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Day1, Nov. 15




Being a migration researcher often entails own experiences of migration. Consequently, as migration researchers, we are ourselves implicated in the phenomena we are studying. In this roundtable, we explore how our transnational researcher positionalities matter for our research, with a focus on mobilities between Eastern and Western Europe. We explore the intersections of different positions, such as those of “privileged researcher” and “Eastern European migrant”, and how these might link to other markers of difference like class, gender, ethnicity and differentiated whiteness.
After a short round of presentations and initial reflections the roundtable will take on a more interactive form, engaging with questions and comments from the audience.
Questions that we will be exploring will include:
- How do our own migration (hi)stories constrain our research foci?
- What does it mean to be a “transnational” researcher?
- How do we navigate insider and outsider positions, multiple research contexts and their different power dynamics and inequalities?
- How do different dimensions of our positions as researchers intersect- for instance, “privileged researcher” versus “Eastern European migrant”, situated in academic field often characterized by precarity?
Keywords: researcher positionality; intersectionality; migration; fieldwork; feminist methodologies

Relational approach has become popular in many fields of social scientific research, but less so in citizenship studies. While it was introduced rather early by Margaret Somers (1993, 1994), the impact of relationalism on advancement of the field as a whole has remained rather limited (Isin & Turner, 2002). This session will analyze different types of relational approaches in the field of citizenship studies by focusing on their meta-theoretical assumptions, based on respective accounts of group formation. Common starting point of all relationalist approaches is the idea of overcoming of typological thinking found in substantialist approaches, for example by reframing citizenship without ontological difference between internal/external, oriental/occidental, local/foreigner etc. In presenting different approaches to understanding citizenship and identities as embodied political resource mobilizations in the context of Bourdieusian asymmetrical field, we will explore how citizenship is better understood as political subjectivity where conflictual, overlapping, contradictory dynamic identities or forms of belonging not only co-exist but also flourish. We aim to address the question of under what conditions is overcoming of meta-theoretical dualisms possible? If one accepts that groups cannot be formed without imposing of certain types of closures and hierarchies, the following question arises: why do we expect that some types of closures and hierarchies based on other meta-theoretical dualisms will be preferable, as compared to the ones performed, for example, by the Orientalizing strategies? If Occident is rendered peripheral, does not centering of the Orient as the ground of conceptualization of key social science notions repeat the same problem of privileging the one and subordinating the other ground?
Raivo Vetik, Leif Kalev and Mari-Liis Jakobson, Tallinn University
Nawal Shaharyar, Tallinn University
Engin Isin, Queen Mary University of London

Vitor Lopes Andrade, University of Sussex
Sandra King-Savic, University St. Gallen
Sara Fikry Abdelshafy Eltokhy
Aleksandra Lewicki, University of Sussex

Oksana Shmulyar Gréén, Charlotte Melander and Ingrid Höjer, University of Gothenburg
Sabrina Colombo, Free University of Bolzano/Bozen
Penny Koutrolikou, Emmy Karimali and Filyra Vlastou, National Technical University of Athens; Eirini Avramopoulou, Panteion University
Aleksandra Szkudlarek, University of Warsaw

Traute Meyer and Paul Bridgen, University of Southampton
Berfin Nur Osso, University of Helsinki

Anita Brzozowska and Karolina Madej, University of Warsaw
Giulia Marroccoli, Tanja Schroot and Loris Botto, University of Turin
Mette Ginnerskov-Dahlberg, Södertörn University and Uppsala University
Milena Błahuta, University of Warsaw
Day 2, Nov.16



This panel aims to contribute to understandings of how migration governance is being shaped by a ‘crisis’ discourse. We take the Covid-19 pandemic as the latest ‘crisis’ in a series of crises unfolding over the course of 30+ years: commencing with the collapse of the Soviet Union, followed by the Yugoslav Wars of Succession, global financial and subsequent Eurozone crisis, and the recent ‘migrant’ crisis. The papers comprising this panel respond to a deficit in scholarship that focuses on how multiple crises have shaped migration governance within South-East Europe (SEE). This region is an important point of focus due to its geopolitical significance, especially since the ‘migrant crisis’ of 2015-16, which transformed its positioning in relation to European migration governance. Dynamic migration patterns have made SEE countries, to a varying extent, countries of origin, transit and destination. The Western Balkan countries experienced significant change, becoming one of the most populated migration routes into the EU. They constitute simultaneously the border along the EU, and the buffer zone between Greece and Western Europe. Greece, meanwhile, has experienced its own transformation, from a transit to a (temporary) destination front-line state. Significant numbers of migrants, therefore, are currently stranded in the Western Balkans and Greece, and in the time of Covid-19 they have become further subject to logic of ‘crisis’ management. The panel comprehensively examines the “crisis” management through policy, media and behavioural lenses, and as related to different groups of migrants (irregular, regular and returnees). By interrogating intersections between migration, health, security and economic development, the panellists consider the impact of Covid-19 on different aspects of migration governance, such as border control, domestic socio-political parameters that have been steering decision making toward securitization of migration policies toward further “campization” of migrants as well as the patterns of interpretation of migration issues found in the media. Beside the governmental, media and NGO role, the panel will provide insight into the intentions of Covid-19 triggered returnees in regard to permanently settling in their home country and potential solutions to mitigate emigration flows from the region.
Rebecca Murray, Majella Kilkey, Aneta Piekut, Ryan Powell, University of Sheffield
Ioannis Armakolas, Panagiotis Paschalidis, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece/Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy2
Alexandra Prodromidou, International Faculty of the University of Sheffield-CITY College, University of York, Europe Campus and Faye Ververid, South-East European Research Centre (SEERC)
Dragana Stoeckel, University of Belgrade, Nermin Oruc, Center for Development Evaluation and Social Science Research, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Natalija Perišić, University of Belgrade
Danica Santic, Milica Todorovic, Dejan Pavolic, University of Belgrade

Georgiana Udrea, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest, Romania
Tanja Schroot, University of Turin
Roberta Ricucci, University of Turin
Dolly Eliyahu-Levi, and Michal Ganz-Meishar, Levinsky College of Education

Anghel Remus Gabriel, Romanian Institute for Research in National Minorities
Laura Morosanu, University of Sussex; Alin Croitoru, Lucian Blaga University; Monica Serban, ICCV
Marta Bivand Erdal, Peace Research Institute Oslo; Davide Bertelli, VID – Specialized University; Anatolie Coșciug, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu; Angelina Kussy, Autonomous University of Barcelona; Gabriella Mikiewicz, University of Oldenburg; Corina Tulbure, Babeș Bolyai University; Kacper Szulecki, University of Oslo

Janine Isabelle Läpple and Judith Möllers, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO)
Anatolie Coșciug, ULBS/UBB Romania
Polina Manolova, University of Tuebingen

Stefan Manser-Egli, University of Neuchâtel
Christof Roos and Martin Seeliger, Europa-Universität Flensburg
Leif Kalev, Tallinn University
Ansar Ahmed Ullah, Queen Mary University of London

Eleonore Kofman, Middlesex University; Ezgi Tuncer, Kadir Has University
Kseniya Homel, University of Warsaw
Kamil Matuszczyk, University of Warsaw
Bresena Kopliku and Elvisa Drishti, University of Shkodra “Luigj Gurakuqi”, Albania