IRIS CONFERENCE - Unsettling Communities: Diversity, Mobility and Displacement in an Age of Growing Authoritarianism

Date: 07.09.2026 09:00 - 09.09.2026 18:00
Conference / symposium
Keywords: migration, mobility, displacement
Format: flexible
Language(s): English
Event Fee: Free

Organizer(s):
International Migration and Superdiversity (IRIS) , University of Birmingham

We are living in times where profound and intersecting geopolitical, economic, environmental and ideological crises are shaping diversity, mobility and displacement. Armed conflicts and protracted wars—from Ukraine to Gaza—continue to displace millions, while climate breakdown, a widespread drift towards authoritarian rhetoric and far-right politics alongside economic collapse drive large-scale mobility and immobility across and within regions, including from Venezuela, across the Sahel, and throughout Central America. The current world order is thus increasingly characterised by change and instability. These changes have major ramifications including intensifying border violence, the introduction of increasingly selective mobility regimes and the erosion of international protection frameworks. Faced with this disruption, political and activist communities are forging new alliances across difference and mobilising in radical new ways to re-imagine collective power and belonging. In this context, the study of diversity, migration and displacement is both more urgent and more challenging than ever. How can scholarship respond to these transformations without reproducing dominant framings of crisis, threat or invasion? What concepts, methods and alliances are needed to understand—and contest—this moment?

https://superdiversity.net/iris-2026-conference/

Post created by: Virginia Signorini