Call for Papers for the Conference Panel

The 17th International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM): “Whither Refugees? Restrictionism, Crises and Precarity Writ Large”, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece, 24 - 27 July 2018.

Details of the Panel Organizers/Chairs:

  • Dr Mirjana Ristic, Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Institute for Sociology, TU Darmstadt, ristic at ifs.tu-darmstadt.de
  • Marianna Nigra, PhD Candidate, Department of Management and Production Engineering, Polytechnic of Turin, Italy, Marianna.nigra at polito.it

Topic and Aims of the Panel

This panel focuses on the role that architecture and urban design play in addressing the forced migration in European cities. We invite contributions which analyze the new spatial phenomena that are emerging to control, deter, and accommodate refugees and asylum seekers arriving to Europe - ‘gated towns’, detention centres, temporary housing, camps, informal settlements and other. We also welcome papers that examine the ways in which refugees and asylum seekers appropriate, adapt and transform these places in their everyday lives, as well as the dynamics of their interaction with local communities in the city. This panel seeks to contrast the formal security and accommodation architectures and the informal migrant place-making practices in order to understand what the host governments, humanitarian agencies, and professionals at work can learn from the migrant ‘bottom-up’ spatial tactics. We call for proposals for empirical and theoretic papers from academics, architects, urban designers, planners, local government officials, NGOs, military agencies, refugees and other. They should address some of the following questions:

  • How have cities responded to and been reshaped by the forced migration to the EU?
  • What are the major issues that the design of the existing architectural and urban spaces for migrant occupancy raise?
  • What are the major challenges – for instance, socio-spatial integration, inclusion and cohesion of refugees with the host communities, security, health, and other – that the forced migration poses for the city’s urban development?
  • What impact do these challenges have on the urban morphology and spatial practices of everyday life in the city?
  • How can architectural and urban design, planning and management practice address and respond to these issues and challenges?
  • What theoretic concepts and methodologies have been deployed to analyze the ways in which the cities have dealt with the forced migration through architecture and urban space?
  • What potential do research and design of spaces for migrant occupancy create for fostering socio-spatial integration, inclusion and cohesion and enriching our cities in the future?

Instruction for Authors:

An abstract of a max. 300 words is to be submitted to the conference panel organisers by email. The submission deadline is Sunday the 24th of September 2017.