Events

The 26th international scientific conference “National minorities, migration and security”, organized by the Center for International and Security Studies, Faculty of Political Science (University of Zagreb) took place in Brijuni Islands, Croatia from 19-21 September 2022. The conference was attended by scientists and experts from the Republic of Croatia and abroad, who deal with the rights of national minorities, contemporary migration and security studies. The co-organizers of this year’s conference were the Council for National Minorities of the Republic of Croatia, The Network for Academic Cooperation in Southeast Europe and the Faculty of Security of the University of Belgrade.

The conference covered three thematic areas:

• National minorities in democratic societies
• Migration and migration policies
• Global security challenges.

MIGREC team members presented four interesting papers at the conference. Dejan Pavlović, Danica Šantić and Natalija Perišić presented „Fairness lost – deterioration of procedural and substantive rights in treating migrants on the Balkan route beyond the COVID-19 crisis“. Danijela Pavlović and Violeta Marković focused on „Migration and cultural identity“. Nevena Trnavčević and Milica Langović presented on the topic „There’s no place like home? Emigration intentions of Serbian youth“. Nataša Milošević presented “Gender perspective of the migrant support program in the Republic of Serbia since the beginning of the migrant crisis in 2015”.

 

The Faculty of Political Science hosted the Second Summer School within H2020 MIGREC Project from from 19-21 September 2022. The Migration Research Group from the University of Sheffield organized the Second Summer School. Lecturers and discussants were Majella Kilkey, Ryan Powell, Olga Fuseini, Lois Orton, Julie Walsh. Senior and junior researchers as well as PhD candidates and master students from the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Science attended the School.

The Second Summer School had two elements. The first was a series of presentations from MA / PhD students about their planned research; this provided an opportunity to test out ideas in a supportive environment and to receive constructive feedback from peers, academic staff at the University of Belgrade and visiting academics from the University of Sheffield.

The second element was a series of workshops focused on the theme of researching with marginalized communities. Through presentations and reflexive discussions of three research projects being undertaken at the University of Sheffield, the workshops addressed the ethical and methodological challenges encountered when working with migrant communities in ways that try to avoid (re-)producing marginality, and potential strategies to overcome them.

The members of MIGREC team, Tamara Mihajlović and Ljiljana Ćumura, participated at the 5th edition of the NGC – Neuchâtel Graduate Conference that took place from 7 to 8 July 2022 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. The topic of this year was “Tensions in Migration and Mobility”. The Conference was organized by the NCCR – on the move, Swiss National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) for migration and mobility studies. It provides a stimulating environment in which PhD and Postdoctoral fellows from different universities and research institutions can exchange ideas, establish networks, and initiate collaborative research.

The program included plenary events, public lectures, panels and workshops.

On July 7^th, Adrian Favell, from the University of Leeds, gave a public lecture on topic “The Integration Nation: Towards a New Critical Political Demography”, and day after, on July 8^th, there was a panel on Ethics in Migration Research with Libby Bishop, from the Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Tina Miller, from the Oxford Brookes University, Elodie Malbois, from the University of Geneva and Didier Ruedin, from the University of Neuchâtel, moderated by Matteo Gianni, University of Geneva.

More than 50 participants presented their researches in the field of migration and mobility studies, such as demography, economics, geography, law, political science, sociology etc. in six working groups:

• Policy and Governance Tensions in the Fields of Migration and Mobility
• Understanding Citizenship under Tension
• Tensions Developed in a Transnational Social World
• Between Access and Exclusion: Tensions in Attitudes and Preferences in the Attribution of Rights to Migrants
• Tensions in Refugees’ and Migrants’ Integration
• Rising Tensions in the Anthropocene: The Strained Relations between Mobility and Global Warming

Tamara Mihajlović and Ljiljana Ćumura presented their research “The Integration of Migrant Children into the School Systems in Malta and Serbia (The Comparative Analysis)”. In this research Mihajlović and Ćumura seek to investigate what it means to be fully “integrated” into the educational system and how Serbia and Malta have implemented the integration of migrant children.

