Call for papers: Venezuela, Dispersed: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Venezuelan Migration and the Diaspora / Venezuela, dispersa: perspectivas interdisciplinarias sobre la migración venezolana y la diáspora

Deadline for proposals: 11 February 2022.

A hybrid conference, online and at the University of Exeter.

Organisers: Katie Brown (Exeter) & Rebecca Irons (UCL)

To be held online on 11 May 2022.

Supported by the IMLR Regional Conference Fund.

With around 6 million displaced people, the Venezuelan emergency is one of the most significant migratory crises in the contemporary world, making it an urgent and worthy topic of study and debate. Whilst Venezuelans have been emigrating steadily over the last two decades, the relatively recent surge from 2015 onwards has presented a fast-changing landscape that necessitates an interdisciplinary lens to better understand and address the ongoing emergency. Never have the influence of global events on the migration emergency been more salient than in the pandemic context, where refugees and displaced people have found themselves disproportionately affected by border closures and the withdrawal of humanitarian aid. However, not all Venezuelans have been equally impacted upon by the political and economic upheavals of recent years, and the migratory destinations of choice and/or necessity deeply influence the experiences and needs of the wider diaspora, amongst other varying factors. In order to understand the spectrum of experience it is important to capture these disparate narratives from across academic disciplines, art & culture, and the third sector.

The conference will include a keynote from Cinzia de Santis, CEO & Founder, Healing Venezuela and a closing event with a reading of poetry by Venezuelan migrants.

Our proposed themes are:

1) Migration law, asylum, and labour

2) Migration, medicine, and psychology

3) Narratives of migration: oral testimonies, journalism and literature

We plan to provide Spanish-English translation so that the conference can attract a bilingual audience, commensurate with the proposed topic of discussion. Papers will take place in the afternoon and evening to facilitate participation from the Americas.

We are particularly keen to include participation of research students, postdoctoral candidates, and early career researchers, and will offer a competitive bursary to support costs of in-person attendance for UK based researchers (as presenters and/or audience).

Following the conference, we will seek to publish a journal special issue featuring the papers presented.

Furter details https://bit.ly/3A4AjVv