Where will the conference take place?

The conference will be held in Ghent, BEL.

What is the primary focus of this conference?

The conference focuses on looking back at the history of migration studies and moving forward to address contemporary societal transformations related to migration.

Looking back, moving forward: Migration studies in times of societal transformation

Name: Looking back, moving forward: Migration studies in times of societal transformation
Start: 2026-09-14T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-09-16T00:00:00Z
Location: Ghent

Sep 14–16, 2026Ghent, BelgiumIn-person

Registration open

The conference, "Looking back, moving forward: Migration studies in times of societal transformation," convenes in Ghent, BEL, to critically examine the evolution and future directions of migration studies amidst profound global changes. This event offers a platform for scholars to reflect on historical perspectives and contemporary challenges, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue on migration's complex dynamics.

Committees & topics

Topics
Ethnoracial Inequalities in Education · Health at the Intersections: Migration, Race, and Inequality · Multilingual Borders of Migration · Entanglements of Religion, Race, and Migration · Rethinking Borders, Solidarity, and Migration Law · Decolonial Approaches to Migration Studies, Narratives, and Practices

Why it matters

Migration is a defining feature of the modern era, shaped by geopolitical shifts, economic disparities, and environmental factors. Understanding these movements is crucial for effective policymaking and fostering inclusive societies. This conference provides a vital forum for academics and practitioners to synthesize knowledge, challenge existing paradigms, and develop new theoretical and methodological approaches to migration research.

The discussions at this event are particularly relevant given the increasing complexity of migration patterns, including forced displacement, labor migration, and climate-induced mobility. By bringing together diverse perspectives, the conference aims to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of migration, moving beyond simplistic narratives to address the multifaceted realities experienced by migrants and host communities alike. The insights generated can inform international cooperation and national strategies, promoting more humane and effective responses to migration challenges.

How to prepare

Participants should prepare by reviewing foundational theories in migration studies and considering how these frameworks are being challenged or reinterpreted in light of current global transformations. Engaging with the concept of "societal transformation" will be key, as it encourages a broader analysis of how migration interacts with and influences societal structures, policies, and cultural norms. Attendees might consider how their research contributes to understanding these transformations.

To maximize engagement, it would be beneficial to consider specific case studies or examples that illustrate the themes of looking back and moving forward in migration studies. This could involve examining historical migration trends in specific regions or analyzing contemporary policy responses. Preparing to discuss the implications of emerging technologies or shifts in global governance on migration research will also be valuable. Reflecting on the ethical dimensions of migration research and the role of researchers in advocating for migrant rights could further enrich contributions.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 1 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Belgium

As the host nation, BEL provides a central European perspective on migration, often balancing national interests with broader European Union policies.

Role in topic

BEL is a key location for discussions on migration within the European context, serving as a hub for policy debates and academic research on integration, asylum, and labor migration. Its position within the EU means it is directly impacted by and contributes to regional migration frameworks.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Ethnoracial Inequalities in Education

Across both Global North and Global South contexts, educational systems have long reproduced ethnoracial hierarchies inherited from colonialism, slavery, and exclusionary nation-building. In Europe, the post-1945 expansion of mass schooling coincided with labor migration from former colonies and southern peripheries, producing persistent attainment gaps for the children of migrants and racialized minorities such as Roma, North African, Turkish, and Afro-descendant communities. In the Americas, segregated schooling, unequal financing, and tracking systems have entrenched disparities for Black, Indigenous, and Latino students despite decades of civil rights legislation. Contemporary research documents that gaps in access, completion, and quality persist even when controlling for class, pointing to structural racism, teacher bias, residential segregation, and language policy as compounding mechanisms. EU monitoring through the Fundamental Rights Agency, UNESCO's Global Education Monitoring Report, and OECD PISA data have made these inequalities increasingly visible, while affirmative action, intercultural curricula, and anti-racism policies have come under political backlash in several states. Today the debate focuses on how to measure ethnoracial gaps where data collection on race is politically contested (notably in France and Germany), how to integrate newly arrived refugee children, and how to reform curricula to address colonial histories. The question is whether universalist or group-targeted approaches better dismantle the structures that link migration background, racialization, and educational disadvantage.

Key players

Health at the Intersections: Migration, Race, and Inequality

Migrant and racialized populations have historically faced compounded health disadvantages shaped by precarious legal status, occupational exposure, housing conditions, and discriminatory access to care. The post-war guest worker programs in Europe, the Bracero program in North America, and Gulf kafala systems all produced labor regimes in which migrant workers' health needs were structurally subordinated to economic utility. Public health systems built around national citizenship have struggled to incorporate non-citizens, while racialized citizens often face documented disparities in maternal mortality, chronic disease, and mental health. The COVID-19 pandemic made these intersections starkly visible: migrant workers in meatpacking, agriculture, care, and logistics suffered disproportionate infection and mortality, and racialized minorities in the US, UK, and Brazil experienced excess deaths linked to structural inequalities rather than biological difference. The WHO World Report on the Health of Refugees and Migrants (2022) and the Lancet Migration commission have called for migrant-inclusive universal health coverage, while the IOM and UNHCR continue to highlight gaps in mental health and sexual and reproductive care along migration routes. Debate now centers on firewalling health services from immigration enforcement, extending coverage to undocumented residents, addressing racism as a determinant of health, and confronting global inequalities in the health workforce, where wealthier states recruit nurses and doctors from countries with severe shortages.

