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IHSS

Who is a Migrant? Abandoning the Nation-state Point of View in the Study of Migration

When: Tuesday, February 1, 2022, 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Where: Online, Ms Teams

Speaker: Asst Prof Stephan Scheel (University of Duisburg-Essen)

Mobile People Events Series

Asst Prof Stephan Scheel will discuss the paper “Who is a Migrant? Abandoning the Nation-state Point of View in the Study of Migration”, co-authored with Dr Martina Tazzioli (Goldsmiths, University of London) and soon to be published by the journal Migration Politics.

The paper identifies three epistemological traps implicated by the deeply entrenched methodological nationalism of existing, state-centric definitions of migration as movement from nation-state A to nation-state B. To overcome these epistemological traps, the paper’s second part develops an alternative definition of a migrant from the perspective of mobility that highlights the constitutive role that nation-states’ bordering practices play in the enactment of some people as migrants.

About the speaker 

Asst Prof Stephan Scheel currently works as an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Sociology of the University of Duisburg-Essen. He is best known for his work on the autonomy of migration, the digitization of border and migration management and the use of migration as an epistemic starting point to counter processes of securitization. Stephan is currently developing a new line of research on how the production of various types of knowledge and non-knowledge on human mobility shapes practices of border and migration management.

The chair

Prof Engin Isin (Queen Mary University of London) will chair the event.

About Mobile People

This event forms part of the Mobile People programme of work. It is a Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Scholarship programme at Queen Mary University of London, Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and School of Politics and International Relations. For more information please visit IHSS Ongoing projects page.

 

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