Call for abstracts

Recent global developments in migration movement are managed with organized local support for the labor market integration of immigrants in many OECD countries (OECD, 2022). There is a plethora of initiatives driven by various actors (national authorities, multinationals, individuals and civil society) that are carried out within each actor’s specific spatial settings–regions, cities, suburbs ,communities and neighbourhoods within urban and rural areas. The driving force for change lies therefore to a great extent in the hands of human agents, who have the ability to shape their specific spatial setting to attain goals for the management of immigrants. More recently, however, spatial settings have gained increased recognition for their importance in advancing diversity and inclusion of immigrants. This has been manifested by the celebration of the EU award Capitals of Diversity and Inclusion, and by studies showing the importance of spatial setting in shaping employers’ management of flows of workers (Plöger, 2020). Nevertheless, challenges such as spatial segregation of immigrants still persist.

This track welcomes papers from a broad spectrum of methodologies and theoretical frameworks to foster discussions on the importance of spatial settings for the labor market integration of immigrants. The aim is to foster a cross-disciplinary discussion on where agency for labor market integration of immigrants resides. Can spatial settings be agents of labor market integration of immigrants? If so, in what ways? How can spatial settings foster spontaneous labor market integration of immigrants? How does the interplay between organizations and spatial settings shape labor market integration of immigrants?

This track welcomes papers that for example address: the importance of spatial settings as perceived from the standpoint of immigrants and organizations; spatial setting centered approach that recognizes the importance of spatial settings to labor market integration of immigrants, the intersection between labor integration and residential integration.

Keywords: labor market integration of immigrants, spatial settings, agency

Convenor: Sarah Glännefors, University of Uppsala

References
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)(2022), International Migration Outlook 2022, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/30fe16d2-en.
Plöger, J. (2020). Employers stuck in place? Knowledge sector recruitment between regional embeddedness and internationalization. Regional Studies, 54(12), 1737–1747. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2020.1765231

In the past, migration studies’ perspectives often followed the “nation-state-centered obsession”, as Favell (2019) calls it, of integrating newcomers into local societies. Today, however, scholars increasingly question the very concept of ‘integration’ given that it normalizes stasis, all whilst neglecting mobile ontologies that apply in situations of transmigration and trans-locational attachments (Anthias, 2018; Özkazanc-Pan, 2019). Metaphors such as social anchoring or processes of embedding (Grzymala-Kazlowska & Ryan, 2022) support a shift towards alternative conceptualizations and attempt to avoid methodological nationalism (Wimmer & Glick-Schiller, 2002). Indeed, the mobilities turn in social sciences demonstrates that ways of belonging are not solely dependent on national territories or local societies and cannot be understood through logics of sedentariness alone (Sheller & Urry 2006). Instead, the mobilities paradigm recognizes that neo-nomadic ways of belonging are constituted across a grand variety of “social fields” (Levitt & Glick-Schiller, 2004), constituting individual and collective practices of organizing and belonging in motion, across boundaries and beyond borders. Therefore, this track shall encourage to further problematize the concept of ‘integration’ from the perspective of distinct academic disciplines, in an interdisciplinary manner or, when adequate, in a postdisciplinary way, i.e. in a way that “surpasses the boundaries of disciplinary thinking and opens up the possibility to question the established phenomena we take for granted”, as Pernecky, Munar and Wheeler suggest (2016: 390).  Questions papers could consider, for example: 

• How do belonging and mobility become entangled through organizing? How do state institutions and organizations in the broadest sense (e.g., corporations, advocacy networks, online communities, social media groups, business forums, diasporic associations) reinforce or undermine the sense of belonging of those who have been / are on the move (incl. digital nomads, transmigrants, mobile professionals, assigned workers)? 

• How do neo-nomadic and trans-locational life modes, work modes and ways of belonging resist assimilationist pressures and demands for ‘integration’ into the nation state or into specific local settings? What alternative ways of societal participation, social anchoring and belonging are emerging in non-sedentary communities? 

• How do mobile ways of organizing trigger the emergence of alternative systems of thought? How can they contribute to de-centering euro-centric vested yet debatable conceptualizations such as ‘integration’ in a changing migratory landscape? (Grosfoguel et al., 2015; Mayblin & Turner, 2020) 

• How do trans-locational activities, societal participation and networks, including virtual spaces, constitute and are constituted by belongingness of international movers / migrants of all kinds? 

• What role do migrants’ entrepreneurial practices play in ‘navigating belonging’ (Essers et al., 2021)? How is a sense of belonging entrepreneurially crafted and sustained through transnational practices? 

Keywords: mobilities turn, non-sedentary, ways of belonging, integration, transmigration 

Convenors: 
Kerstin Martel, Copenhagen Business School and Centre Marc Bloch at Humboldt University of Berlin
Amanda Haarman, (Copenhagen Business School & Danish Institute for international Studies) 

