Organizers: Jessie Clark (University of Nevada, Reno) & Lauren Fritzsche (University of Arizona)
Discussant: Lise Nelson (University of Arizona)
Deadline for abstracts: October 18, 2019
This session critically examines the role of place and place-making in new geographies of refugee resettlement and immigration. Today, longstanding refugee and immigration policies and commitments are dramatically changing in the Global North, and they reflect and shape a new geography of where and how people are settling. Amidst these changes, geographers are seeking to understand how places are important sites of policy-making and negotiation over belonging, race/racialization, and identity in the context of resettlement and immigration. Places are not passive recipients of broader policies or rhetoric; they are the “locus” (Massey, 1994) where global and national flows meet the “sociohistorical legacies of localities” (Matos, 2017) in the welcome or exclusion of people. We are interested in papers that explore the experience of refugees, immigrants, and receiving communities through the lens of place to understand how characteristics of place and socio-economic, racial, and political histories interact with processes of settlement and resettlement. We seek papers that address but are not limited to the following:
- The processes and practices of refugee and immigrant settlement in new and non-traditional destinations
- Everyday and embodied experiences of refugees and immigrants in new and non traditional destinations
- Racist and anti-racist practices in place and impacts of place-based legacies of racism on the settlement process and experience
- Negotiations of immigrant and refugee belonging, inclusion, and/or exclusion in place
- Place-based policies, initiatives, and responses to refugee and immigrant settlement
- Place-based negotiations with infrastructural and financial disinvestment in resettlement and immigration resources
Submission of abstracts: Please email enquiries and abstracts (250 words) to Jessie Clark (jessieclark@unr.edu) and Lauren Fritzsche (fritzsche@email.arizona.edu) by October 18. Authors will be notified by October 25, and must register for the conference and submit their abstracts through the AAG website by the October 30 deadline to be added to the paper session.
Massey, D. B. (1994). Space, place, and gender. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Matos, Y. (2017). Geographies of Exclusion: The Importance of Racial Legacies in Examining State-Level Immigration Laws. American Behavioral Scientist, 61(8), 808–831. doi.org/10.1177/0002764217720480