Lives of Syrians: Temporary Protection and the Turkey/EU Deal Tue, 30.11.2021 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarFeyzi Baban Series: Seminars and Colloquia Turkey currently hosts over 4million Syrian refugees who have no prospects of gaining long-term legal status. Their precarious lives are further complicated with the EU’s ongoing collaboration with Turkey to prevent them from claiming refugee status in the EU member states. The EU’s externalization efforts through its cooperation with Turkey further contribute to the precarious lives of Syrians and enable European states to ignore their international obligation to protect Syrians. In my talk, I will discuss elements of “architecture of precarity,” which defines the living conditions of Syrians and their legal prospects for status as a series of structurally conditioned obstacles. Domestic and international, these obstacles are designed to prevent Syrian refugees from claiming legal protection and attaining long-term legal status, including citizenship. While this “architecture of precarity” is most visible in Turkey’s treatment of Syrians, its legal elements such as externalization and ambiguous legal status are increasingly used by many states worldwide to circumvent the international legal framework of refugee protection. Read more
The Precarious Lives of Syrians: Temporary Protection and the Turkey/EU Deal Tue, 30.11.2021 Speakers: Ayşe ÇağlarFeyzi Baban Series: Seminars and Colloquia Turkey currently hosts over 4million Syrian refugees who have no prospects of gaining long-term legal status. Their precarious lives are further complicated with the EU’s ongoing collaboration with Turkey to prevent them from claiming refugee status in the EU member states. The EU’s externalization efforts through its cooperation with Turkey further contribute to the precarious lives of Syrians and enable European states to ignore their international obligation to protect Syrians. In my talk, I will discuss elements of “architecture of precarity,” which defines the living conditions of Syrians and their legal prospects for status as a series of structurally conditioned obstacles. Domestic and international, these obstacles are designed to prevent Syrian refugees from claiming legal protection and attaining long-term legal status, including citizenship. While this “architecture of precarity” is most visible in Turkey’s treatment of Syrians, its legal elements such as externalization and ambiguous legal status are increasingly used by many states worldwide to circumvent the international legal framework of refugee protection. Read more
	The Impossibility of Politics: Brecht, Manto and Two Itinerant Situations	Tue, 19.10.2021	Lecture	Ludger Hagedorn Ranabir Samaddar		The Impossibility of Politics: Brecht, Manto and Two Itinerant Situations Tue, 19.10.2021 Speakers: Ludger Hagedorn Ranabir Samaddar Series: Lecture Two writings of Bertold Brecht and Sadat Hasan Manto are joined by a realisation that in certain situations political openings become impossible. Strangely these are not stable or more correctly speaking static situations but are situations of mobility. Yet the conditions of mobility bring to us only spectres of deaths. Political openings towards transformation at least in a conventional sense are ruled out. The severity of itinerant situations at times makes it impossible for the migrant subjectivity to become political. Read more
The Impossibility of Politics: Brecht, Manto and Two Itinerant Situations Tue, 19.10.2021 Speakers: Ludger Hagedorn Ranabir Samaddar Series: Lecture Two writings of Bertold Brecht and Sadat Hasan Manto are joined by a realisation that in certain situations political openings become impossible. Strangely these are not stable or more correctly speaking static situations but are situations of mobility. Yet the conditions of mobility bring to us only spectres of deaths. Political openings towards transformation at least in a conventional sense are ruled out. The severity of itinerant situations at times makes it impossible for the migrant subjectivity to become political. Read more

Events / Program: Europe-Asia Research Platform on Forced Migration

Current Fellows' research