References 
Anthias, F. (2018). Identity and belonging: Conceptualizations and reframings through a translocational lens. In Contested belonging: Spaces, practices, biographies. Emerald Publishing Limited. 
Essers, C., Pio, E., Verduijn, K., & Bensliman, N. (2021). Navigating belonging as a Muslim Moroccan female entrepreneur. Journal of Small Business Management, 59(6), 1250-1278. 
Favell, A. (2019). Integration: twelve propositions after Schinkel. Comparative Migration Studies, 7. 
Grosfoguel, R., Oso, L., & Christou, A. (2015). ‘Racism’, intersectionality and migration studies: framing some theoretical reflections. Identities, 22(6), 635-652. 
Grzymala-Kazlowska, A., & Ryan, L. (2022). Bringing anchoring and embedding together: theorising migrants’ lives over-time. Comparative Migration Studies, 10(1), 1-19. 
Levitt, P., & Glick Schiller, N. G. (2004). Conceptualizing simultaneity: A transnational social field perspective on society. International migration review, 38(3), 1002-1039. 
Mayblin, L., & Turner, J. (2020). Migration studies and colonialism. John Wiley & Sons. 
Özkazanç-Pan, B. (2019). Transnational migration and the new subjects of work: Transmigrants, hybrids and cosmopolitans. Policy Press. 
Sheller, M., & Urry, J. (2006). The new mobilities paradigm. Environment and planning A, 38(2), 207-226. 
Pernecky, T., Munar, A. M., & Wheeller, B. (2016). Existential Postdisciplinarity: Personal Journeys Into Tourism, Art, and Freedom. Tourism Analysis, 21(4), 389-401.  
Wimmer, A., & Glick Schiller, N. (2002). Methodological nationalism and beyond: nation–state building, migration and the social sciences. Global networks, 2(4), 301-334. 

Sustainable development has attracted increasing attention among scholars (Rogers et al., 2012; Scheirer, 2005). Businesses play the vital role in achieving sustainable development, in particular, dealing with climate change, environmental pollution, poverty and inequality (Boons et al., 2013; Schaltegger et al., 2012) at both individual, organizational, and inter-organizational levels (Gao & Bansal, 2013; Hahn et al., 2015; Manzhynski & Figge, 2020). Migration is recognized as a powerful driver of sustainability in the 2030 Agenda for sustainability (IOM, 2023) as it has prominent impacts on social, political, institutional and economic aspects of the migrant’s country of residence and origin, among which, are the cultural diversity and immigrant entrepreneurship. Migrant entrepreneurship has been an international phenomenon both in research and practice for several decades (Evansluong, Ramirez Pasillas, Discua Cruz, Elo and Vershinina, 2023; Sinkovics and Reuben 2021; Light et al., 1994). In particular, migrant entrepreneurship plays an essential role in social and economic integration process (e.g., Evansluong, Ramirez Pasillas and Bergström, 2019) which contributes to sustainable development and affects social and economic sustainability outcomes. Scholars emphasize the prominent influence of cultural diversity in immigrant entrepreneurship; however, little is discussed about how cultural diversity influences immigrant entrepreneurship in the process of social and economic integration. For instance, majority of studies unpack cultural diversity by shedding light on the impact of liability of foreignness and how to deal with cultural diversity as a liability (e.g., Gurau, Dana and Light, 2020). However, little is known about how cultural diversity can be utilised as an advantage or as an asset in immigrant entrepreneurship as some scholars call for (e.g., Evansluong, Grip and Karayianni, 2023). Further, even less is known about how (if any) cultural diversity can help migrant entrepreneurs to manage numerous sustainability tensions or paradoxes inherent to entrepreneurial life, particularly between social and economic integration goals. Therefore, how cultural diversity influences economic and social integration in migrant entrepreneurship is understudied. We encourage submissions to discuss questions such as, but not limited to: 

• What are the roles and the characteristics of cultural diversity in the integration process in migrant entrepreneurship in different national and sectoral contexts? 

• How does cultural diversity influence the process of economic and social integration in migrant entrepreneurship? 

• How does cultural diversity facilitate or hinder migrant entrepreneurs to manage tensions within economic and social integration processes? 

• What is the interplay between cultural diversity and outcomes of economic and social integration in migrant entrepreneurship? 

Keywords: cultural diversity, economic integration, social integration, migrant entrepreneurship, liability, asset 

Convenors: 
Quang Evansluong, Umeå University 
Marcela Ramirez Pasillas, Jönköping University
Siarhei Manzhynski, Umeå University
Amit Mitra, University of the West of England, Bristol

Key references 
Boons, F., Montalvo, C., Quist, J., & Wagner, M. (2013). Sustainable innovation, business models and economic performance: an overview. Journal of Cleaner Production, 45, 1-8.  

Evansluong, Q., Grip, L., & Karayianni, E. (2023). Digital Ethnicity Affordances: From A Liability to An Asset in Immigrant Entrepreneurship International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research. (Forthcoming). 

Evansluong, Q., Pasillas, M. R., & Nguyen Bergström, H. (2019). From breaking-ice to breaking-out: Integration as an opportunity creation process. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior and Research, 25(5), 880-899. 

Evansluong, Q., Ramírez Pasillas, M., Discua Cruz, A., Elo, M., & Vershinina, N. (2023). Guest editorial: Migrant Entrepreneurship and the Roles of  Family Beyond Place and Space: Towards a Family Resourcefulness Across Borders Perspective. Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy, 17(1), 1-15.  

Gao, J., & Bansal, P. (2013). Instrumental and integrative logics in business sustainability. Journal of Business Ethics, 112(2), 241-255.  

Gurău, C., Dana, L. P., & Light, I. (2020). Overcoming the liability of foreignness: A typology and model of immigrant entrepreneurs. European Management Review, 17(3), 701-717. 

