I would love to see you all there. Parvati Call for Papers: IMISCOE Annual Conference ‘Strengthening Migration Studies through Community Engagement’, Girona, 29 June - 2 July 2026 Class Matters: Community engagement and middle-class migrants in migration research Panel organisers: Gunjan Sondhi, The Open University UK, gunjan.sondhi(a)open.ac.uk Markus Roos Breines, Fafo Norway, mrb(a)fafo.no Parvati Raghuram, The Open University UK, Parvati.raghuram(a)open.ac.uk Community engagement has emerged as an important research strategy that aims to build collaborative relationships between researchers, community members and community-based stakeholders, whilst seeking to minimise the extractive and exploitative nature of research practices. In migration studies, community engagement is commonly understood as a way to rebalance the politics of knowledge production by working with migrants to give voice to their experiences and to help develop programmes and policies that attempt to ‘solve their problems’. Although such research is impactful, it has also been critiqued for tokenism, its superficial nature, knowledge appropriation, and for data analysis through the privileged lens of the migration researcher. Underpinning this critique is the assumed legislative (citizen-asylum seeker, marginalised), class (middle-lower), racialised (White-non-White) and geopolitical (Global North-South) distance between researchers and the researched. This panel turns its attention to how middle-class migration complicates both common assumptions of community engagement in migration research and its critiques. Middle class migrants are less, or at least differently, reliant on researchers to broker access, obtain local knowledge and to further their lives. Class as it intersects with other distinctions, might lead to differentiation. For instance, the distinctions around class might be reversed across the sites the migrant lives stretch; racialisation might operate differently as it intersects with class. However, other distinctions may persist, such as that of global North- South or of citizenship, but may be transformed through migration. Community engagement might be undertaken by middle class migrant academics and students with their own communities or with other migrant groups, making for a varied set of class and race affiliations and distinctions. as they are students and academics. As importantly, exploring community engagement as it intersects with questions of class will bring to light some of the common assumptions that we make while thinking about this topic. What are some other groups who may also throw light on community engagement because they disrupt common discourses on this topic? By considering class in the broadest sense (performance, relations of production, politics, relational, cultural), the panel will explore the following questions: • What is the role of class in shaping the notion of community and community engagement? • What are the class assumptions of that make up the ‘community’ in migration research? • How does class intersect with race and migrant origin and destination countries to shape the migration-community engagement nexus? • What does a class analysis tell us about migration, migration research and research methodologies? • How can class and middle-classness be useful terms for thinking about community engagement, but also migration studies more broadly? We welcome contributions that explore the intersections between community engagement and middle classes, in their diverse forms, locations and spaces. We particularly welcome papers that look at middle class migrants and research in the global South. Please email abstracts no longer than 250 words by 10th September to Gunjan Sondhi (gunjan.sondhi(a)open.ac.uk) and Markus Breines (mrb(a)fafo.no) Prof. Parvati Raghuram Geography Department The Open University, UK ph 01908 655370 My latest publication Mezzadri, A., (she/her), Rai, S. M., (she/her), Stevano, S., (she/her), Alessandrini, D., (she/her), Bargawi, H., (she/her), Elias, J., (she/her), …Raghuram, P., Wöhl, S., (she/her). (2025). Pluralizing social reproduction approaches. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 1–28. https://doi-org.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/10.1080/14616742.2024.2447594 -----Original Message----- From: ih(a)lunchtimeresults.org.za <ih(a)lunchtimeresults.org.za> Sent: 04 July 2025 06:42 To: mim-highly.skilled(a)lists.sunet.se Subject: [Mim-highly.skilled] Re: [MIM-Highly.Skilled] CfP, ŒThe Zero-Sum Game of Migration in Europe: 20 years after Tampere¹, 15 Oct 2019 External email: if the sender or content looks suspicious, please click the Report Message icon, or forward it to report-phishing Migration in Europe has always been a sensitive balancing act, and the “zero-sum” framing still sparks debate even years after Tampere. I came across a thought-provoking angle on fairness and allocation while browsing a lottery on a different topic, but the tension between gain and loss felt oddly familiar. https://lunchtimeresults.org.za/ _______________________________________________ Mim-highly.skilled mailing list -- mim-highly.skilled(a)lists.sunet.se To unsubscribe send an email to mim-highly.skilled-leave(a)lists.sunet.se