CfP: CESSMIR Conference 18/19 Sept, Symposium “Reintegration processes and differentiated reintegration support measures”

From 17 – 19 September 2018, the Centre for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees (CESSMIR) of Ghent University organizes its international conference on the topic of ‘Needs and Care Practices for Migrants and Refugees’ (Ghent, Belgium). The conference incorporates an interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and transnational focus and invites scholars, policy makers and practitioners to discuss their perspectives and experiences on the compelling needs of different groups of refugees, migrants and newcomers in a global perspective and the diverse ways to address these needs. For more information regarding the theme and the call for papers, see https://www.ugent.be/cessmir/en/conference-2018/theme

At this conference, I aim to organize a symposium on ‘Reintegration processes and differentiated reintegration support measures’ – the aim of this symposium and a call for presentations can be found below:

The theme of ‘return migration’, the process of returning to the country of origin after residing a certain period abroad, has received increasing attention in scientific and political debates on international migration. Both as instrument to fight irregular migration as well as to contribute to the development of countries of origin, return migration is highly promoted by migration policy in Western host countries and various measures and programmes are developed to support the return of different types of returnees. It is widely recognized and documented that returning to the country of origin is a highly contextualized process, and possibilities to reintegration are strongly associated with characteristics of the returnee and the modes of return. However, there is very little knowledge and understanding of how reintegration processes, the processes of (re-)establishing the social, economic and/or emotional ties that define the returnee as a member of a community, differ for different return populations, and whether and how this needs to result in differentiated measures when supporting the return and reintegration processes of migrants.

This symposiums therefore wants to deepen the existing knowledge on the contextualized processes of reintegration of different returning populations and the way formal or informal support could facilitate these processes. It invites presentations of practitioners, scholars and policy makers that explore topics such as:
–  Attention for gender, age, specific country or region of return, mode of return (independent, assisted, deported), family composition, support networks, degree of voluntariness in return decision in relation to reintegration processes and/or reintegration support;
–  Conditions that facilitate reintegration processes;
–  Needs assessment of different return populations;
–  Good practices or innovative approaches to support returning migrants.

People interested in joining this symposium, can send an abstract of their presentation (maximum 500 words) to Ine.Lietaert@UGent.be – deadline: 15 April 2018.