Return: Workshop

CMDS hosts a two-day workshop centred on the concept of and the practices associated with “return.” We would like to collectively re-think ‘the right to leave and return to one’s country’ as reflected in Article 13(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to discuss the impact of border regimes on the return projects of refugees and migrants. We aim to initiate a conversation that rethinks our understanding of refugeehood and citizenship within the domain of return projects. This conversation is situated within a broader context of proliferating repressive border regimes, ongoing wars, fragile transitions to peace, a nd shifting dynamics of regional and global diplomacy. Return as untimely possibility, 

17 October

Wayward Returns: Temporary Refugees, (In) Visible Border Crossers, and Exceptional Citizens on the Turkish-Syrian Border. Özge Biner and Zerrin Özlem Biner, SOAS and College de France 

“We don’t return, we arrive.” Staying, returning and arriving in Palestine. Ruba Salih, Università di Bologna 

Post deportation? Shahram Khosravi, Stockholm University 

Discussant: Dina Matar, SOAS Return as a site of intervention, 

18 October  

Temporalities of Return: Between Deferred and Imposed Exile Dana Erekat, Save the Children Jordan. 

“From every river to every sea”. Return and the decolonization of laws and borders Enrica Rigo, Università Roma 3

Emplacing Return. Laura Hammond, SOAS 

The Right to Freedom of Movement. Camilo Perez-Bustillo, Instituto Fronterizo Esperanza El Paso 

Beyond the ‘Borders of Berlin’? West African perspectives on German immigration enforcement Aino Korvensyrjä, Migration Mobilities Bristol. 

Long Table: a discussion

This two-day event will culminate with a Long Table, “a dinner party structured by etiquette, where conversation is the only course”. Speakers and audience will be invited to reflect on what has been discussed, with the aim of acknowledging “the sometimes uncomfortable side of both private exchange and public engagement, while celebrating the potential for new forms of knowledge-making and -sharing”.