News and Events
Latest news
16 Sep 2025
PhD students Ayham Alhuseen and Iryna Gokhman attend the Oxford Summer School on Refugee and Forced Migration Studies
Doctoral research can be an isolating journey, but opportunities for exchange and training play a crucial role in shaping young scholars. For PhD students Ayham Alhuseen and Iryna Gokhman, the Oxford Summer School on Refugee and Forced Migration Studies was such an opportunity.
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25 Aug 2025
2025 IMISCOE PhD Summer School - Developing a sensory methodology in migration studies
The PhD Summer School in Lisbon brought together doctoral students from around the world, including Iryna Gokhman, to explore innovative approaches to research on migration and social change, with a special focus on visual and sensory methods. The Summer School, held from 25–29 August 2025, was hosted in Lisbon and organised under the IMISCOE framework. It offered an intensive program of lectures, workshops, and fieldwork sessions, running from morning to evening, and designed to foster cross-disciplinary learning and exchange among 25 PhD researchers, many of whom brought prior experience in the arts.
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07 Jul 2025
MIGMOBS @Universidad de Nebrija, Madrid, @Sciences Po, Paris & @IMISCOE Paris 2025
MIGMOBS has had some busy weeks in June and July! Our action shifted to Madrid and then Paris.
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Happening On
01/07/2025
19 Jun 2025
MIGMOBS at IMISCOE conference in Paris, 1-4 July 2025
The MIGMOBS team has a strong showing at the annual IMISCOE conference in Paris, 1-4 July 2025. Our participation is supported by UCC ISS21 IMISCOE Travel funding.
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MIGMOBS-related publications
We aim to share MIGMOBS-related publications - browse our publications here.
| Category | Category | Keywords | Year | Title | Abstract | Actions |
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Journal Article |
Journal Article | Feminism, Middle-class Chinese women, rock music, Censorship | 2025 |
Rocking Boundaries: Made-in-China Feminism and an All-Female Chinese Band in Tokyo |
This essay examines how Iceless, a Tokyo-based band of highly educated, middle-class Chinese women, redefines gender norms through their music, marking a unique evolution in Made-in-China feminism. Traditional band culture in China often celebrates male success stories in which talent wins fame and love, while women’s bands historically embody ideals of obedience, elegance, and service to male authority. This essay highlights how Chinese women are now resisting these expectations, asserting their agency within the constraints of state and algorithmic censorship. By addressing feminist themes in the diaspora and strategically negotiating boundaries to access the mainland Chinese market, Iceless transforms rock music into a platform for subtle yet impactful grassroots feminist expression. Their journey illuminates how Made-in-China feminism actively shapes gender politics, revealing women’s rock bands as a transformative force in the broader evolution of gender politics in China. | More details Read publication |
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Journal Article |
Journal Article | 2025 |
Tackling ‘scandalous inequalities’: A Global Policy Proposal for a Humanity Identity Card and Basic Income Supplement |
Food insecurity and the absence of legal identity are the most severe deficiencies in vital and existential human capabilities. These extreme situations expose ‘scandalous inequalities’ between the haves and have-nots on a global scale. The article proposes addressing these issues simultaneously by introducing a Humanity Identity Card (HIC), coupled with a Basic Income Supplement (BIS) of US$ 1 per day for the most vulnerable half of the world’s population. This global social policy aims to expedite the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals 16.9 and 2.1 of the United Nations. The initial funding for the HIC could be sourced from contributions amounting to 0.66% of the gross domestic product of sovereign states, 0.66% of the market capitalisation of major corporations, and 0.66% of the wealth of billionaire households. The HIC would permanently provide universal recognition of individual identity, while the BIS is designed to be gradually phased out as its benefits take effect. Additionally, implementing this policy worldwide can foster a sense of shared responsibility in addressing the global challenges humanity faces. | More details Read publication | |
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Journal Article |
Journal Article | 2025 |
Space-Sets: Introducing and Testing a Multi-Dimensional Measure of Individual Transnational Mobility |
Existing research on the transnational mobility of individuals tends to rely on limited and possibly misleading indicators. Arguing that mobility experiences are in fact multidimensional and cumulative over the course of a lifetime, this paper proposes a novel concept called ‘space-set’ and applies it to representative samples of the population in France, Germany and Italy (ELIPSS, GP.pop and Doxa surveys). A space-set is defined as the collection of each person’s geographical places known through first-hand experience. In a transnational perspective, its key dimensions are Size (the number of countries visited), Width (the farthest distance traveled), and Focus (being emotionally attached or not to more than one country). This new indicator measures individual-level inequalities of geographical mobility. As a proof of concept, the empirical part of the paper uses space-sets to address two research questions that loom large in different strands of the literature on social transnationalism: on the one hand, the social stratification of cross-border travel, on the other the association between transnational mobility and supranational orientations (i.e., cosmopolitan and pro-EU attitudes). Results confirm that space-sets are socially stratified by both class and education, and that larger, wider, and more transnationally oriented space-sets are associated with supranational orientations. Comparatively, all dimensions of space-sets are stronger in the German population than in their French and Italian counterparts. | More details Read publication | |
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Conference Paper / Proceedings |
Conference Paper / Proceedings | Migration brokerage, Indonesia, sending region | 2024 |
Exploring the impact of sending companies on Indonesian labor migration trajectories |
