The aim of this conference is to bring together early career scholars from different disciplines to explore the transnational consequences of forced migration within and from Europe during its most violent and destructive era. As modern conflict definitively moved away from the battlefield to engage entire societies, war-induced migration resulted in the formation of different diasporas, which still impact our world today. Throughout the continent this period saw deliberate and sustained efforts to exclude the ‘other’, leading to transnational migration patterns and population transfers. These involuntary movements shaped both the countries of departure and the countries of arrival, presenting the respective societies with different opportunities and threats. Some refugees saw their stay as temporary, and made little effort to integrate in the host society. Others saw their migration as more permanent, and set up political organisations and founded their own media, or organised fundraising campaigns on behalf of the imagined homeland. These efforts did not only serve to cement migrant communities, but were also used, with varying success, to appeal to governments and public opinion in the host countries. Culminating in the profile of the migrant groups we still discern today, the experiences of refugees and expellees – as well as their later attempts to navigate the realities of being uprooted – will be the focus of this conference.
‘Unwilling Nomads: The Transnational Consequences of Forced Migration in Europe, 1910 – 1955’ is a two-day conference organised at Oxford Brookes University, open to all PhD students and early career researchers from different subject areas across the humanities and social sciences. Papers with a trans-disciplinary approach are especially welcome as the primary aim of this conference is to provide a forum for an exchange of various historical and current perspectives on the transnational consequences of forced migration.
Conference themes include (but are not limited to):
- The realities of flight and expulsion as a result of war and conflict
- Forced migration as collective punishment
- Diasporas and long-distance nationalism
- Actors and their motivations
- Intellectual exile and the cross-fertilisation of national cultures
- Memory and denial of forced migration
We have begun discussions with Palgrave MacMillan, and we intend to publish an edited volume (subject to peer-review). If you are interested in presenting a paper, we therefore welcome a 450-word abstract of your research, and a one-page C.V., which can be sent to Dr. Michał Palacz and Dr. Bastiaan Willems at unwillingnomads@gmail.com
The deadline for submission is 31 January 2020. If your paper is accepted, we expect a large draft (3,500 words or more) of your paper by 16 May 2020. The deadline of the full paper for publication (7,000 – 8,000 words) is 1 November 2020.