Debating Development series 2022 @Antwerp University: People on the move: leaving no one behind?

Migration is a cross-cutting issue in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with ten out of 17 goals containing targets and indicators directly relevant to migration or mobility. Despite the attention given to migration, and its inscription in promises of “leaving no one behind”, migration remains a contentious issue with rules for mobility that are selective and in function of national or regional interests.

In this series, we take a closer look at some of these contradictions. We explore how politics and understandings of migration are often inscribed in intentional discourses of ‘othering’ and dehumanization. We focus on the role that commodities play, such as cheap labor, talent (brain drain) and access to natural resources. We also discuss precarity and deep asymmetries among people who are denied mobility and are vulnerable to illegality, incarceration and to climate change.

Schedule 2022

Understandings of migration – opening session (Tuesday 4 October)

Nando Sigona, Chair of International Migration and Forced Displacement – University of Birmingham

Thomas Willekens, Policy officer Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen

Amal Miri, ​postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Migration and Intercultural Studies

The war on drugs and migration: North-south dynamics & contesting stigmatization (Tuesday 11 October)

Ruby Sanders, researcher and journalist at conSentido & MO* Magazine

Itayosara Rojas, PhD Researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam

Charlotte de Kock, researcher at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of UGent.

Juan Sebastian Velez Triana, PhD researcher and academic assistant at the Institute of Development Policy

Refugees and host population dynamics: the politics of local integration (Tuesday 18 October)

Lucy Hovil, Senior Research Associate and Tutor at the Refugee Law Initiative, University of London

Cory Rodgers, Senior Research Fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford

Sarah Vancluysen, Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Institute of Development Policy

Brain drain (Tuesday 8 November)

Frederic Docquier, senior economist at UCLouvain

Gunjan Sondhi, Lecturer in Geography, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, The Open University

Stephanie Garcidueñas Nieto, PhD researcher and academic assistant at the Institute of Development Policy

Incarceration of migrants (Tuesday 15 November)

Alice Gerlach, Lecturer in Criminology, in the School of History, Philosophy and Culture at Oxford Brookes University

Catherine Woollard, Director, European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE)

Denis Augustin Samnick, PhD researcher and academic assistant at the Institute of Development Policy

Migration and climate justice (Tuesday 22 November)

François Gemenne, senior researcher at The Hugo Observatory, Liège University

Alberto Ares, director of Jesuit Refugee Service Europe

Stephanie Collingwood Williams, social worker and climate activist

Lore Van Praag, senior researcher at the Centre for Migration and Intercultural Studies

Displacement of indigenous communities (Tuesday 29 November)

Anexa B. Alfred-Cunningham, Lawyer and Expert in Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples

Mary Ann Manahan, Conflict Research Group, Ghent University

Alder Contreras Hernández , PhD researcher and academic assistant at the Institute of Development Policy

Register here for one or more sessions >>