Call for papers for the IMISCOE Spring Conference 2025 in Krems, Austria (17-19 March 2025) on "Migrant organizations and the governance of irregular migration.
Abstract
Migrant organizations (MOs) are significant actors in the governance of irregular migration. Many qualities that make them interesting partners for state and non-state entities (primarily their language and biography sensitivity, but also their low-threshold accessibility, see Van Dam 2016) apply even more so for reaching particularly precarious immigrants without secure residency or any legal status.
Recent research and theory-building on the conditions under which MOs can be involved in governance efforts have been extensive. Relevant models draw on neo-institutionalism, which emphasizes that organizations are characterized by (unreflective and unintended) routines in the face of societal expectations and thus are not rational actors in the strict sense. This contrasts with the perception of organizations as rational actors who seize political opportunities (see Tarrow 1983), unaffected by internal organizational logic. The Theory of Subjective Expected Utility (SEU Theory, see Lindenberg 1996), combines rational actor behavior with subjective utility expectations. Especially for MOs, identity-based self-perception shapes utility expectations and the evaluation of action options and political opportunities.
In recent years, an approach to analyzing the work of MOs has become popular, focusing on the empowerment of the organizations and their clientele (see, e.g., Li et al. 2018), which tends to contradict organizational sociological or political-economic approaches by equating organizational action with the articulation of (actual) clientele interests in the host country. Overall, in MOs, individuals interact and communicate based on personal motivations. At the same time, MOs act (situationally) under certain structural conditions (see Bloemraad et al. 2022, p. 319).
The study of MO activities aimed at irregular migrants has been underrepresented within the outlined framework and is theoretically challenging, as political conditions for addressing irregularity vary greatly from country to country. This session presents research projects that contribute to explaining MO actions toward irregular immigrants.
References
Bloemraad, Irene/Chaudhary, Ali R./Gleeson, Shannon 2022: Immigrant Organizations. In: An-nual Review of Sociology 48, S. 319-341.
Li, Hanlin/ Dombrowski, Lynn/Brady, Erin 2018: Working toward Empowering a Community: How Immigrant-Focused Nonprofit Organizations Use Twitter during Political Conflicts. In: Group '18: Proceedings of the 2018 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work. NY (ACM), S. 335-346.
Lindenberg, Siegwart 1996: Theoriegesteuerte Konkretisierung der Nutzentheorie. Eine Rep-lik auf Kelle/Lüdermann und Opp/Friedrichs. In: Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozial-psychologie, Jg. 48, S. 560-565.
Tarrow, Sidney 1983: Straggling to Reform: Social Movements and Policy Change During Cycles of Protest. Western Societies Program Occasional Paper No. 15. Ithaca (Cornell University).
Van Dam, Sylvie 2016: Challenges and Capabilities: Real opportunities of migrant organisations and intervention strategies for local target-group driven poverty alleviation. Antwerp (University Dissertation).
Submit your abstract to:
Prof. Dr. Dirk Halm
Center for Studies on Turkey and Integration Research/InZentIM (Duisburg-Essen University)
0049 201 3198-302
www.zfti.de
Studied Political Science, Sociology, and Economic Policy at Münster University. M.A. in 1995, Ph.D. in 1997 from the same institution with a dissertation on German and European development aid policy. Habilitation in 2008 with the venia legendi for "Political Sociology." Research focuses: migration and civil society, political integration of Islam, social structure analysis of immigrant societies. Executive board member of the Foundation Center for Studies on Turkey and Integration Research at Duisburg-Essen University.
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