Hahn, T., Pinkse, J., Preuss, L., & Figge, F. (2015). Tensions in corporate sustainability: Towards an integrative framework. Journal of Business Ethics, 127(2), 297-316.  

Manzhynski, S., & Figge, F. (2020). Coopetition for sustainability: Between organizational benefit and societal good. Business Strategy and the Environment, 29(3), 827-837. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.2400  

Light, I., Sabagh, G., Bozorgmehr, M., & Der-Martirosian, C. (1994). Beyond the ethnic enclave economy. Social Problems, 41(1), 65-80. 

Rogers, P. P., Jalal, K. F., & Boyd, J. A. (2012). An introduction to sustainable development. Routledge.  

Schaltegger, S., Lüdeke-Freund, F., & Hansen, E. G. (2012). Business cases for sustainability: the role of business model innovation for corporate sustainability. International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development, 6(2), 95-119.  

Scheirer, M. A. (2005). Is sustainability possible? A review and commentary on empirical studies of program sustainability. American Journal of Evaluation, 26(3), 320-347.  

Sinkovics, N., & Reuber, A. R. (2021). Beyond disciplinary silos: A systematic analysis of the migrant entrepreneurship literature. Journal of World Business, 56(4), 101223. 

There is a growing body of literature that explores refugee reception, settlement and ‘integration’ through the theoretical lens of logistics and infrastructure, thus highlighting how the logics of efficiency and dispersal contribute to the production of conditions of evictability (see Altenried et al 2018, Krifors 2021, Rogat 2022). For this ‘track’, we invite contributions that address these themes. 

The concept of evictability has been  proposed by van Baar (2017) to de-nationalise the notion of “deportability” (De Genova, 2002) and make visible the continuities between processes of displacement that take place inside the nation state and expulsions from the nation state (see also Persdotter, 2019). Through the lens of evictability, we thus bring attention to structural and material conditions on the ground - such as local housing markets, inter-municipal relations, and labour precarity - and how they intersect with the logistics of migration (Jansson-Keshavarz and Nordling, 2022). In doing so, we also seek to make visible connections between the exclusions of migrants from citizenship with the gendered, classed and racialized borders that exist within formal citizenship (see Anderson, 2019). 

A starting point is that the structural inequalities in housing affect asylum policies as well as integration strategies at the local level. This, in combination with local differences in labour market conditions, political leadership, and civil society strategies (Ekholm, Wernesjö & Dahlstedt, 2022) creates uneven landscapes of un/welcoming places, refugees and other migrants. 

We welcome contributions that address questions of refugee reception, settlement and ‘integration’ through the joint theoretical lens of logistics and evictability.  This might include work on the lived experience of ‘evictability’ in the context of housing policy and availability; the role of time, temporariness and waiting in the regulation and organisation of refugee reception and ‘integration’; or reflections on how the politics of refugee reception and ‘integration’ influence access to, and conceptions of, citizenship and welfare more broadly.

Convenors:
Sofi Jansson-Keshavarz, Linköping University
Karin Krifors, Linköping University
Vanna Nordling, Malmö University
Maria Persdotter, Linköping University
Mauricio Rogat, Linköping University
Ulrika Wernesjö, Linköping University

References:

Altenried, Moritz, Bojadžijev, Manuela, Höfler, Leif, Mezzadra, Sandro, & Wallis, Mira. (2018). Logistical borderscapes: Politics and mediation of mobile labor in Germany after the “summer of migration”. South Atlantic Quarterly, 117(2), 291-312.

Anderson, Bridget. (2019). New directions in migration studies: towards methodological de-nationalism. Comparative Migration Studies, 7(1). 

De Genova, Nicolas. (2002). Migrant “Illegality” and Deportability in Everyday Life. Annual Review of Anthropology, 31(1), 419–447. 

Ekholm, David, Wernesjö, Ulrika & Dahlstedt, Magnus. (2022). Bollen i rörelse [Elektronisk resurs] Tjejfotboll, fostran och normkritik i den urbana periferin. Linköping: Linköping University Electronic Press.

Krifors, Karin. (2021). Logistics of migrant labour: Rethinking how workers ‘fit’transnational economies. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47(1), 148-165.

Jansson-Keshavarz, Sofi, & Nordling, Vanna. (2022). Waiting for housing: municipal practices of mobility control. European Journal of Social Work, 1-13.

Persdotter, Maria. (2019). Free to move along: on the urbanisation of cross-border mobility controls : a case of roma 'EU migrants' in Malmö, Sweden. Diss. Malmö : Malmö universitet, 2019. Malmö.

Rogat, Mauricio. (2022). Even flows and deferred lives: the logistification of migrant settlement in Sweden. Diss. Göteborg : Göteborgs universitet, 2022. Gothenburg.

van Baar, Huub. (2017). Evictability and the Biopolitical Bordering of Europe. Antipode, 49(1), 212–230. 

Security, police work, migration and integration are increasingly intertwined in policy, discourse and practice. The list of security issues linked to these nexuses includes some of the most stressing in contemporary society, including right-wing violence and hate against migrants, anti-Muslim sentiments, international terrorism and radicalization, organized crime, and polarization. In the public discourse, the lack of integration among certain groups and communities is considered a root-cause to crime and social unrest, and migrants are often described as particularly “vulnerable” to be drawn into organized crime and extremism. As a result, societal security actors such as the police are expanding their efforts to understand and handle the consequenses of migration and more diverse societies, and integration efforts of social welfare actors and civil society organizations are increasingly framed as matters of security. 

