Looking back to Look Forward: Celebrating 10 years of research on migration, forced displacement and superdiversity

Taking place on 14 to 16 September 2022, IRiS 10th anniversary international conference aims to bring together scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds, and engage conversations about mechanisms, meanings and experiences of various forms of migration, mobility, displacement and diversity.

The Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS) at the University of Birmingham was founded in 2012 to break new ground in interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary research on international migration, forced displacement, and migration-driven superdiversity. Ever since, it has been at the forefront of empirical and theory-driven research into refugee and migrant integration, migration governance and policies, research methods in/for superdiverse contexts, irregularised migration, youth migration and wellbeing in different welfare regimes.

For the past decade, shifts in the international order and major global and regional events have changed international and internal migration, transforming societies of immigration and emigration, in turn, challenging migration scholars to reflect on and reassess their methods and epistemologies.

Looking back to look forward is the theme of the 2022 IRIS international conference. The conference will address key dimensions and changes in contemporary migration studies research, both in the past decade and for the decade ahead. 

Keynote Speakers

Professor Cecilia Menjívar, University of California Los Angeles and President of the American Sociological Association

Professor Steve Vertovec, Director of Max-Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Germany

Plenary Speakers

Professor Michaela Benson, Lancaster University
Professor Mette Berg, UCL
Rob McNeil, Migration Observatory, University of Oxford
Nazek Ramadan, Migrant Voice
Barbara Serra, journalist
Professor Carlos Vargas Silva, University of Oxford
Colin Yeo, immigration and asylum barrister and founder of Free Movement
Hasan Patel, communications consultant
Gulwali Passarlay, writer and activist
Dr Agnes Woolley, Birkbeck, University of London

Programme downloads

Further info: please contact Paladia Ziss, Conference Manager p.ziss@bham.ac.uk or Ann Bolstridge, IRiS Senior Administrator, a.bolstridge@bham.ac.uk

IRiS

Programme 

Download in PDF format the programme outline, full programme and speakers' bios.

Where to stay

Download accommodation options (PDF)

How to get here