Events

This international conference is convened by the National University of Singapore (Asia Research Institute) and the Université Sorbonne Paris Cité (USPC)’s interdisciplinary program Sociétés Plurielles (Diverse Societies), thanks to the funding of the “MERLION” Franco-Singaporean scientific collaboration programme launched and managed by the Science Section of the French Embassy in Singapore.

Since 2015, Europe has been shaken by terrorist attacks and seen a rise in far-right parties, while new flows of migrants have been described by the media as an unprecedented “migration crisis”. In this context, the importance of analyzing the links between migration policies, socio-political issues, and spatial contours and patterns as they unfold in the city is more crucial than ever before. Migrant presence and integration issues are not new but have become increasingly more urgent to address. While these issues have shaped public debate and scientific enquiry for some time now, they are often examined through Eurocentric notions such as assimilation, multiculturalism and, more recently, cosmopolitanism. Yet, it is clear that not only Europe (or the Western World) has to deal with migration related issues, countries in Asia and the Middle East are also experiencing high inflows of variously skilled migrants, while the robustness of their borders are frequently tested by undocumented migrants and refugees.

The catalytic role that transnational migrants play in transforming the city can be grasped not only in the increase in population diversity but also in the creation of new possibilities and limits in cosmopolitan civic life. In opening this statement up to the analytical gaze, it is important to take into account not only transnational migrants circulating in the upper circuits of ‘talent’ and ‘business’ migration, but also a wider range of the more numerically dominant migration streams including labour migrants, marriage migrants and educational migrants. This creates unparalleled opportunities to interrogate a multiplicity of contact spaces and places in the city, including newly emerging spatial patterns of concentration, segregation and inequalities, encounters of intimacy and prejudice, modes of hybridity and fusion, and practices of coexistence and forms of conflict.

In short, immigration and in particular transnational modes of migration of varying degrees of permanence and transience – has become a compelling force not only in increasing diversity in cities but in challenging us to formulate vocabularies, discourses and practices that go beyond the unimaginative language of assimilation and acculturation embedded in much of Eurocentric migration theory. This workshop proposes to give focus to globalising cities from Asia, Europe and the Middle East which are marked by the diversity of their population and distinct ways of managing migrant diversity. Central to the workshop are the following questions:

• How do we make sense of the experiences, encounters, modes and practices of interaction that foster cosmopolitan sensibilities and openness in urban life among locals and migrants at different scales, including the home, the neighbourhood and the city? How are public spaces transformed by migrant presence?
• How do immigration, labour and urban policies shape the contours of migrants’ negotiation over urban space and ‘rights to the city’ and do they promote or retard cosmopolitan possibilities in cities? How may some cities develop their own strategies of welcoming migrants, in contrast to more restrictive national policies?
• How do we analyze segregation processes outside the paradigm of assimilation, as often done since the Chicago school of sociology for western cities? At which scales should we study segregation – the entire agglomeration, the neighbourhood, or the building? How are segregation processes linked to mobility or immobility within the city? How is segregation related to gentrification?
• How are cities in Asia, Europe and the Middle East linked through flows of migrants and what motivates the direction of various flows? How are these cities connected with and embedded within migrant transnational networks?
• What are the benefits of approaching regionally specific migrant processes, practices, linkages and networks in a comparative perspective? How do the spatial patterns of migrant incorporation into the city (ethnic enclaves, deprived suburban areas (banlieues), poor inner-cities, dispersed immigrant patterns…) vary according to different regional areas and migrations policies?

REGISTRATION

Participation in this closed-door conference is limited and by invitation only.

CONTACT DETAILS

Convenors

Dr Michiel Baas
Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
arimba@nus.edu.sg

Prof Brenda S.A. Yeoh
Asia Research Institute, and Department of Geography, National University of Singapore

Dr Delphine Pagès-El Karoui
INALCO, Université Sorbonne Paris Cité, France
delphine.elkaroui@inalco.fr