In this conference stream, we invite contributions that help to explore the nexus between security, police work, migration and integration from various disciplines, methodological approaches and theoretical perspectives. The stream is inclusive in its scope, but we are especially interested in contributions that shed light on professional work relating to these nexuses, for example police work, social work, pedagogic work, work in faith-based organizations and labor market efforts. Other topics relating to the track theme can be:

• omplexity
• Governance and management
• Securitization and construction of risk
• Migration control
• Politics, ideologies and populism
• Racial, cultural and religious biases
• Stigmatization
• The role of media and internet
• Impacts and affects
• Unintended consequenses

Convenors
Robin Andersson Malmros & Göran Larsson, University of Gothenburg

Labour market inclusion of foreign-born persons is one of the most important challenges to reduce and overcome segregation. The state-driven activation programmes that foreign-born persons (like other unemployed) take part of and which approach work as an obligation, rather than a right (Strindlund et al., 2020), are increasingly criticized. Despite extensive efforts behind the programmes, they are not only perceived as too broad or insufficient by participants (Bucken-Knapp et al., 2018, Schierenbeck & Spehar, 2021), they also risk ignoring the many barriers that foreign-born people face in terms of care responsibilities, migration-related illness, traditional gender norms and gender inequality (Bucken-Knapp et al., 2020). Conversely, many researchers claim that more comprehensive and holistic socio-economic inclusion practices are needed to invert the priorities from ‘work first’ to ‘life first’ (Lindsay et al., 2021).

However, a growing stream of research in labour market inclusion shows how alternative and human-centred labour market inclusion methods work in practice, and how they can be strengthened and diffused. This track aims to further develop this knowledge by calling for empirical research examining this shift towards alternative forms of organizing workplaces and methods for labour market inclusion of foreign-born persons, where the people are shifted to the center. The actors driving these initiatives are many. From the work of civil society and non-profit organizations to social enterprises, work integration social enterprises (e.g. Norbäck and Zapata Campos, 2022), as well as innovative public and private initiatives with a focus on human rights and well-being of these communities.

Suggested topics include (but others are also welcome):

• Novel and human-centered approaches and methods developed by civil society organizations, non-profit organisations, social enterprises, etc. for the socio-economic inclusion of foreign-born persons.
• The voices and experiences of foreign-born persons participating in social and economic inclusion programs.
• Innovative ways of organizing human-centred labour market inclusion driven by public sector, and corporations.
• How civil-society, public, and commercial actors collaborate to create real and decent job opportunities for people excluded from the labour market
• The relationships and interdependency of public actors and social enterprises focusing work integration

Keywords: Labour market inclusion; work first; life-first; human-centred approaches; people’s experiences

Convenors: Emma Ek Österberg, Nanna Gillberg, Maria Norbäck, Patrik Zapata, María José Zapata Campos, all University of Gothenburg

References
Strindlund, Lena, Madeleine Abrandt Dahlgren, and Christian Ståhl (2020) Zooming in on labor market cooperation: A study of a failed project to support unemployed young people. Social Policy & Administration 54 (3) 410-426.

Bucken-Knapp, Gregg, Jonas Hinnfors, Andrea Spehar and Karin Zelano, Karin (2018) The multi-level governance of intra EU movement. In  Between mobility and migration (pp.  125– 140). Springer.

Schierenbeck, Isabell and Andrea Spehar (2021) Implementing integration policy: Encounters between street-level bureaucrats and newly-arrived migrants in Sweden. Studentlitteratur

Bucken-Knapp, Gregg, Vedran Omanović and Andrea Spehar (2020) The Voices of Refugees as a Method. Institutions and Organizations of Refugee Integration: Bosnian-Herzegovinian and Syrian Refugees in Sweden, pp.43-62.

Lindsay, Colin, Sarah Pearson, Elaine Batty, Anne Marie Cullen, and Will Eadson (2021) Collaborative innovation in labor market inclusion. Public Administration Review 81 (5) 925-934.

Norbäck, Maria and María José Zapata Campos  (2022)The market made us do it: Public procurement and collaborative labour market inclusion governance from below. Social Policy & Administration, 56(4), 632-647.

Refugees and migrants usually move into a context that is unfamiliar, they often havelittle knowledge or country specific capitalrelatedto their host country, and they may lack thesocial network that could help them gain country specific knowledge. This lack of information and knowledge may act as a barrier to integration, or at least slow down the process. Besides the official measures of integration such as language acquisition and labour market participation, refugees may have their own goals such as further education; meaningful work that matches their qualifications and experience; bringing their families safely to their new country; etc. Guidance from local people who have excellent knowledge and experience in that environment, can facilitate inclusion and integration. Such guidance may take many forms:

• NGOs providing specific information about key processes that may be complicated or time-bound, like family reunificationor how to deal with discrimination;
• Mentoring programmes to help young people settle into high school or adults to findmeaningfulwork;
• Educational programmes and practice that support: school-to-work transitions of young immigrants and refugees,and transitions to meaningful work of adults. (i.e. the relevance of education in the countries of origin, access to education in the host countries, the interplay of non-formal and formal education like extracurricular activities or further education, academic achievement and certificates);
• Official (national or municipal) programmes to facilitate learning the language or sociocultural norms.

In this TRACK we invite abstracts about any form ofinformation and learning that promotes inclusion and integration of refugees and migrants.

