Celebratory Migranticization? Questioning the Histories and Practices of Racialization in the Arts
We are a transdisciplinary research collective interested in critical approaches and creative engagements with arts, aesthetics, and race in migration and diaspora studies. In this panel, we invite our fellow scholars to a dialogue on why we should question the contemporary emphasis on social cohesion in projects of art and culture involving migrants. The connection between art and integration is part of the history of cultural policy, which can be defined as a sustained effort on behalf of the state to turn culture into a resource for a unified and inclusive sense of national culture. Initially, these policies focused on democratization through programs of accessibility directed at the working class. However, what once was an effort to bridge barriers of class and education is today often directly addressing perceived social problems related to migration. This shift from democratization and accessibility to social cohesion and integration is producing new concerns for researchers studying art in the context of migration.
We invite fellow scholars at all career stages to critically reflect on existing discourses of celebratory migranticization and diversification in the arts and look forward to exploring these topics and their multiple intersections across a broad spectrum of geographies, languages and disciplines. We thereby wish to challenge instrumentalist understandings of art and to better grasp the stakes of migranticized cultural projects.
Questions we engage: • How do we build on and draw from the existing scholarship on racialization to better understand the ways in which art and culture is being mobilized to produce social cohesion in migrant populations? • How can or should we interrogate the role of institutions such as universities, museums, city councils and ministries, schools, private and public art funding organizations etc. that fortify ideologies of integration and uphold the structures of racialization through what we call the migranticization of the racialized ‘other’? • How can a reflexive form of migration studies examine, interrogate and draw attention to issues of racialization and inequality impacting migrants and migranticized actors in the arts (as creators, cultural producers, audiences, consumers) across a variety of domains, from activism to cultural policy and creative practices?
We consider this workshop as a kick-off to a larger discussion that will: • Bring our members’ work into conversation with each other • Provide virtual and in-person forums for reflection, discussion and exchange • Develop intellectual and creative resources for publication in academic and non-academic platforms
If you would like to participate in this workshop, please send a short bio (100 words) and an abstract (250) words by December 3 to
We will submit the workshop to the IMISCOE submission portal by December 5. Membership at IMISCOE is required once the workshop has been accepted to the program for the annual conference, which takes place in a hybrid format in Warsaw 3-6 July, 2023.
https://www.imiscoe.org/events/imiscoe-events/1612-20th-imiscoe-annual-conference
This call can be downloaded default here (81 KB) .