We live in a rapidly changing world in which refugees and forced migration have a significant impact on the economic, political and social agendas of sovereign states, intergovernmental agencies and civil society groups.

Today, tens of millions of people are refugees, raising fundamental challenges for governments around the world. The definition of a refugee, as enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention, is someone who ‘is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.’ But this definition has been regularly challenged over the past 60 years, and is under constant review by academics, governments and humanitarian agencies. Many forcibly displaced people around the world do not easily fit within this formal category.

The conference takes a critical approach to question normative understandings and address empirical puzzles regarding how refugees and international refugee advocacy networks mobilize international and national law and policies to offer new understandings of refugee protection and vulnerabilities. All research seeking to deepen understandings regarding how national institutions define, mediate and respond to refugee legal concerns in crisis will be taken into consideration. In addition to the contemporary refugee crises, historical case studies will be an important part of the event.

Scholars from difference fields such as political science, history, sociology, anthropology, gender studies, urban studies, architecture, literature, poetry, art history, life sciences and other fields are welcomed to propose their interdisciplinary work at the conference.