4 August 2021

Online IMISCOE Annual Conference was held from July 7 to 9, 2021 under the title “Crossing borders, connecting cultures”. The conference proposed to zoom deeper into people’s migration experiences by foregrounding how migration is connected to culture and language. Nexus of migration, and culture was explored in more depth by asking how migration is lived, experienced, mediated, and reflected in general and through everyday cultural, linguistic, and artistic practice. This year conference gathered scholars around the following topics:

• Reflexive Migration Studies
• Migrant Transnationalism
• Migration, Citizenship and Political Participation
• Superdiversity, Migration and Cultural Change
• Older Migrants
• Gender and Sexuality in Migration Research
• Immigration, Immigrants and the labor market in Europe
• Migration Politics and Governance
• Education and social inequality
• Methodological Approaches and Tools in Migration Research
• Privileged Mobilities: local impacts, belonging and citizenship
• Revisiting Return Migration in Shifting Geopolitics
• Norms and Values in Migration and Integration

MIGREC Team participated with its stand-alone panel under the title “Migration governance in the time of Covid-19: case studies of ‘crisis’ management in South-East Europe”. The panel comprehensively examined the “crisis” management through policy, media and behavioural lenses, and as related to different groups of migrants (irregular, regular and returnees). By interrogating intersections between migration, health, security and economic development, the panellists considered the impact of Covid-19 on different aspects of migration governance, such as border control, domestic sociopolitical parameters that have been steering decision making toward securitization of migration policies toward further “campization” of migrants as well as the patterns of interpretation of migration issues found in the media. Beside the governmental, media and NGO role, the panel provided insight into the intentions of Covid-19 triggered returnees in regard to permanently settling in their home country and potential solutions to mitigate emigration flows from the region.

The panel was chaired by Dragana Stoeckel from the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Science. The discussants were Izabela Grabowska, a Professor at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw, Poland and Dejan Pavlović from the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Science. The panel gathered five presentations.

“Migration governance in the time of Covid-19: ‘crisis’ management in South-East Europe” was presented by Majella Kilkey, Rebecca Murray, Aneta Piekut and Ryan Powell from the University of Sheffield, UK. The panelists interrogated what the ‘crisis’ framing of Covid-19 has entailed for migration policy across the region. They found that policy responses, to some extent, have built upon pre-existing cognitive frames and practices, highlighting the enfolding of ‘crisis’ one within another, as well as the mutually reinforcing relationship between ‘crisis’ and ‘routine’. Moreover, policy responses have been largely instrumental and ad hoc, seeking to find a solution to the immediate ‘problem’. The ‘crisis’ frame, therefore, works to conceal underlying systemic problems within migration policy, and fails to embed deeper social and political change.

Alexandra Prodromidou and Faye Ververidou from the South-East European Research Centre (SEERC) presented on “The impact of COVID-19 on policy responses to the ‘migrant crisis’ in Greece in the first year of the pandemic (2020-2021)”. The main premise of their presentation was a framework of multiple crises in the EU periphery, which reenact each other. The combination of a prolonged period of strict economic austerity measures, political and social turmoil dating back to 2010, had left the country severely unable to deal with the influx of irregular migrants. The COVID-19 pandemic reduced significantly the influx of migrants, while it created an urgency for speeding up processes for access to housing and to health services for migrants already in Greece, a group described as a ‘health time bomb’ because of the living conditions they have been subject to.

“COVID-19 and migration in the public spheres of Greece and North Macedonia: agenda setting and (re-) framing in the context of the pandemic (2020)” was presented by Ioannis Armakolas and Panagiotis Paschalidis from the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP). They studied the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the dominant patterns of interpretation (frames and agenda setting) of migration issues in the public sphere of Greece and North Macedonia. The presentation provided a qualitative discourse analysis of opinion papers from various media sources (print and digital) in Greece and North Macedonia and an analysis of discourse on social media platforms (i.e. Facebook and Twitter).

Natalija Perišić, Dragana Stoeckel (both from the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Science) and Nermin Oruč (Centre for Development Evaluation and Social Science Research, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina) presented on “Encampment and marginalization of irregular migrants as a policy response to COVID-19 along the Balkan route”. Within the overall context of the impact of COVID-19 on irregular migrants in the countries along the Balkan Route, their presentation was focused on Serbian and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s government measures targeted at irregular migrants from the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. They analyzed the regulation of their life in the camps and effectuation of rights to services in the two countries, as well as the roles of the public and the civil sector organizations, both international and national, and their contribution to the welfare of migrants in the camps in the changed reality.

Danica Šantić and Milica Todorović from the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Geography presented on “Returnees in Serbia in times of COVID-19”. They presented a research obtained from a total of 336 respondents to an online survey during the period 25th September – 20th October 2020. The purpose of information gathering was to provide an opportunity for better understanding the reasons for outward migration, characteristics of life abroad, as well as the insight into potential systematic solutions to mitigate permanent emigration flows.