Key players

Multilingual Borders of Migration

Language has long operated as a border in its own right, determining who can cross, settle, claim asylum, or naturalize. From the literacy tests used to exclude migrants in the early twentieth-century United States to contemporary civic integration exams in the Netherlands, Germany, and the UK, linguistic competence has been instrumentalized as a gatekeeping technology. Asylum procedures increasingly rely on language analysis (LADO) to verify claimed origins, a practice criticized by linguists for conflating language with nationality in multilingual regions. At the same time, migration produces multilingual societies in which translation, interpretation, and language rights become matters of access to justice, healthcare, and education. The EU Charter, the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, and ILO instruments all recognize language rights, yet implementation is uneven. Recent restrictions on heritage language instruction, the politicization of English-only or national-language-only policies, and the use of AI translation in asylum interviews raise new concerns about accuracy and due process. The contemporary agenda includes: standards for interpreter provision in asylum and medical settings; recognition of multilingual repertoires rather than monolingual proficiency; safeguards around algorithmic language assessment; and the role of minority and indigenous languages in shaping who counts as belonging at borders that are linguistic as much as territorial.

Key players

Entanglements of Religion, Race, and Migration

Religion has been central to how migrants are racialized and how host societies define belonging. European colonial empires linked Christianity to civilizational hierarchy, while twentieth-century labor migration brought Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, and Buddhist communities into Christian-majority states whose secular frameworks were ill-equipped to accommodate religious pluralism. In the Americas, evangelical and Pentecostal movements have reshaped migrant communities, while antisemitism and Islamophobia have repeatedly framed migration debates. Since 2001, the securitization of Islam has profoundly shaped migration policy across the Global North, with measures ranging from headscarf bans in France and Quebec to surveillance programs in the US and UK and entry restrictions targeting Muslim-majority countries. Refugee crises from Syria, Afghanistan, Myanmar (Rohingya), and Sahelian states have intensified debates over religious persecution as a ground for asylum, while Christian minorities from the Middle East and Hindus and Sikhs from South Asia have also sought refuge, complicating any simple narrative. Today, scholars and policymakers grapple with how religion intersects with race in producing differential treatment: who is read as a 'good' refugee, how religious dress and practice are policed in schools and workplaces, and how diaspora religious institutions become both resources for integration and targets of state suspicion. The rise of right-wing movements invoking Christian identity against migration adds further urgency.

Key players

Rethinking Borders, Solidarity, and Migration Law

The post-1951 refugee regime, anchored in the Geneva Convention and its 1967 Protocol, was designed for a Cold War context of individual persecution and has come under sustained pressure from mass displacement, mixed migration flows, and the externalization of border control. The 1990s Dublin system in Europe, US-Mexico border enforcement, and Australia's offshore processing on Nauru and Manus Island all pioneered models that shift responsibility away from destination states. The 2015-16 Syrian displacement, the 2021 Afghan evacuation, and the 2022 Ukrainian displacement exposed both the capacity for rapid solidarity and the selectivity of its application. The 2018 Global Compacts on Refugees and on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration sought to articulate shared responsibility, but remain non-binding. The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum adopted in 2024 institutionalizes a 'solidarity mechanism' allowing financial contributions in lieu of relocation, while UK-Rwanda style transfer schemes, US Title 42 and its successors, and EU agreements with Tunisia, Libya, and Turkey have shifted enforcement to transit states. Civil society actors providing search-and-rescue or humanitarian assistance increasingly face criminalization. Key current questions include: the legality of pushbacks and offshore processing under non-refoulement; the role of complementary protection and climate displacement; how to operationalize responsibility-sharing; and how to protect humanitarian solidarity from being recast as smuggling. The debate pits restrictive sovereignty claims against emerging proposals for safe and legal pathways.

