CALL FOR PAPERS
The conference will take place from 17 March to 19 March 2027, with the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History in Potsdam as the venue.
Deadline for abstracts: by 29 May 2026
The conference seeks to bridge the gap between histories of student mobility and histories of migration to better understand how students have resisted, collaborated or negotiated with hardening border regimes at a global level since 1900. There is an increasingly rich historiography on the topic of student mobility, focusing on national and transnational case studies, and the roles of student activists and universities within broader processes of colonisation, decolonisation and regional integration. At the same time, reflexive migration studies have recently developed sophisticated new research on migrant perspectives, border practices, knowledge production and the de-essentialisation of migration categories, but have rarely paid attention to mobile students, despite their significance, numerically, theoretically and politically, as a lens through which to re-examine broader histories of mobility. Intersecting these two historiographies, we are interested in papers that offer new perspectives on student agency and on migration regimes as mutually constitutive of politics and actions. We understand migration regimes as sets of formal and informal rules, norms and practices that shape who can move, under what conditions, and with what consequences.
This conference is being organised through the ‘University Students as Migrants’ project, which is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the context of the Anglo-German Funding Initiative in the Humanities.
We invite paper submissions on the intersection of the history of migration regimes and student mobilities in the 20th and/or 21st centuries. Collectively, papers will explore these constellations in different world regions, across geopolitical shifts, and provide a forum for interdisciplinary conversations. We are interested in papers that explore some of the following questions:
- In which historical constellations have mobile students been categorised as students, as migrants or as refugees? How were these categorisations justified, how and why did they change over time, and what did they mean for the students concerned? What insights can we gain by exploring state-based and/or international practices of categorising mobile students?
- How did regional dynamics, visions of international cooperation and economic factors affect the genesis and development of mobility schemes? What mobility patterns and mobility schemes can we observe within different world regions, and how far were these shaped by postcolonial dynamics? In what circumstances did new spaces emerge as hubs of student mobility within the Global South?
- How were students integrated into the emerging European migration regimes and their efforts to create and regulate different sorts of mobility? How does the emergence of the Erasmus programme relate to European migration policies?
- Which role did flight and refuge play in granting students privileged access to residence permits and to higher education? How did the categorisations of mobile students as refugees shift over time? Have there been periods in which this status has been granted more restrictively than in others?
- How did mobile students create social, cultural and political change on the ground? How did they voice their interests as students (apart from political activism)? How did they engage with existing anti-racist, anti-discriminatory or feminist movements and groups? And how did these alliances impact the perceptions and policies of local authorities?
- How has “the mobile student” been policed within local, national, regional and transnational contexts? How did universities and students resist, collaborate, or negotiate with border regimes and foreign state interests?
- How did infrastructural change, e.g. the increasing affordability of air travel, impact the movement of students? Did it contribute to shifting routes and choices of universities?
- What was the role of religious networks in shaping migration regimes that involved young mobile subjects?
- In what ways were mobile students the targets of welfare initiatives, humanitarian efforts and development policies, and who or what were the actors involved in constructing and implementing ventures in this field?
Please send a 250-word abstract accompanied by a 150-word biographical note to Lucie Lamy (lucie [dot] lamy [at] zzf-potsdam [dot] de (lucie[dot]lamy[at]zzf-potsdam[dot]de)) by 29 May 2026.
This in-person conference. A limited amount of funding is available for participants without access to their own institutional funds; please state this in your proposal. Conference participation will be confirmed by 10 July 2026 at the latest.
Funders: DFG and ARHC
Organisers: Henry Dee, Lucie Lamy (ZZF Potsdam), Daniel Laqua and Isabella Löhr (ZZF Potsdam)