Call for Papers (CLOSED)

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Youth Mobility and Migration in Europe – Keep on Moving?
Pathways, Institutions and Structural Effects of Youth Mobility in Europe

7th – 9th of March 2018
University of Luxembourg

The Horizon 2020-Project MOVE “Mapping Mobility – pathways, institutions and structural effects of youth mobility in Europe” (move-project.eu), financed by the European Commission (Grant Agreement: 649263; Call: Young 2–2014: “Youth mobility: opportunities, impacts, policies”). The University of Luxembourg is glad to announce the final conference of the 3-year European research project on youth mobility.

We invite researchers and practitioners involved in youth work and youth information, as well as policy makers in the fields of migration/mobility, youth, and learning and employment to participate in this conference.

  • The Europe 2020 strategy sees the young generation as a driving force for smart, sustainable and economic growth. Young people are most likely to take the risk of moving abroad for education- or work-related reasons. Through innovative business strategies, they make an important contribution to social and economic developments. Considering the large number of young unemployed people in Europe, some see the 16-29 year olds as the “lost generation”, disadvantaged in the labour market. Intra-EU mobility programmes especially address young people, as mobility is seen as a measure to raise employability, to better match the needs of the labour markets in Europe and to offer new opportunities for young people. However, the numbers of mobile young people are not as high as expected. Regarding young people’s mobility, the main questions arising are: Who are the mobiles? Why and in which ways are they mobile?
  • What are fostering and hindering factors of youth mobility?
  • What are specific patterns of mobility during the life course and geographically?
  • What makes mobility a ‘good experience’, and what do young people really need?
  • Why do some young people prefer NOT to be mobile?
  • How do specific types of mobility differ (e.g. student mobility, pupil mobility, volunteering mobility, entrepreneurship mobility, employment mobility, mobility for vocational training)?
  • How are the transitions to adulthood linked with different forms of mobility?
  • How do patterns of mobility reflect social inequality (gender, impairment, country of origin)?
  • What are the economic effects of mobility at the regional, national, and international level, especially for the regions young people are leaving?

The conference will offer a platform for exchange and discussion about youth mobility in Europe. It will address the topic from different perspectives and reflect challenges, risks, and benefits of youth mobility in Europe.

Conference streams for the main conference

(Oral paper presentations)

  1. Mobility Policies and Politics

    This stream welcomes papers that discuss youth mobility policies on different types of mobility. Papers might discuss country-specific and international policies and politics, comparative studies, and historical analyses. The analysis of rationales underlying policy is of central interest within this stream.

  2. Mobility and Agency

    The body of literature on the agency-structure debate has grown over the last decades. Nevertheless, the field of youth mobility/migration has remained almost untouched in the discussion. It was only within the last decade that research on the intersection of migration and youth studies started paying attention to the question of how young people achieve agency under certain conditions, and which practices they develop under those conditions. For this reason, this stream opens for empirical and theoretical contributions that focus on agency within the contexts of mobility and migration. Related questions could also revolve around political/civic participation, social relations, social networks, and the interconnectedness of life course, transitions and agency.

  3. Social Inequality and Youth Mobility

    Mobility and non-mobility of young people closely relate to various dimensions of inequality that are of interest within this stream: inequalities between the EU-/EFTA-countries regarding economic conditions and welfare regimes; inequalities regarding the capacity to be mobile, e.g. formal education, spoken languages, social relations and networks; and inequalities regarding the individual socioeconomic and cultural background, mediating habitus and attitudes.

  4. Regional aspects (focus on post-socialist countries)

    This stream welcomes papers that discuss regional aspects of youth mobility/migration, such as specific patterns of mobility in post-socialist countries, changes of youth mobility after Brexit, the inner-European North-South and centre-periphery divisions. We also welcome papers on spatial inequalities and the consequences for regions young people are leaving.

  5. Economy and youth mobility

    Papers within this stream focus on incoming and outgoing mobility under an economic perspective and include questions of economic and social development. Empirical papers addressing micro-, meso- and macro-perspectives are also welcome. We are also looking for research on employability and youth unemployment, employment mobility and entrepreneurship on the move, as well as other types of mobility from an economic perspective.

  6. Culture and Youth Mobility

    Within this stream, presentations will discuss questions of European and cultural identity, cosmopolitanism and the role of belonging within contexts of youth mobility/migration. We are also looking for papers on (virtual) community building in transnational spaces and practices of (relational) identity building, as well as work on language and other cultural practices.

Proposal types

You are invited to submit abstracts for presentations of the two following types:

  1. Oral paper presentation

    Please submit an abstract of 500 words maximum and indicate the relevant conference stream.

  2. Symposium for research groups and networks – this format addresses groups of researchers working together on specific topics they want to present together

    Please submit one overall abstract (maximum 500 words) that describes the symposium theme, the work of the group/network on it, and the aim of the symposium. Additionally, please include one abstract per paper contribution (maximum 300 words). A symposium should include 3-4 presentations and focus on a topic not covered by one of the six streams.

Please include the following information in your abstract:

  1. Title
  2. Presenter(s) (Name/affiliation)
  3. Theoretical concepts / data / methods
  4. Results / main argument

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 24th of September 2017