Call for Papers: 2027 IMISCOE Annual Conference, United for Human Rights and Global Equity, Submission Deadline- 28 September 2026
Human rights are grounded in the claim of universality: that all humans are inherently entitled to dignity, protection, justice and fundamental freedoms. Yet, both historically and in the present, the category of the ‘human’ has been unevenly constructed and selectively applied. While human rights frameworks have provided important legal, institutional, and political tools for advancing protection and justice, they have also emerged through historically uneven trajectories, often shaped by Eurocentric assumptions and limited engagement with colonial realities. Migrants and minorities – particularly those who are undocumented, racialised, displaced, or come from formerly colonised contexts – have frequently been excluded from full recognition within these frameworks. At the same time, contemporary attacks on rights protections in areas such as asylum, deportation, family reunification, and mobility governance raise pressing concerns about the erosion of established safeguards. Across the globe, migration is increasingly shaped by tightening border regimes, selective mobility policies, and the persistence of racialised and socio-economic hierarchies.
The 2027 IMISCOE Annual Conference, United for Human Rights and Global Equity, invites critical and interdisciplinary engagement with these tensions. The event seeks to examine how migration and racism intersect with broader structures of inequality, including colonial legacies, capitalism, and geopolitical asymmetries. Migration is not only about movement across borders; it is a key arena in which inclusion, exclusion, and belonging are negotiated and institutionalised. We encourage contributions that examine how legal, political, and social frameworks shape access to human rights for migrants and their descendants, as well as how migration and racial regimes undermine, redefine or contest these rights.
Particular attention will be given to the conceptual and empirical limits of existing human rights practices: Under what conditions are people recognised as rights-bearing subjects? How has the ‘human’ in human rights been conceptualised over time and how has dehumanisation been resisted? How do we ‘unite’ in solidarity for human rights across geographical, racial, class, gender and sexualities divides? How do legal and policy regimes enable, constrain, or transform access to rights? In what ways might rights-based approaches obscure underlying inequalities, and where do they offer tools for contestation and change?
The conference aims to foster dialogue across disciplines, methodologies, perspectives, communities, and regions. It seeks to encourage exchange between academic research, policy debates and practice-based perspectives, including those of practitioners, civil society actors, and communities directly affected by migration and inequality. By centring inequality, racism, power, and resistance, it seeks to advance a more critical and inclusive understanding of human rights and to contribute to collective efforts toward global equity.
For the 24th IMISCOE Annual Conference in Brussels, we invite submissions of Individual Paper, Workshop, and Panel Proposals that critically examine the changing conditions of human rights for migrants and their descendants worldwide, including both the limitations of existing frameworks and contemporary challenges to rights protections. Contributions may adopt theoretical, empirical, or methodological approaches and may focus on any geographical context. Panels and workshops should be either fully in-person (with all participants at the venue) or fully online (with participants joining remotely). A very limited number of hybrid panels (up to a maximum of 5 sessions per time slot) could potentially be accommodated in exceptional circumstances (health issues, visa restrictions, special care needs), when duly justified and notified to the IMISCOE Network Office prior to the finalisation of the registration process.
Submissions for contributions are open from the 29th of June 2026.
Human rights are grounded in the claim of universality: that all humans are inherently entitled to dignity, protection, justice and fundamental freedoms. Yet, both historically and in the present, the category of the ‘human’ has been unevenly constructed and selectively applied. While human rights frameworks have provided important legal, institutional, and political tools for advancing protection and justice, they have also emerged through historically uneven trajectories, often shaped by Eurocentric assumptions and limited engagement with colonial realities. Migrants and minorities – particularly those who are undocumented, racialised, displaced, or come from formerly colonised contexts – have frequently been excluded from full recognition within these frameworks. At the same time, contemporary attacks on rights protections in areas such as asylum, deportation, family reunification, and mobility governance raise pressing concerns about the erosion of established safeguards. Across the globe, migration is increasingly shaped by tightening border regimes, selective mobility policies, and the persistence of racialised and socio-economic hierarchies.
The 2027 IMISCOE Annual Conference, United for Human Rights and Global Equity, invites critical and interdisciplinary engagement with these tensions. The event seeks to examine how migration and racism intersect with broader structures of inequality, including colonial legacies, capitalism, and geopolitical asymmetries. Migration is not only about movement across borders; it is a key arena in which inclusion, exclusion, and belonging are negotiated and institutionalised. We encourage contributions that examine how legal, political, and social frameworks shape access to human rights for migrants and their descendants, as well as how migration and racial regimes undermine, redefine or contest these rights.
Particular attention will be given to the conceptual and empirical limits of existing human rights practices: Under what conditions are people recognised as rights-bearing subjects? How has the ‘human’ in human rights been conceptualised over time and how has dehumanisation been resisted? How do we ‘unite’ in solidarity for human rights across geographical, racial, class, gender and sexualities divides? How do legal and policy regimes enable, constrain, or transform access to rights? In what ways might rights-based approaches obscure underlying inequalities, and where do they offer tools for contestation and change?
The conference aims to foster dialogue across disciplines, methodologies, perspectives, communities, and regions. It seeks to encourage exchange between academic research, policy debates and practice-based perspectives, including those of practitioners, civil society actors, and communities directly affected by migration and inequality. By centring inequality, racism, power, and resistance, it seeks to advance a more critical and inclusive understanding of human rights and to contribute to collective efforts toward global equity.
For the 24th IMISCOE Annual Conference in Brussels, we invite submissions of Individual Paper, Workshop, and Panel Proposals that critically examine the changing conditions of human rights for migrants and their descendants worldwide, including both the limitations of existing frameworks and contemporary challenges to rights protections. Contributions may adopt theoretical, empirical, or methodological approaches and may focus on any geographical context. Panels and workshops should be either fully in-person (with all participants at the venue) or fully online (with participants joining remotely). A very limited number of hybrid panels (up to a maximum of 5 sessions per time slot) could potentially be accommodated in exceptional circumstances (health issues, visa restrictions, special care needs), when duly justified and notified to the IMISCOE Network Office prior to the finalisation of the registration process.
Submissions for contributions are open from the 29th of June 2026.
For more details, refer here
