The Migrant Body in South-South Migrations
University of Manchester, UK
Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th December 2025
As migrants traverse borders, their gendered bodies become sites of agency, struggle and transformation. A critical focus on the migrant body is increasingly recognised within migration studies as a productive way to engage with the embodied, everyday experiences of migrants and how these are shaped by gendered and racialised norms surrounding female and male bodies at every stage of the migration cycle. This conference aims to explore the migrant body as a starting point to better understand how migrants and their families encounter, resist and sometimes transform embodied manifestations of power and discrimination before, during and after their migration journeys.
We are calling for papers that will speak to this theme from an intersectional framing of these embodied experiences, highlighting how specific constellations of gender, race, class and other factors shape migrant trajectories in different contexts. We are interested in the whole migration process (before, during and after migration) and the many ways in which migrants encounter, resist and also transform embodied manifestations of power and discrimination. Possible examples include: bodily notions of purity and stigma among migrant women and men; analyses of violence, surveillance and the efforts of the patriarchal state to control migrant bodies; examinations of how these systems of surveillance and control are enacted by and over family and community members who remain in the homeland; how migrants, or organisations who work on their behalf, use migrant bodies to resist these practices and experiences; physical and mental health and wellbeing; sexuality; self-care; and spirituality.
While much of the existing literature concerns itself with South-North migration, the ‘othering’ of migrant bodies driven by gender, race and other factors is also pervasive throughout the migration cycle within the Global South. The aim of this conference is to create a space where we can present and discuss new conceptual framings as well as empirical evidence that address varied but inter-connected dimensions of the gendered and racialised embodied experience of migrants in the Global South. We also welcome papers that are more conceptual but nevertheless relevant to the theme of the conference.
Submission Details
Deadline for extended abstract (up to 500 words) submission: 2nd June 2025
Responses from conference organisers: 7th July 2025
Draft papers (approx. 4,000 words) due: 10th October 2025
Please use this link to submit your abstract.
We have funding to cover travel expenses for a small number of speakers. We will prioritise PhD students, early career researchers and others, who may otherwise not be able to participate at the conference.
Any questions, contact Tanja Bastia: tanja.bastia@manchester.ac.uk
With thanks to our funders: University of Manchester’s Hallsworth Fund and the British Academy
Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash