Call for Papers: Disciplining the Transnational Mobility of People – New Actors and Approaches in Migration Governance Association of American Geographer

 

---

Association of American Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting, Tampa (Florida), April 8-12, 2014

“Disciplining the Transnational Mobility of People – New Actors and Approaches in Migration Governance”

Session Organizers: Martin Geiger (Carleton University) and Bethany Hastie (McGill University)

New approaches to migration and cross-border mobility of people rely heavily on claims to regulate and discipline mobility ‘through’, ‘in the interest of’, and ‘with the help of’ the individual persons crossing national borders. Challenging traditional concepts of state territoriality and conceptualizations of the border as a closed and bounded system, modern migration management is based on strategies which aim to ‘filter’ and ‘inform’ transnational movement, rather than simply ‘restrict’ human cross-border flows. Conventional ‘coercive’ border management is gradually being complemented and replaced by more indirect and subtle tactics and methods of ‘disciplining’ mobility. A further key characteristic of transnational migration governance is its multi-actor, multi-level and multi-dimensional character, utilizing non-state actors both within and beyond formal state borders to ‘assist’ and ‘regulate’ migration flo ws and information on different levels and through a multiplicity of normative sites and institutions.

This paper session will critically evaluate and debate the evolution of modern migration management, the actors involved, and tactics and strategies used to influence and discipline the mobility of individuals locally and globally. Grounded within the proposed, Foucauldian-inspired concept of ‘disciplining’, paper topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Conceptual and theoretical aspects of migration management as well as the empirical materialisations of innovative ‘management’ of flows and people;

• The role of non-state actors in influencing and implementing migration management policies, including intergovernmental/international organizations, civil-society/non-governmental and migrant organizations, private companies, and individual migrants;

• Power relationships between various actors involved in migration management;

• The new political geography of migration management;

• Specific topics, such as irregular migration, human trafficking, skilled migration, gender and identity in migration, etc.;

• The various tools of management, such as biometrics, integrated border management, information campaigns, anti-trafficking, etc.

Potential session participants should contact Bethany Hastie (bethany.tapp mail.mcgill.ca) by 01 September to indicate their interest in participating in the session(s).