Keywords: Information; learning; promoting inclusion; mentoring; educational programmes; transitions to work

Convenors:
Marguerite Daniel, University of Bergen, Norway
Peter de Cuyper, KU Leuven, Belgium
Christine Steiner, German Youth Institute, Munich, Germany 
Diana van Dijk, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands 

Migration is intensifying as a result of and in response to the multiple and interconnected crises that characterize modern society (Gibson-Graham, 1997). While the demographic changes and skills gap in many parts of the world result in workplaces inviting migration directly or indirectly, migration has been stigmatized in destination countries (Angouri, 2018; OECD, 2018). It is associated with a threat to society in discourses that moved from the periphery of the far right to the centre- mainstream media representing commonly the migrant as the ‘dangerous other’ (Wodak, 2013; European Parliament, 2016). This has direct implications on public attitude as well as resources made available to those coming new to a socioeconomic environment (Angouri et al., 2017).   

 The purpose of this track is to bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to unpack and address migration in the current political context taking the digital agenda also in consideration. We are particularly interested in issues of integration in and through the labour market, gig economy and the role of ‘the digital’ in offering opportunities (and challenges) in accessing resources (Trittin-Ulbrich, 2020). As societies become increasingly digitised in all domains of life, also the ongoing digitalisation of governmental bodies and processes and the re/settlement process are permeated by digitalization, in services and information, learning programs, labour market, new informal networks and more. Issues of digital, linguistic and general literacy are critical (Bradley, et al., 2020). We invite scholars who are focusing on the migration, digitalization and the workplace and are interested in the issues above to join the conversation. The panel will aim to provide a frame of key issues and recommendations for future research. We welcome both conceptual and empirical contributions.   

Keywords:  Migration, mobility, workplace integration, re/settlement, labour market digitalisation, digital literacy.  

Convenors: 
Jo Angouri, University of Warwick, UK. 
Linda Bradley,  University of Gothenburg, Sweden. 

References of relevance for this theme 
Angouri, J. (2018). Culture, Discourse, and the Workplace. London: Routledge.   
Angouri, J., Marra, M. & Holmes, J. (2017). Negotiating boundaries at work: Talking and transitions. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.  
Bradley, L., Bahous, R., Albasha, A. (2020). Professional development of Syrian refugee women: proceeding with a career within education, Studies in Continuing Education, Dec 2020: 1-18.  
European Parliament, (2016). Labour Market Integration of Refugees: Strategies and good practices.  
Gibson-Graham, J. K. (1997). The end of capitalism (as we knew it): A feminist critique of political economy. Capital & Class, 21(2): 186-88.  
OECD, (2018). Working Together for Local Integration of Migrants and Refugees. OECD Publishing, Paris.  
Wodak, R. (2013). Dis-citizenship and migration: a critical discourse-analytical perspective. Journal of Language, Identity and Education, 12(3): 173-78.   
Trittin-Ulbrich, H., Scherer, A. G., Whelan, G., & Munro, I. (2020). Exploring dark and unexpected sides of digitalization: how digital technologies challenge organizations and organizing. Call for papers: Special Issue of Organization, 28(1), 1-5.   

Education and training systems in many diverse forms play a key role for migrants of any age in addressing the challenges of migration and integration into a host society. Many countries therefore enable access to mainstream early education for young children as well as adult programmes (OECD, 2019; 2022). However, students from migrant backgrounds face a number of challenges that can affect their learning development and integration into a new country. Such challenges relate to the migration process itself, having to acquire a new language and adapting to a new society as well as to a new educational system (Hyltenstam, Axelsson & Lindberg, 2012; Tajic & Bunar, 2020). Moreover, different policies affecting the availability of educational resources, schools and training systems for promoting integration, equality and inclusion more generally play a decisive role for integration (Faas, Hajisoteriou & Panayiotis, 2014; Guo-Brennan & Guo-Brennan, 2019; Hoggan & Hoggan-Kloubert, 2021; Morrice, 2018). Integration and inclusion are critical terms in migration and education, and both begs questions like the following:  

• Inclusion/integration into what?  
• To what extent should social institutions such as education adapt and change to accommodate the multifaceted challenges resulting from migration?  

Furthermore, integration and inclusion strategies often implicitly assume a deficit model in which migrants require intervention to be included or integrated, while the institutions and broader society remain largely unchanged. This panel invites papers that discuss perspectives, policies and trends about migration, education and integration of migrants in any age group and organised by many different actors such as state agencies, municipalities, companies, interest groups, civil society organizations and individuals.  

Keywords: Migration, education, integration, policy, practice, trends.  

Convenors
Simon Bauer, University of Gothenburg  
Kerstin von Brömssen, University West Sweden. 
Tommaso Milani, Pennsylvania State University.  
Andrea Spehar, University of Gothenburg.  

Key references  
Faas, Daniel., Hajisoteriou, Christina & Angelides, Panayiotis (2014). Intercultural education in Europe: policies, practices and trends. British Educational Research Journal, 40(2), 300-318.  

Guo-Brennan, Linyuan & Guo-Brennan, Michael (2019). "Building Welcoming and Inclusive Schools for Immigrant and Refugee Students: Policy, Framework and Promising Praxis". In Khalid Arar, Jeffrey, S. Brooks, & Ira Bogotch (Ed.) Education, Immigration and Migration (Studies in Educational Administration), pp. 73-93. Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78756-044-420191006.  

Hoggan, Chad & Hoggan-Klobert, Tetyana (eds.), (2021). Adult learning in migration society. Routledge.  

Hyltenstam, Kenneth, Axelsson, Monica & Lindberg, Inger (red.), (2012). Flerspråkighet – en forskningsöversikt. [Multilingualism – a research overview]. [In Swedish]. The Swedish Research Council. https://www.vr.se/.  

Morrice, Linda (2018). Transnational migration, everyday pedagogies and cultural destabilization. In: Marcella Milana, John Holford, Sue Webb, Peter Jarvis & Richard Waller, (eds).  The Palgrave international handbook of adult and lifelong education and learning, pp. 649-665. Palgrave Macmillan. 

OECD (2019). The Road to Integration: Education and Migration, OECD Reviews of Migrant Education, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/d8ceec5d-en. 

OECD (2022). International Migration Outlook 2022, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/30fe16d2-en. 

Tajic, Denis & Bunar, Nihad (2020). Do both ‘get it right’? Inclusion of newly arrived migrant students in Swedish primary schools, International Journal of Inclusive Education, DOI: 10.1080/13603116.2020.1841838 

Prior research shows that two of the main indicators for migrant integration are initial employment opportunities (Ager and Strang, 2008; Bucken-Knapp, Omanović and Spehar, 2020), and the length of time that migrants remain active on the labor market (Loon and Vitale (2021:6). As a result, labor market integration research explores periods and processes: not only access to initial employment opportunities, but also how integration can be hastened or hindered in the workplace itself (e.g. Omanović, Tarim and Holck, 2022).

This track focuses on methodologies for studying social, labor and workplace integration of historically and systematically disadvantaged migrant groups. We invite conceptual, empirical and/or methodological contributions that engage with, but are not restricted to topics that:

• reflect on the importance of including in research the voices of historically disadvantaged migrant groups, and considering the consequences of excluding those voices from narratives.  
• highlight alternative and non-traditional methodologies for studying different phases of the integration process.
• focus and reflect on (refugee) migrant experiences while searching for meaningful employment.
• shed light on perceived discrimination, racism, inequalities and marginalization on the part of (refugee) migrants during the labor market integration process.
• increase understanding of barriers and struggles encountered by (refugee) migrants in different institutional, organizational and discursive settings, and the forms of agency used by (refugee) migrants to navigate this complex maze.

Keywords: methodologies, migrants, labor market and workplace integration

Convenors:

Vedran Omanović, School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg

Gregg Bucken-Knapp, School of Public Administration, University of Gothenburg

Andrea Spehar, Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg

References:

Ager, A., & Strang, A. (2008). Understanding integration: A conceptual framework. Journal of Refugee Studies, 21(2), 166-191.

Bucken-Knapp, G., Omanović, V., & Spehar, A. (2019). Institutions and Organizations of Refugee Integration. Palgrave Macmillan.

Loon, M., & Vitale, A. (2021). A liminal lens on integrating refugees into the workplace. Human Resource Management Journal, 31(4), 1082-1104.

Omanović, V., Tarim, E., & Holck, L. (2022). Practices of organizing migrants' integration into the European labour market. European Management Review, 19(2), 173-184.

Cross border movements of people have been at the forefront of academic discussion in the Global North for a number of decades. These discussions most often focus on the plight of the people on the move (i.e human rights violations experienced by people at various stages of their travel) or deficiencies of laws, methods and mechanisms of control (i.e. overreaching logics of control and policing of borders). Knowledge production practices in the field are obsessively focused on the border as a site of violence which in turn tends to reproduce hierarchical order of mobility enshrined in categories (such as migrants, refugees, migrant workers etc). Yet, the point for critical engagement is to look beyond borders and at the other side of borders, asking, ‘What do we see if we look at the border from the other side?’ (Khosravi 2019) 

This track aims to create a platform for such critical engagements with laws and politics of cross border movement. By bringing together scholars to explore questions of the coloniality of borders and the imperative of abolition, we intend to open up discussions on new imaginaries of cross border movement, one that does not reproduce hierarchies of movement based on race, gender, class and ability, etc.  

We welcome papers examining the colonial legacies of current regulations of cross border movement, as well as papers aiming to imagine a different world of mobility. These may include interventions 

• Mapping the historical relation between statehood and sovereignty on the one hand, and the racial and economic bordering of the world on the other. 

• Tracing the coloniality of border regimes by examining laws, technologies, epistemologies, policies and practices of bordering. 

• Engaging with alternative imaginaries (lost, silenced and desired) of a world without borders 

We welcome in particular papers that examine underexplored border regimes and avoid Eurocentrism. 

Keywords: Bordering, racial capitalism, imagination, coloniality, silences 

Convenors: 
Karin Åberg, Annika Lindberg & Amin Parsa, University of Gothenburg

Key references: 
Gilmore, R. (2022) Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation. Verso Books. 

Tuck, E and Wayne Yang, K. (2014). R-words: Refusing Research, in Paris, D. and Winn, M. T. Winn (Eds.) Humanizing Research: Decolonizing Qualitative Inquiry with youth and Communities. Sage Publications.  

Rajaram, P. K. (2018). Refugees as Surplus Population: Race, Migration and Capitalist Value Regimes. New Political Economy, 23(5), 627-639. 

Khosravi, S. (2019). What do we see if we look at the border from the other side? Social Anthropology, 27(3), 409-424. 

