Welcome to the 9th edition of the IMISCOE Bulletin! This issue is released right before the opening of our 2024 IMISCOE Annual Conference hosted by Iscte - University Institute of Lisbon.
The Bulletin is one of the main communication channels of IMISCOE with its 69 Member Institutes, the individual members of our research network and the wider community interested in our activities. It is built around contributions from the IMISCOE External Affairs Committee (EAC) and the Network Office based at the Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies (CEDEM) of the University of Liège.
The Bulletin is also an opportunity for us to reflect on the incredibly rich activities developed in our Network and to highlight the extensive work done by our community, including the IMISCOE Network Office, the Board of Directors, the Executive Board, the IMISCOE Standing and Executive Committees, our community of PhD students, and the individual members of our Network who constantly dedicate their time and ideas to support research activities and events taking place in IMISCOE.
This edition of the Bulletin mirrors some parts of this work. It includes the announcement of the 2023 IMISCOE Annual Report showcasing the achievements of last year, updates from the IMISCOE Migration Podcast whose episodes explore the latest in migration research globally, and details about our incredibly active Standing Committees which focus on specific topics within the field of migration studies.
Since our April Bulletin, IMISCOE has continued to expand its horizons. In addition to more scholars from different parts of the world recently joining our community, we also welcomed to the Network the first IMISCOE Member Institute in the US: the Center on Forced Displacement (CFD) at Boston University. We therefore invite you to read more about their team, activities, and events in the special section on CFD included in this Bulletin.
As the 2024 IMISCOE Annual Conference is fast approaching, we also interviewed João Miguel de Carvalho and Thais França from the host institute CIES-Iscte, who shared with us details regarding the event organization and the timely conference topic of “Migration as a Social Construction: A Reflexive Turn”. Moreover, Billie Martiniello, Agnese Pacciardi, and Mateusz Krawczyck also present in this Bulletin an overview of the activities that the IMISCOE PhD Network proposes during this Annual Conference. Also related to our community of PhD students, we had a chat with Cosmin Nada about the recent session on “Wellbeing and resilience during the PhD journey” organized by our IMISCOE PhD Academy.
Additionally, as part of the reflections on IMISCOE's global engagement, we also recommend that you read the committed editorial by Mary Boatemaa Setrana (Director of the Centre for Migration Studies at the University of Ghana), who invites us to consider not only alternative narratives of migration, but also other voices and perspectives. We realise how much migration scholarship has to learn from these African voices. This issue of the Bulletin also features the work of the Turkish photographer Kemal Vural Tarlan, from Gazientep (on the border with Syria), who has been conducting visual sociological and anthropological research among communities living in the Middle East.
On behalf of IMISCOE’s Network Office and External Affairs Committee, we would like to thank all of the contributors of this issue of the Bulletin. We are very grateful to all of you in the IMISCOE Network for your support and contribution to our international and interdisciplinary network.
We wish you a pleasant read and invite you to share this Bulletin widely to help us spread the word about our IMISCOE community.
Jean-Michel Lafleur and Daniela Vintila (IMISCOE Coordinators)
Ricard Zapata-Barrero (Chair of the IMISCOE External Affairs Committee)
Carole Wenger (IMISCOE Communication Officer)