Labor migration from Indonesia relies heavily on intermediaries, particularly migrant sending companies, which constitute a crucial part of the migration infrastructure. While recent research has increasingly focused on the facilitative role of intermediaries in channeling individual migrants' cross-border labor mobility, this study examines these intermediaries as distinct actors who have unique identities, exhibiting diverse resources and practices that significantly influence migrants' migratory trajectories. Based on extensive fieldwork data collected in Indonesia and dozens of interviews with representatives of a diverse sample of sending companies and migrant work seekers across different regions, this presentation sheds light on how sending companies' identities are shaped by their historical backgrounds, cultural values, and organizational history. These distinct identities are manifested in their transnational networks, their relationship with the governing bodies, the types of employment opportunities they offer, and their operational approaches in the migration business. We demonstrate how such varying identities of sending companies play a pivotal role in shaping migrant workers' migration trajectories, particularly in determining the choice of destination country, occupation, and the conditions under which they migrate. The existence of different sending companies creates specific channels that influence divergent migration paths to various countries pursued by migrant workers and their potential wellbeing. | More details |
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Conference Paper / Proceedings |
Conference Paper / Proceedings | migration brokerage, migration industry, labor migration, Indonesia | 2025 |
Building the channels, keeping the gates: The role of intermediaries in shaping differentiated transnational labor mobilities out of Indonesia |
Indonesia is one of the largest labor sending countries in Asia. While Indonesian workers are seen in many different countries and different occupations, there are salient regional patterns of labor migration: Domestic workers often come from East and Central Java; Workers bound for Malaysia primarily hail from North Sumatra and West Nusa Tenggara. Moreover, while workers from North Sumatra are more likely to work in factories, those from West Nusa Tenggara mostly work in palm oil plantations. Women from Lombok, on the other hand, often work as domestic workers in Hong Kong and Taiwan instead of Malaysia. Meanwhile, some regions’ outbound labor mobilities are more diverse and the destinations have also changed over the time, such as West Java. How can we understand such regional patterns and changes? Sociologists explain the mechanisms for shaping transnational migration trajectories and patterns by emphasizing accumulative causation, especially the effects of social networks (Massey 1993). Recently, researchers have introduced more feedback mechanisms in the explanation of migration corridors, bringing in influences of social media as well as the changing economic conditions in sending and receiving countries (Bakewell et al. 2016). This literature misses the role of intermediaries. This paper investigates the shaping mechanisms of such transnational labor mobility patterns from the vantage point of the intermediaries. Using national labor mobility data as well as interviews with sending companies in different regions of Indonesia between 2022 and 2024, this paper shows how the intersection of ethnicity, religion, gender and class create historical patterns of regional inequality in Indonesia, and such inequality has shaped regional patterns of migration and sustained and reproduced by intermediaries. | More details |
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Conference Paper / Proceedings |
Conference Paper / Proceedings | women brokers, migration industry | 2025 |
Brokering care: Women migration entrepreneurs in Indonesia |
Every year, hundreds of thousands of Indonesians migrate for work abroad, and over ninety-five percent of these workers are recruited through private agencies. Among the top 25 agencies, twelve are led by women. These female migration entrepreneurs vary in background and strategy: some specialize in dispatching domestic workers to single destinations, while others eschew care work to pursue placement in formal sectors such as manufacturing and services. Regardless of placement focus, their success—measured in deployment volume—is largely built on reputations for low-cost or zero-cost recruitment and placement efficiency. Yet these women are not merely businesspeople; they are entangled in the shifting politics of migration governance and industry competition. Drawing on interviews and ethnographic observations, this paper explores how these women navigate the moral and political terrain of labor brokerage. It highlights how they strive to uphold what they see as ethical recruitment practices, reimagine their work as a form of social service, and pursue a vision of gendered progress and worker dignity. | More details |
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Journal Article |
Journal Article | Venezuela | 2025 |
Pour une hospitalité élargie selon une perspective amérindienne |
Vers les années 1980, au Venezuela, j’ai écouté un récit relatif à un peuple originaire qui est resté gravé dans ma mémoire comme quelque chose qui devait être soigneusement analysé et travaillé à un moment donné, car il apportait un éclairage sur mes sentiments de l’époque, en tant que migrante et, par la suite, à ma pensée en tant que migrantologue : lorsque des personnes appartenant à un certain peuple entreprennent des voyages, une fois arrivés à leur destination, ils restent immobiles et silencieux pendant plusieurs heures, attendant que leur âme arrive et rejoigne leur corps. Ce peuple comprend que le corps se déplace plus vite que l’âme et que les mouvements liés au voyage et à la migration produisent un décalage entre l’ordre objectif du soma (corps) et l’ordre subjectif de la psyché (âme). Dans ce texte nous cherchons à comprendre cette scène à partir d’une perspective différente de l’hospitalité, en tant que moment spécifique et intensif d’un être par définition pluriel se tissant dans la Relation, le mouvement, et le devenir. Pour faire jouer différemment la relation espace-temps impliquée dans la migration, le voyage, l’arrivée et l’accueil, on abordera dans un premier temps de manière critique la tradition indo-européenne, en montrant comment la problématique générale de l’hospitalité a été enfermée dans les limites du don sacrificiel et de l’économie violente de l’identité/différence ; dans un deuxième temps, nous nous tournerons vers une autre façon de penser l’accueil, qui suppose l’altération et l’implication mutuelles de l’être-avec-autrui du nous-autrui, à partir des scènes amérindiennes qui fondent notre façon particulière de consteller le social… | More details |