Annemarie Steidl (University of Vienna); Oliver Kühschelm (zhmf and IGLR); Anne Unterwurzacher (IAI); Mirjam Milharcic Hladnik and Aleksej Kalc (Slovenian Migration Institute)

Venue: Department of Economic and Social History of the University of Vienna
Time: 02.-03.12.2021
Proposals by: 30.04.2021

People were (and are) mobile in more complex ways than the once in a lifetime move from one social and cultural context to another. Their movements include ongoing, circular, or return migrations. Moreover, migration cannot be reduced to cross-border movements. A more flexible definition of migration is needed. The conference will therefore make an effort to capture the multidimensionality and the blurred/contested boundaries of migration, mobility, and sedentariness.

From a historical perspective, spatial mobility was/is part of daily practices. When people moved, they often did so because of better opportunities somewhere else; they repeatedly migrated due to economic circumstances, for cultural and individual reasons (e.g., lifestyle migration, educational migration), or in reaction to political emergencies, as a result of persecution, physical violence, or other kinds of repression. People were (and are) mobile in more complex ways than the once in a lifetime move from one social and cultural context to another. Their movements include ongoing, circular, or return migrations. Moreover, migration cannot be reduced to cross-border movements. A more flexible definition of migration is needed that does not overlook the relevance of permanent or semipermanent changes of residence. Its scope cannot be limited to movements over long distances or across state borders.

Permanent changes of residence are a worthy object of analysis but so are short-term stays, recurrent patterns of seasonal and circular mobility, and the practices of being constantly on the move of vagrants and traveling people. Even sedentariness does not constitute a clear-cut opposite to migration. The life course of many people includes at different times mobility as well as sedentariness – and many practices that lie somewhere in between.

The conference will raise the question if and how a stronger reflection about space and the spatial dimensions of migration/mobility can contribute to de-nationalize, de-‘ethnicize’ and de-‘migranticize’ migration research. Read more and source … (Web)