COMMISSION ON MIGRATION
Brief History of the Commission
The proposal for the creation of a commission dedicated to the study of migration within the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) was first articulated by Anand Singh and Deepak Beherain in 2002, when a formal proposal was submitted to the IUAES Executive Council for the establishment of the Commission on Migration. That initiative resulted in the initial approval of the commission with “ad hoc” status in that same year. The official recognition of the commission as a fully functional body was granted during the World Congress in Florence in 2003, under the chair of its initial proponents. Later, in 2013, in the period preceding the Manchester World Congress, efforts were made to expand the commission’s membership, which continued to grow over the following years.
Leadership
2024 – Current
Co-Chairs: Vinicius Kauê Ferreira and Leonardo Schiocchet
2021-2024
Co-Chairs: Vinicius Kauê Ferreira and Bobby Luthra-Sinha
2019-2021
Co-Chairs: Sophia Thubauville and Bobby Luthra-Sinha
Consolidated goals (2024-2028):
- Deeply reflecting on the scope of the commission to discuss forms of including a broader community of scholars and professionals involved with migration-related research.
- Renaming the commission according to the redefined abovementioned scope, possibly engaging with much wider terms such as Dis/Emplacements, Fluxes, Encounters, Friction, and fragments.
- Attracting new active members and enhancing the communication between the membership / continuing the expansion of the commission’s membership as a way of increasing its relevance, representativity, and diversity in global terms.
- Developing sub-commissions based on topic and regions of interest, thereby creating a structure of feedback and relative autonomy to feed intellectual debate and institutional activity.
- Establishing clearer rules regarding membership and the right to candidate and vote in elections to enhance our commission’s governance and participation.
- Hosting more collective initiatives proposed by our members, in the context of the WAU congresses and beyond them. These initiatives should observe the following principles: a) promote the identification of ground-breaking research and showcase it through IUAES-related events. b) giving space to younger scholars, scholars in precarious positions, and minorities and scholars situated in non-hegemonical institutional spaces.
- Consolidating the role of our commission as a public platform for public debate and qualified political intervention regarding public issues worldwide. As part of this effort, the commission will possibly organize a conference at Charles University before June 2028, as long as it can secure the necessary funding.
- Implementing a functioning mailing list where our members may circulate information of interest to our scholarly community.
Term July 2024- June 2028
Co-Chair: Leonardo Schiocchet
Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.
E-mail: Leonardo.Schiocchet@ff.cuni.cz
https://cuni.academia.edu/LeonardoSchiocchet
Co-Chair: Vinicius Kauê Ferreira
Rio de Janeiro State University.
E-mail: vinicius.ferreira@uerj.br
https://uerj.academia.edu/ViniciusKau%C3%AAFerreira
Secretary: Isabel Arce Zelada
E-mail: isabel.arcezelada@ucd.ie