Organized session at the Sunbelt XXXV Conference, June 23-28, 2015 in Brighton:
The practices of migrants and mobile persons have attracted a considerable amount of attention recently. Some of these practices include financial transfers, and exchange of other valuable resources including tangible and symbolic ones. In migration studies, the term ‘transnational’ refers to those regularly sustained non-state actor ties across borders. Migrants’ ties are usually conceptualized as revolving around family or ‘ethnic’ networks, although the term ‘network’ is usually used metaphorically. However, in addition to family ties, mobile populations may engage in and form other types of networks ranging from personal, professional to philantrophical ones. It is important to understand what is exchanged between whom in those networks in order to better capture the societies they are embedded in. Furthermore, in order to be engaged in a network, one does not need to be mobile. In other words, those ‘stayers’ are also influenced by the mobility of their contacts.
In this session, we would like to discuss the variety of networks that mobile and non-mobile populations are engaged in. We encourage submissions that relate to this theme.
Topics may include, but are not limited to:
Organizers of the session:
Markus Gamper (University of Cologne, Germany),
Basak Bilecen (University of Bielefeld, Germany) &
Miranda Lubbers (Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain)