Beyond Violence: Experiences of Flight In Turbulent Times

Contemporary and historical migration unfolds amid interconnected forms of violence, including war, displacement, climate disasters, labor exploitation, growing inequalities, and the enduring effects of colonialism and enslavement. While migration research has extensively documented these crises, migrants are often represented through categories such as refugees, labor migrants, victims of trafficking, or climate-displaced populations. This session focuses on migrants’ lived experiences and the ways they navigate, endure, and challenge conditions of violence and uncertainty. It invites contributions exploring how migrants construct belonging, sustain social relations, mobilize memories, develop practices of care, and imagine alternative futures. Contributions may examine transnational solidarities, informal infrastructures of support, and everyday practices through which people respond to displacement, violence, and exclusion. The session is also interested in how legal statuses, migration regimes, and institutional frameworks shape belonging and resistance.
Particular attention will be given to experiences that remain marginalized within dominant migration narratives. These may include migration shaped by the legacies of slavery and unfree labor, displacement linked to environmental degradation and climate change, experiences of war and so-called forced migration, and movements driven by gender- and sexuality-based violence, persecution, exclusion, or accusations within families and communities. The session also welcomes contributions that critically examine the analytical and political implications of defining, contesting, or rendering visible different forms of violence in migration contexts. Empirical and theoretical papers are welcome, with preference given to historical, biographical, ethnographic, and other qualitative approaches that foreground lived realities of mobility and (dis)placement.