[MIM-Highly.Skilled] CFP RGS-IBG 2019: Highly Skilled Migration and infrastructures of (im)mobilities

Dear Colleagues, Apologies for cross posting. This call will be of interest to members of this group. Please consider submitting an abstract. I would be grateful if you could circulate this call amongst your networks. Thank you, Regards Gunjan CFP RGS-IBG 2019 August 28-30- 2019. London. Highly skilled migration and infrastructures of (im)mobilities Convenor: Gunjan Sondhi, The Open University International migration and its infrastructures which link "technologies, institutions and actors" (Xiang and Lindquist 2014) are oriented toward enabling mobility. Intermediaries such as employment and migration brokers are part of the infrastructure that facilitate international labour migration of low-skilled workers. Works uncovering these institutions has revealed the uneven geographies and relations of power which shape such international labour mobilities and produce various migrant categories (Lin et al 2017, Xiang and Lindquist 2014). Moreover, some of these infrastructures also become the route through which the politics of inequality can be bypassed. Finally, it is not only intermediaries of mobility but also of immobility that has come to attention (Stockdale and Haartsen 2018). These infrastructures and their role in shaping international migration remain less visible within the frames of highly skilled migration (HSM). Existing research on HSM has highlighted the roles of intermediaries (Cranston 2018; Harvey 2018; van de Broek et al 2016, 2017) such as education brokers, employment agencies and migration brokers that facilitate mobility through work/education opportunities. Often the analysis of the 'market' and its structures have been subsumed under the analysis of the labour and education institutions, rather than the 'markets'. Additionally, the geography of these discussion has largely focused on employers/education institutions within the global north, and brokers in the global south. However, as attachment of nations and internationalism are both being reconfigured in the contemporary moment, there is a need to make visible these and other infrastructures of (im)mobility of highly skilled migrants (Lindquist, Xiang, and Yeoh 2012; Raghuram 2014; Martin 2005) along other corridors. Highly skilled migration, of which international students are a part, has an infrastructure that is orientated toward selectively enabling mobility and immobility. However, there has been limited research within HSM research on such infrastructures. Moreover, there is also little on immobilities, despite the relationality of mobility and immobility (Adey 2017). This is surprising since the infrastructures that support the migration industry (Cranston 2017) are relatively immobile and place-bound. However, the place-boundness of infrastructures should not be confused with stasis (Barry 2015). Infrastructures are dynamic; and that dynamism has a temporal dimension to their accretion and accumulation (Anand 2015). This session welcomes papers which explore infrastructures of highly skilled (im)mobilities, including international students, beyond the 'traditional' intermediaries to look at (but not limited to): - Institutions (financial institutions, labour markets, educational systems, transnational and multinational companies, HR companies) - Regulatory frameworks (employment, migration, legal, state) - Temporality of mobility (short/long term, temporary, permanent) - Transnational role of infrastructures in connecting and disconnecting people - Practices that are produced/undertaken as a result of the infrastructures of (im)mobilities We encourage papers from all methodological perspectives. Please send your paper title, abstract (250 words max.), contact information and affiliation to Gunjan Sondhi (gunjan.sondhi at open.ac.uk<mailto:gunjan.sondhi at open.ac.uk>) by 4 Feb 2019. Dr Gunjan Sondhi @GunjanSondhi Latest publications: International student migration: a comparison of UK and Indian students' motivations for studying abroad<http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14767724.2017.1405244… Gendering international student migration: an Indian case-study<https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2017.1300288> Gender, Skilled Migration and IT industry: a comparative study of India and the UK http://www.gsm-it.com<http://www.gsm-it.com/> @GSM_IT_OU Lecturer in Geography Faculty of Arts and Social Science, Geography Open University Milton Keynes , UK