Key players

Decolonial Approaches to Migration Studies, Narratives, and Practices

Mainstream migration studies emerged in the twentieth century within frameworks shaped by methodological nationalism and the assumptions of receiving states in the Global North. Critics have long argued that these frameworks treat migration as anomaly rather than as constitutive of modern world-making, obscuring how colonialism, slavery, indenture, and resource extraction produced the very mobilities they later sought to govern. Scholars such as Stuart Hall, Aníbal Quijano, and more recently the Sheffield and Amsterdam decolonial migration networks have called for centering colonial histories, racial capitalism, and Global South perspectives. Decolonial approaches reframe contemporary migration not as a 'crisis' caused by Southern dysfunction but as the continuation of historical relations: French interventions in the Sahel, British and Dutch colonial legacies in South Asia, US interventions in Central America, and the climate debt owed by industrialized states. They challenge the centrality of European categories such as 'integration' and 'assimilation,' and elevate concepts like mobility justice, sanctuary, and reparation. South-South migration, which constitutes the majority of global movement, is given analytical priority. In practice, decolonial agendas push for: reparative migration policies; recognition of climate displacement as colonial responsibility; restitution of cultural heritage alongside protection of mobile communities; participatory research with migrant communities; and reform of how international organizations and universities produce knowledge about migration. The debate raises foundational questions about whose narratives and whose law govern global mobility.

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for Looking back, moving forward: Migration studies in times of societal transformation.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

Hilton-Becerra Race Sets Up High-Stakes Clash

Mifepristone Ruling Sparks 2026 Political Tug

Europe's June Heatwave: Infrastructure Crisis

Mifepristone Case Revives Abortion Politics

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Conflict Resolution

Belgium September 2026

By committee

Frequently asked questions

Looking back, moving forward: Migration studies in times of societal transformation

Sep 14–16, 2026Ghent, BelgiumIn-person

Registration open

Committees & topics

Topics
Ethnoracial Inequalities in Education · Health at the Intersections: Migration, Race, and Inequality · Multilingual Borders of Migration · Entanglements of Religion, Race, and Migration · Rethinking Borders, Solidarity, and Migration Law · Decolonial Approaches to Migration Studies, Narratives, and Practices

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 1 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Belgium

As the host nation, BEL provides a central European perspective on migration, often balancing national interests with broader European Union policies.

Role in topic

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Ethnoracial Inequalities in Education

Key players

Health at the Intersections: Migration, Race, and Inequality

Key players

Multilingual Borders of Migration

Key players

Entanglements of Religion, Race, and Migration

Key players

Rethinking Borders, Solidarity, and Migration Law

Key players

Decolonial Approaches to Migration Studies, Narratives, and Practices

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for Looking back, moving forward: Migration studies in times of societal transformation.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

Hilton-Becerra Race Sets Up High-Stakes Clash

Mifepristone Ruling Sparks 2026 Political Tug

Europe's June Heatwave: Infrastructure Crisis

Mifepristone Case Revives Abortion Politics

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Conflict Resolution

Belgium September 2026

By committee

Looking back, moving forward: Migration studies in times of societal transformation

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Ethnoracial Inequalities in Education

Health at the Intersections: Migration, Race, and Inequality

Multilingual Borders of Migration

Entanglements of Religion, Race, and Migration

Rethinking Borders, Solidarity, and Migration Law

Decolonial Approaches to Migration Studies, Narratives, and Practices

Resources

Global Synergy Conference 2026 – Power, Partnerships and the Next Global Order

Science Diplomacy Global Conference

Science Diplomacy Global Conference - EUTOPIA

America at 250: Revolution, Liberty, and the Future of the West

ICES Annual Conference: EU-China Relations in an Era of Great Power Competition and Global Order Reconfiguration

European Space Security Forum 2026

Frequently asked questions

Looking back, moving forward: Migration studies in times of societal transformation

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Ethnoracial Inequalities in Education

Health at the Intersections: Migration, Race, and Inequality

Multilingual Borders of Migration

Entanglements of Religion, Race, and Migration

Rethinking Borders, Solidarity, and Migration Law

Decolonial Approaches to Migration Studies, Narratives, and Practices

Resources

Global Synergy Conference 2026 – Power, Partnerships and the Next Global Order

Science Diplomacy Global Conference

Science Diplomacy Global Conference - EUTOPIA

America at 250: Revolution, Liberty, and the Future of the West

ICES Annual Conference: EU-China Relations in an Era of Great Power Competition and Global Order Reconfiguration

European Space Security Forum 2026

Frequently asked questions

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

Related conferences

Global Synergy Conference 2026 – Power, Partnerships and the Next Global Order

Science Diplomacy Global Conference

Science Diplomacy Global Conference - EUTOPIA

America at 250: Revolution, Liberty, and the Future of the West

ICES Annual Conference: EU-China Relations in an Era of Great Power Competition and Global Order Reconfiguration

European Space Security Forum 2026

Frequently asked questions

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

Related conferences

Global Synergy Conference 2026 – Power, Partnerships and the Next Global Order

Science Diplomacy Global Conference

Science Diplomacy Global Conference - EUTOPIA

America at 250: Revolution, Liberty, and the Future of the West

ICES Annual Conference: EU-China Relations in an Era of Great Power Competition and Global Order Reconfiguration

European Space Security Forum 2026

Frequently asked questions