• The education of migrant children has received significant attention from various organizations, experts, and national and international institutions. The process and the quality of integration of migrant children into the educational system and school environment face various challenges regarding cultural and language barriers, migration and integration policies, education staff: teachers, cultural mediators, community liaisons, etc. – said Ćumura during the presentation.
• The focus is on the presentation and analysis of teachers’ perspectives on the current model of integration of migrant children into the primary and secondary school system, the perspectives of educators from the civil society organizations as well as the perspectives of key creators of educational policy toward migrants, refugees and asylum seekers – concluded Mihajlović.

This is the second time that MIGREC team is participating in the NGC – Neuchâtel Graduate Conference. Hopefully, next year we will again present news, project activities and initiatives from our researches in the filed of migration.

A study visit to Thessaloniki was organized from 14 to 17 June as part of the MIGREC project, and the coordinators and hosts were team members from the South-East European Research Centre – SEERC. In total, 7 researchers, doctoral students, and one representative of the NGO “Group 484” visited Thessaloniki in the context of H2020 MIGREC Project.

During the first day of the study visit, a discussion and introduction were organized with Dr. Hatziprokopiou (School of Spatial Planning and Development, AUTH), Prof. Tsitselikis (Department of Balkan, Slavic, and Oriental Studies, UoM), Dr. Chatzibirros (PSYD, CITY College), Dr. Pasmatzi (HumD, CITY College), followed by a lecture on Discourse Analysis by Dr. Kelmali, HumD, CITY College.

On the second day of the study visit, the participants had workshops on ethics in research led by Dr. Prodromidou, BAED, CITY College, and Ms. Ververidou, SEERC Research Associate. After the workshops, participants had the opportunity to talk to representatives of NGOs in Thessaloniki (NGO Arsis and IOM Greece).

On the last day of the study visit, participants had a Netnography Workshop (Dr. Kapoulas and Ms. Xharavina, BAED, CITY College), a lecture on Applied research on the integration of immigrants in European societies and beyond (Dr. Aristea Ladas, PSYD, CITY College) and a discussion on doctoral academic studies within the MIGREC project.

The list of staff and PhD students:

Anita Burgund Isakov – Assistant Professor, University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Science

Dragana Stoeckel – Assistant Professor, University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Science

Stefan Surlić – Assistant Professor, University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Science

Danijela Pavlović – teaching assistant and PhD student, University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Science

Violeta Marković – teaching assistant and PhD student, University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Science

Jelena Birmančević – junior researcher and PhD student, University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Science

Marijana Matović – researcher, University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Science

Gordana Grujičić – representative of the NGO “Group 484”

MIGREC team members Danica Šantić, Dejan Pavlović and Natalija Perišić participated at the conference “Continuities and Change in a Migration World” organized by the Migration Policy Centre of the European University Institute from Florence, Italy from May 23 to 25, 2022.

MIGREC team members presented the topic of the migration development nexus from the point of view of Serbia. They pointed that empirical evidence of who benefits most, where, why and how in development strategies centred on diaspora and immigration are numerous, but increasingly ambiguous . The links between migration and development have been of great importance in the national context in the long-term perspective, but also neglected. Namely, versatile trends, both internal and external to Serbia, have been contributing to this with intensive emigration of young, population and the requirements for the EU accession being among the most important. In their presentation, MIGREC team members focused on exploring migration-development links in terms of reinforcing the view of migrants as agents of development who can produce beneficial outcomes for Serbia, both in terms of hard outcomes (migrant and diaspora and the direct effects on aid and development and remittances) and the soft ones (transfer of expertise and skills).

MIGREC team members had a meeting with Andrew Giddes, the Director of the Migration Policy Centre of the European University Institute from Florence, Italy in order to explore the path to future cooperation.

The Conference programme can be found here: https://www.eui.eu/events?id=542484

The Faculty of Political Science hosted the First Summer School within H2020 MIGREC Project from May 31^st to June 1^st 2022.

The Migration Research Group from the University of Sheffield organized the Summer School. Lecturers and discussants were Majella Kilkey, Rebecca Murray, Aneta Piekut, Will Haynes and Ben Gardner. Senior and junior researchers as well as PhD candidates from the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Science and Faculty of Geography attended the School.

The School comprised of workshops, presentations and discussions on quantitative and qualitative research methods and their application in migration studies. The emphasis was on offering in-depth knowledge on the analysis of data processed in SPSS and coding transcripts from interviews.

The Second summer school will be organized by the Migration Research Group from the University of Sheffield in September from 19^th to 23^rd 2022.