Call for papers: Migrating in Small and Medium Sized Towns

Deadline for abstract submission: January 20th, 2023

In occasion of the mid-term conference on 13-14 March 2023 in Thessaloniki, the AMIF project PISTE opens the call for papers “Migrating in small- and medium-sized towns: experiences, challenges and perspectives for participation”.

Over the last few years, a consolidated literature shows how the local dimension has become a key playground and political arena for stances on migrants’ incorporation and participation. Indeed, it has become the level on which policy experiments and innovations, as well as exclusionary practices, are performed, producing nested but specific practices of migrants’ incorporation and participation. Such processes entail both new forms of citizenship and fragmentation and stratification of rights and a varied landscape of opportunities in social, economic and civic/political participation. A specific vantage point where migration processes and policy-making can be observed is constituted by Small and Medium-sized Towns (SMTs), which more or less recently, in different national contexts, have been witnessing plural settlement patterns and an increase of both migrant stayers and political, policy and public relevance of new citizens. While larger cities often have a longer history of immigration and may be endowed with policy instruments and pluralist identities, SMTs often face new challenges in managing diversity. Nevertheless, they often enjoy a specific room for manoeuvre and have place-specific opportunities to implement innovative measures not tied to path-dependent pre-structured solutions. 

This International Conference welcomes papers and oral presentations from scholars, policy-makers and practitioners based on (preferably comparative) empirical research and professional experience to debate the challenges and opportunities SMSTs face in dealing with migration. In particular, we welcome papers and oral presentations on: 

1) Migration trends, causes and incorporation processes; migration, placemaking and local identities;

2) Enabling and hindering factors in migrants’ participation and representation; 

3) Implementation of incorporation measures: multilevel governance arrangements, room for manoeuvre, difficulties, challenges and opportunities); 

4) Innovative and/or experimental practices aimed at promoting and improving participation;

For further information: CALL FOR PAPERS – Migrating in Small and Medium Sized Towns

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