Achiume, E. (2019). The Postcolonial Case for Rethinking Borders. Dissent (New York), 66(3), 27-32. 

Radhika, M. (2018). Indian Migration and Empire: A Colonial Genealogy of the Modern State, Duke University Press. 

Present global polycrisis - related to war, environmental change and inflation - are prompting scholars to rethink their understanding - conceptually, empirically and politically - about the drivers and consequences of migration, and how they are addressed at various scales and by various actors. Climate-related migration, in particular, has emerged as an issue garnering attention. It is also a potential source of anxiety - over sharing resources, mobility induced disruptions to host communities, and vulnerability concerns for those who do move (or get stuck), particularly given the uncertainties of climate change and the securitization of migration. Urgent research is needed that can generate new data and analytical frameworks capable of addressing these anxieties, whilst contributing to positive migration outcomes.  

Governance issues related to climate-related migration deserve further attention. They can be conceived around three areas: 1. weak governance in sending areas in terms of poor development policies, weak formal institutions and rule of law, and inadequate service delivery that can result in limited livelihood opportunities and eventually migration; 2. related to this, poor local and national policy schemes in terms of managing peoples’ adaptation to the effects of climate change; and 3. badly equipped legal policies for protecting the rights and needs of mobile people - both in-country and across borders.  

This track invites scholars across disciplines, with perspectives from the global North and South, to contribute to a greater understanding of the uncertainties of climate-related migration, from a governance perspective. Governance is understood as operating on different, interconnected scales, from the local to international, each level involving different stakeholders, policies and institutions. Hence, we would like to invite empirically and theoretically oriented papers that seek to analyze current relationships between governance and climate-related migration at various scales, and in different spaces, as well as propose new ways of constructive and equitable governance of climate mobilities from a people-centered perspective. 

Keywords: climate change, migration, mobility, governance, adaptation 

Convenors::
Andréas Litsegård, School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg
Fanny Thornton, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research   

Key references 
Catteneo, Cristina et al. 2019. Human migration in the era of climate change. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 13 (2):189-206. 
Faist, Thomas and Schade, Jeanette. 2013. The climate-migration nexus: a reorientation. Dordrecht: Springer.  
Kaczan, David. J. & Orgill-Meyer, Jennifer. 2020. The impact of climate change on migration: a synthesis of recent empirical insights. Climatic Change 158:281–300. 
Manou, Dimitra et al (eds.). 2017. Climate change, migration and human rights. London: Routledge.  
Simonelli, Andrea C. 2016. Governing Climate Induced Migration and Displacement. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 

Over the past decades, a vast body of literature has amplified the poor physical and mental health akin to migration. Many studies have also highlighted the need for safety and security in order to heal from many of the health impacts of having had to flee and seek refuge elsewhere. Yet, in contemporary migration and post-migration contexts, this safety and security is rarely extended, with many countries having turned to only offering temporary residency permits, and temporary asylum. These temporary suspensions in the in-between come with a health toll. Yet, as many scholars have noted, there is community to be found in the thresholds, and here, sociality, solidarity and conviviality may hold healing potential. Thus, this stream aims to highlight explorations of how temporary residency status, suspended belonging, and permanent marginalisation impact the health of those living in the context of migration and post migration. Further, in the effort to move beyond damage-centred research, work focusing on how the people themselves resist these forms of imposed temporarities, through creating communities and social networks that sustain conviviality, will be highlighted.

This stream will platform empirical research and critical academic debate exploring related to these phenomena, in theory, policy, and practice. We warmly welcome contributions from a wide variety of disciplines, as well as multi- and interdisciplinary work.

This will include, and is not limited to, topics covering:

• Temporary ‘integration’ and its impact on health
• Mental health and belonging in the context of migration
• Community-based health engagement in diverse neighbourhoods
• Sociality and community building in exile
• Civil society, NGO, and other outreach practices in relation to health and migration
• Respecting, protecting, and remedying the right to health in and beyond the context of migration
• The foundational role of health in post-migration belonging
• Health and intersectionality in relation to migration and post-migration
• Other related topics

Josephine T. V. Greenbrook, MSc, LLM, PhD

Platform for Migration, Health, and Human Rights, Department of Life Context and Health Promotion, Sahlgrenska Academy Faculty of Medicine, University of Gothenburg, and Mason Institute for Medicine, Life Sciences and the Law, School of Law, University of Edinburgh.

Mayssa Rekhis, MD, PhD, Platform for Migration, Health, and Human Rights, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, and CESPRA, School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences EHESS-Paris 

Migrant and refugee integration relates to many different policy and legal issues, ranging from socio-economic rights to civil and political matters in a domain which involves a vast array of actors on many levels of governance. Integration is a vaguely defined term which has been approached from a political science, sociological and anthropological perspectives, but less so from a legal perspective. Moreover, the concept of integration itself has been the subject of heated scholarly debate. Within this debate, some claim that integration has an inherent bias to majority-rule and white-privilege power structures, while others make a distinction between analytical and policy concepts of integration and criticize the latter.  

Legally speaking, integration has been used in the reasoning of the European Courts both as linked to the protection of individual interests and as a “legitimate general interest” or “an overriding reason in the public interest” to control migration. In terms of its scope, there are also diverging views of what constitutes integration. Is integration achieved when certain or a combination of human rights are protected and fulfilled, such as the right to education, employment, housing, social support, etc., or does it include other elements, such as language classes and social orientation, for example? 

