[PHILOS-L] 2nd CfA: Rethinking the Political Theory of Migration for Our Times — Mancept Workshops, 2-4 Sept. 2026

[Davide Pala]

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2nd CfA: Rethinking the Political Theory of Migration for Our Times

— Mancept Workshops, 2-4 Sept. 2026

 

Convenor: Davide Pala

Participants include G. Aitchison, B. Buechel, F. Bender, M. Lister, A. Milioni, C. Sandelind, and L. Schmid.

 

The reality endured by migrants worldwide has changed dramatically in recent years. Powerful and wealthy states now exercise expanded and extraterritorial control over migration, so that migrants encounter obstacles not only at the border but also throughout their journeys, often from the start. They may face highly restrictive visa requirements while still in their countries of origin, which are often hard to meet. After leaving their countries of origin, then, many are exposed to prolonged and harmful detention in transit countries such as Libya, due to agreements with rich states aimed at reducing departures. When migrants’ rights are violated, moreover, the extraterritorial, dispersed, and hybrid public-private nature of new migration controls makes access to legal remedies exceedingly difficult. Hence, many migrants are forced to rely on smugglers to flee, with all the dangers this entails. In this context, private actors such as NGOs have sought to compensate for state failures by assisting migrants, yet their activities have increasingly been criminalised.

 

New vulnerabilities also arise once migrants reach destination countries. Status determination procedures are more and more arbitrary and intrusive, and the statuses migrants obtain thereafter have become increasingly precarious due to the expanded use of temporary protection, detention centres, and deportation, or the constant threat thereof. Furthermore, once inside destination societies, migrants are more exposed to violence, domination, and stigma, often due to a hostile climate fuelled by right-wing politics. Importantly, such vulnerabilities are now also experienced by citizens, who see their rights and freedoms eroded by inward migration controls, as recent actions by U.S. ICE sadly illustrate.

 

Political theory of migration has started grappling with this new reality by rethinking its methods, concepts, and objects of inquiry. Methodologically, many have urged moving beyond methodological nationalism to better address new migration controls. Others have argued for greater attention to migrants’ own voices, to grasp the new vulnerabilities they face and devise suitable responses. More broadly, there has been a push to shift from fairly abstract debates toward more grounded, empirically informed political theorising. Substantively, theorists have called for focus on emerging themes, including new threats to migrants’ human rights posed by current border practices; the racism inherent in contemporary migration governance; the expanding use of technologies such as AI, biometrics, and big data in migration management; the duties of NGOs and citizens in this landscape, including the legitimacy of novel forms of resistance; the ethics of smuggling; the ethics of sanctuary cities; and the connections between migration controls and democratic backlash, to mention but a few, new questions.

 

This workshop aims to advance these and related discussions by inviting contributions that rethink the political theory of migration in light of recent transformations, whether methodologically or through the exploration of new and existing themes.

 

Please send a 300-word abstract prepared for blind review to davide....@gmail.com. The deadline is the 5th April 2026. The workshop will be held in person, and will run over two days, with 50 minutes per speaker (20 minutes for presentation and 30 minutes for Q&A). Please visit the conference website for information about costs.

Dr. Davide Pala (He, Him, His)

Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Theory

University of Eastern Piedmont

david...@uniupo.it

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[Davide Pala]