CFP: Migration, Force and Violence

Migration, Force and Violence

Workshop at University of Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona

May 20-21 2021

Invited Speakers:

Paul Bou-Habib, Essex University

Sarah Fine, King’s College London

Helen Frowe, Stockholm Centre for the Ethics of War and Peace

Mollie Gerver, Essex University

Adam Hosein, Northeastern University

Victor Tadros, Warwick University

Migration ethics is a fast emerging field within political philosophy. Within the last decade, in particular, a number of valuable books and articles have been written assessing the strength of arguments for and against immigration restrictions. Nevertheless, the discussion has been frequently characterized by a degree of idealization. Philosophers have asked whether open borders would be required in an ideal world and whether restrictions are justified in principle. In this workshop, we aim to strip away these idealizations and consider the ethics of migration in light of some stark realities. Principal among them: the fact that migration is frequently marked by force and violence.

Many migrants are forced to leave their home countries due to violence or other hardships. In transit, they may be prey to criminals and armed groups. At borders, migrants are subjected to further force and violence as states use razor wire, guards, dogs, tear gas and sometimes live rounds to keep them out. To evade these measures, migrants will often venture out into seas, deserts and other dangerous terrain. The result is that thousands of migrants die every year trying to cross borders.

In this context, a number of important questions arise including:

- Are border restrictions worth their human costs in terms of suffering and loss of life?

- What is forced migration? What is voluntary migration?

- When people are forced to leave, do they have a right to return?

- Who is responsible for migrant deaths?

- What can be done to keep migrants safe?

- Do states have a duty to rescue migrants imperilled at their borders?

- Which border control measures, if any, can be justified?

- What is the ethical status of third country agreements such as those between the EU and Libya or the US and Mexico?

- Is there anything to be learnt from the study of force and violence in other fields, such as just war theory, that could prove relevant to migration?

We invite submissions on these or any other question related to the theme.

Please send a 300-500 word abstract as an anonymised pdf with the email subject line “Submission” to [email protected]

Have questions? Please email [email protected]

Submission deadline: September 1 2020.

This workshop is made possible with the support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 842176.