The panel aims to explore the various usages of integration in the area of migration and asylum from a legal perspective. What is the link between migration and integration? How is integration regulated in the different legal orders? Do the different ways and forms of regulation give rise to inequalities and for whom? Who has competence to regulate integration and how are their powers shaped by the judiciary? The panel seeks entries from diverse perspectives which would shed light on different aspects of the legal dimensions of integration using doctrinal, socio-legal or other inter-disciplinary methods. The panel aims to fill in an existing gap in the literature on migration and integration in times of high political sensitivity of these concepts. A more focused understanding is hoped to contribute to the development not only of legal research, but also potentially of less controversial integration policies. 

Keywords: migrant and refugee integration, legal dimension, object and scope, competences, migration control, individual and public interests, socio-economic rights 

Convenors
Eleni Karageorgiou, Lund University
Emiliya Bratanova, Lund University

References
Bottero, M. (2022). Integration (of Immigrants) in the European Union: A Controversial Concept. European Journal of Migration and Law, 24, 516-544 
Bratanova van Harten, E. (2022). Refugee Integration in European Human Rights Law and EU Law: A Right to be Integrated? In Czech, P., Heschl, L., Lukas, K., Nowak, M. & Oberleitner, G. (Eds.), European Yearbook on Human Rights 2022 (pp. 41-74) 
Ganty, S. (2021). Integration Duties in the European Union: Four Models. Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law, 28(6), 784-804 
Kostakopoulou, D. (2010). The Anatomy of Civic Integration. The Modern Law Review. 73, 933-958
Penninx, R. (2019). Problems of and Solutions for the Study of Immigrant Integration. Comparative Migration Studies, 7(13), 1-11 
Schinkel, W. (2018). Against “Immigrant Integration”: for an End to Neocolonial Knowledge Production. Comparative Migration Studies, 6(31), 1-16 
Xanthaki, A. (2016). Against Integration, for Human Rights. The International Journal of Human Rights, 20(6), 815-838. 

Employers have long played an under-examined role within international migration. For one, the hiring decisions of employers often play a crucial role in not only determining who may migrate for work, but also increasingly in the granting of long-term residency to protection-based migrants as well. For instance, in some countries, integration into the labor market has become a necessity for protection-based migrants to receive permanent residency—thereby making employer decisions determinative not only of one’s income, but also for one’s residency status. Despite this large shift of responsibility to employers very little is known about how employers themselves are responding to these changes or how they understand their new role. Such research is especially important as previous work on employer-sponsorship and the tying of status to particular employers has highlighted the significant power imbalances and potential for abuse that this dependent relationship can create.

A second aspect that comes to the fore as employers and the workplaces they control are increasingly being given migration roles, is their important role in facilitating integration of protection-based migrants at the workplace and subsequently in society. The argument is that migrants learn best about the culture and society of their new country of residence at the workplace and that employers are generally well equipped to ”show them the ropes” and ”include” them. Employers and other actors at the workplace are not neutral however, but rather bring their own preferences, priorities and values. Therefore, set against the backdrop of the ‘migration industry’ and the broader outsourcing of migration and integration, we need to know more about how inclusion and exclusion unfold at the workplace.

So, as migration policy is placed at the service of employers and the broader labour market in some countries and employers are tasked with ”implementing” migration policy through their hiring decisions and through their activities at the workplace in other countries, several interesting questions emerge:

• How do employers understand and adapt to their (new) role in relation to hiring people with temporary protection status?
• Does the migration status of potential employees alter the decision-making of employers? If so, how?
• How do the different roles of employers influence the broader employment-relationship between employees with different status and their employers?
• What are the effects of these developments - on immigrants' lives, and on their labour market integration in terms of diversity, gender and power relations?
• How do we consider the role of employers and workplaces within the larger context of the migration industry and the outsourcing of migration control to non-state actors?

Keywords: integration policy, employers, employees, migration industry, migration outsourcing, diversity, workplace inclusion

Convenors:
Joseph Trawicki Anderson, University of Gothenburg

Andreas Diedrich, University of Gothenburg

Annette Risberg, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences

References:

Anderson, Bridget. 2010. “Migration, Immigration Controls and the Fashioning of Precarious Workers.” Work, Employment & Society 24 (2): 300–317. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017010362141.

Castles, Stephen, and Mark J. Miller. 1998. The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World. 2. ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Diedrich, Andreas, and Omanović, Vedran. 2023. Lost in transitional space? Organising labour market integration for highly skilled refugees in the welfare state. European Management Review. DOI: 10.1111/emre.12553

Ravn, Rasmus Lind, and Thomas Bredgaard. 2021. “Employer Preferences Towards Recruitment of Refugees – A Danish Vignette Study.” Nordic Journal of Migration Research 11 (3): 301–15. https://doi.org/10.33134/njmr.375.

Risberg, Annette, and Romani, Laurence. 2022. Underemploying highly skilled migrants: An organizational logic protecting corporate ‘normality’. Human Relations, 75(4), 655-680.

Wright, Chris F, Angela Knox, and Andreea Constantin. 2021. “Using or Abusing? Scrutinising Employer Demand for Temporary Sponsored Skilled Migrants in the Australian Hospitality Industry.” Economic and Industrial Democracy 42 (4): 937–59. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831X18823693.