CfP: Belonging Across Borders (London, 22 June 2026)
Paris Papamichos Chronakis
Belonging Across Borders: Refugee Rights, Experiences and Protection in the Twentieth Century
A workshop sponsored by the Hellenic Institute-Centre for Greek Diaspora Studies and the Centre for Global South Asia, Royal Holloway University of London
When: 22nd June 2026
Where: Stewart House, London
Keynote Speaker: Professor Peter Gatrell (University of Manchester, Emeritus)
2026 marks the 75th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention–the legal cornerstone of international refugee protection. This landmark convention was the culmination of a process defining the refugee status and their subsequent rights.
The twentieth century is widely acknowledged as the ‘century of the refugee’, which saw multiple periods of mass displacement across the globe. While the most famous examples are the mass displacement caused by the First and Second World Wars, other examples included the Greco-Turkish War (1919-22), the Partition of India and Pakistan (1947), the Cypriot refugee crisis (1974), and the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-96). Equally, the twentieth century saw an increased awareness of refugees’ plights demonstrated by the professionalisation of humanitarian practice, and their legal protections enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention. Therefore, this conference will foreground refugee experiences and consider how they were shaped by the evolution of international refugee protection throughout the twentieth century.
We encourage papers on topics including but not limited to:
- Meanings of refugeehood and refugeedom in legal, social, and political contexts
- Cultural, social, and political identities of refugees
- Refugee experiences, community-making and integration within transnational contexts
- The roles and responses of humanitarian, state and inter-governmental actors
- Documentation, displacement, and the refugee archive
- Material approaches to understanding refugeehood (e.g. oral histories and memoirs)
- Comparative approaches to refugee movements, experiences, and policy
Researchers in historical disciplines from all institutions are welcome to submit proposals. We particularly encourage submissions from doctoral candidates and early-career researchers. All attendees are encouraged to use this conference as a space to develop ideas for further publications, and to develop a network of emerging scholars in refugee history. Upon completion of the conference, select speakers may be invited to submit their paper to a special journal edition, seeking to advance new perspectives on refugeehood in the twentieth century.
We are delighted that the workshop will include a keynote address from Professor Peter Gatrell (University of Manchester, Emeritus). Professor Gatrell has published widely on the history of modern population displacement, and his work has been integral in shaping the field of refugee history. His most recent monograph, The Making of the Modern Refugee (Oxford University Press, 2013), stands as a seminal global history of twentieth-century refugee movements and remains among the most influential works in the field.
Please send all submissions to both emails of co-organisers Janhvi Acharya and Bill Edmonds by 10th February 2026.