The Coronavirus Pandemic and Forced Immobility
Seminar speakers: Steven Vertovec, Kerilyn Schewel, Biao Xiang and Olena Babakova
Seminar moderators: Konrad Pędziwiatr, Jan Brzozowski
Jorgen Carling in his text on Cape Verdean migration experiences (2002) argues that far more people would like to migrate than actually do and rather than an “Age of Migration” (Castles et al 2014), our times are better characterized as an age of “involuntary immobility”. In the time of pandemia this has transformed into forced immobility for migrants and non-migrants alike. One of the groups that has been particularly harshly affected by this immobility are migrants.
This month’s OWIM – Multiculturalism and Migration Observatory’s seminar will be devoted to the theme of coronavirus pandemia and forced immobility and carried out in the form of e-seminar. Some of the questions we shall ask to the panel of distinguished speakers are:
– What are the key findings from your research into mobility-immobility important for the current situation of forced immobility?
– What is the impact of pandemia on migrants in major emigration-transit-immigration countries?
– What could be the short and long term impact of pandemia on local
and global migration processes?
– Is the era of migrations over?
These and other questions from the audience will be addressed by:
Kerilyn Schewel – Research Fellow in the International Migration Institute at the University of Amsterdam
Biao Xiang – Professor of social anthropology and researcher in the Centre on Migration, Policy, and Society (COMPAS) at the University of Oxford
Olena Babakova – Historian and journalist at Krytyka Polityczna, whose research interests focus on the Ukrainian migration to the EU, Poland’s migration policy and integration policies in the EU
Steven Vertovec – Director of the Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity
The seminar will take place on Thursday 9th April at 2PM (Warsaw time) through Zoom. To access the seminar please log in to the following Zoom room before 2PM.
