Walking through the streets of Cork, a recent mural by the artist Claire Coughlan reads:

“Let no Irishman throw a stone at the foreigner; he may hit his own clansman’’— James Connolly

It is a striking reminder of Connolly’s vision of solidarity – one that rejects the politics of exclusion and recognises the shared histories of displacement and oppression. Yet, beneath this powerful appeal lies a deeper tension: what does it mean for a postcolonial, now increasingly diverse Ireland, to memorialise Connolly’s words at a time when the anti-immigration far-right movement is fuelling hostility and discrimination against migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Ireland?

South Korea has emerged as a significant new site for observing migration-mobilities and migration politics in East Asia. The MIGMOBS project is currently engaged in work, involving post-doc Meiyun Meng, Gracia Liu-Farrer (Waseda University, Tokyo), and Adrian Favell on patterns and experiences of high skilled professional movers from China in Seoul and Tokyo. 

MIGMOBS PI Adrian Favell travelled to Korea in late November to attend a major conference in Asian Studies at Seoul National University, "Mega-Asia: A New Perspective on Asia". 

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.

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.

MIGMOBS has had some busy weeks in June and July! Our action shifted to Madrid and then Paris.

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.

Dr Kheira Arrouche is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the MIGMOBS project at University College Cork, where she leads a study on African migration and mobility in Ireland. Her research focuses on four key African migrant communities: Nigerians, Somalis, Algerians, and South Africans, examining how these groups navigate Ireland’s evolving migration regime and transnational mobility networks.

https://www.peoplesrepublicofcork.com/articles/every-fela-is-welcome-in-cork

MIGMOBS post-doctoral researcher, Pamungkas A. Dewanto (Yudha), who is based in Waseda University is conducting research on Indonesian migrant workers in four countries: Malaysia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Taiwan under the Co-PI, Gracia Liu-Farrer, Professor of Sociology, at the Graduate School of Asia Pacific Studies, Waseda University. 

Adrian Favell discusses "The Orders and Borders of Global Inequality: Rethinking Migration and Mobilities in the Era of Neoliberalism and Beyond" at the Institute for European Studies, Cornell University, New York.

• Watch video here

This panel discussion event focussed on the theme of decentering the study of migration. We draw inspiration from the IMISCOE 2025 annual conference theme of decentring migration studies, to open up critical questions about current trends and historical legacies in contemporary migration scholarship and research. Decentering -- and associated themes of reflexivity and decolonialisation -- has, it seems, (finally) come centre-stage to the study of migration in all its forms.