Calls for Papers issued by GMR (2016-2021):

Call for Papers:

Global Structural Injustice and Minority Rights

Deadline Extended: August 1, 2019 

Date: Friday, March 13 – Sunday, March 15, 2020

Location: Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA

Keynote Speakers

Avigail Eisenberg, University of Victoria

Stephen Gardiner, University of Washington

Catherine Lu, McGill University

For full CFP, see here.

Call for Papers: 

Political theory of LGBTQ migrants and refugees, November 30, 2018, University of Ottawa

LGBTQ migration, and the treatment of LGBTQ migrants and refugees, raise several ethical and political theoretical questions that are distinct from the general questions of migration. The current migration flows, immigration and admission policies, as well as modes of integration, are all affected by different notions – and expectations – of a person’s sexual and gender identity. On the one hand, LGBTQ migrants and refugees are among the most vulnerable groups in global migration movements; on the other, the movement of affluent LGBTQ persons within western cities and metropoles tells a very different story about LGBTQ migration.

This workshop brings together political philosophers, ethicists and other experts on migration to discuss the political theoretical challenges of global migration and refugee movements with a specific focus on LGBTQ perspectives. The possible topics include (but are not restricted) to

-        The duties of states and/or civic society to LGBTQ migrants and refugees

-        The ethics of prioritizing (or not) LGBTQ refugee admissions

-        The treatment of testimony of LGBTQ refugees in asylum processes

-        LGBTQ integration and the effects of LGBTQ migration on the host society, especially in the context of racial and cultural difference

-        The adverse effects of migration on LGBTQ persons and communities

The papers will be pre-circulated and workshoppers will be expected to have read them in advance.

Confirmed speakers include Avigail Eisenberg (Victoria), Cyril Ghosh (Wagner), Matthew Lister (Deakin), and Christine Straehle (Ottawa).

Expressions of interest/abstracts of 300-500 words should be sent to Patti Tamara Lenard and Annamari Vitikainen by August 1, 2018.

The workshop is organized by the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, at the University of Ottawa in cooperation with UiT The Arctic University of Norway and the Globalizing Minority Rights project (www.uit.no/research/gmr)

See the program here. 

Refugees and minority rights:

Acceptable and unacceptable criteria for accepting/rejecting refugees in a non-ideal world

 14-15 June 2018

UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Campus Tromsø

Submission deadline: 15 January 2018

Keynote speakers:

David Miller (Oxford)

Sarah Fine (KCL)

Serena Parekh (Northeastern)

Kieran Oberman (Edinburgh)

Lea Ypi (LSE)

Phillip Cole (UWE)

Faced with the worst displacement crisis since the second world war, many states are unlikely to accept as many refugees as they ought, and very few are likely to accept more than they are required. So though some refugees will be admitted, many with sound claims will thus be wrongfully rejected. Are some ways of wrongfully rejecting refugees less objectionable than others? If “yes”, is it then morally justifiable to give priority to refugees who flee from worse forms discrimination or persecution of minority groups than refugees who flee less severe forms of discrimination?  

In the abstract, this might seem like a reasonable position. Yet, many have found it objectionable to give priority to Christian refugees from the Middle East – especially without a similar scheme for Muslim refugees from countries where they experience comparable forms of discrimination. Furthermore, giving priority to refugees on the basis of the degree to which they experience discrimination and prosecution in the countries from which they flee might involve drastic divergences from present patterns of asylum admittances. For instance, given the widespread and severe discrimination women and homosexuals face in many parts of the world, should such refugees be given priority, considering fewer men and heterosexuals would then be admitted?

Some might reject the very idea of sorting refugees who all merit asylum into different groups – triage for refugees as it were. And some may instead reject the particular principle of risk of persecution for the distribution of asylum, on the basis of this principle’s implications. If so, which alternative or additional principles should regulate the admission of refugees? 

This conference aims to tackle such issues by addressing the question: What role ought minority protection play, and, more generally, what are the right principles of admitting and rejecting refugees when asylum, whether permanent or temporary, is under-supplied in a non-ideal world? What are the implications for the present situation given the correct answer to the previous questions? And should we at all consider prioritizing among refugees? If not, why not? 

How to submit:

300-500 word abstracts should be sent to tromsoconference2018@list.uit.no by 15 January 2018.

Notifications of acceptance will be sent during February 2018.

Full papers are to be circulated in advance, by 4 June 2018.

The organizing committee, led by Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen (Aarhus & UiT) and Annamari Vitikainen (UiT), will invite selected papers to participate in a special symposium, to be published after the conference.

Organizers:

Globalizing Minority Rights: Cosmopolitanism, Global Institutions, and Cultural Justice (GMR) research project (www.uit.no/research/gmr) / Norwegian Research Council (NFR 259017),

Pluralism, Democracy, and Justice (PDJ) research group (www.uit.no/pdj),

Department of Philosophy, UiT The Arctic University of Norway.