The proceedings of a recent workshop examining questions of migration and citizenship has just been published and is available on the Irish Humanities Alliance website (pdf). The document is called Migration and Humanities: Critical Challenges, and offers thorough engagement with issues in migration by numerous academics working in the humanities, as well as key recommendations.
This workshop was funded by the Irish Research Council and sponsored by the Irish Humanities Alliance, of which Dean of GradCAM Prof. Noel Fitzpatrick is Chair.
Prof. Fitzpatrick provides the forward of this document:
Migration raises fundamental questions, not just about who we are and where we come from,but also what it means to belong to a nation state and to be recognised by the state as acitizen or a potential citizen or a transitory citizen. When a recognition of the ‘transitory’ or‘transitioning’ citizen takes place there is an obligation to acknowledge basic human rights:the rights to education and the right to work. The demand to be recognised/acknowledgedwithin the nation state as a citizen or transitory citizen is one of the major challenges ofcontemporary Europe and is perhaps, more broadly, a challenge to the EU project itself.The positive intercultural and interlinguistic experience offered by the movement of peopleis often overlooked by more populist discourses in relation to the fear of the other.In June 2017 the Irish Humanities Alliance (IHA) put in place a forum to raise thesequestions as part of our annual conference in 2017 and the results of these interventions anddiscussions are presented here. We have also provided some recommendations arising fromthis in relation to the Humanities and Migration in the hope that these recommendations canbe acted upon in the very near future. Moreover, as we go to print, we welcome the fact thatfour of our member HEIs – DCU, UCC, UCD and UL – are recognised as designated ‘Universitiesof Sanctuary’ for asylum seekers and refugees while other member HEIS are currently aimingfor that status by fostering a culture of inclusion for all.