Konferenz/Kongress/Symposium
Humanrightization in Migration Societies: Conditions, Forms, Consequences
Our invitation
The research group MeDiMi welcomes proposals for presentations on legal, political, and everyday struggles concerning the human rights of migrants in today’s societies.
Context
The conference is taking place at a time of political and social change. In recent years, the human rights of migrants are increasingly and systematically being called into question. Migration laws and policies are becoming ever more restrictive, and everyday discourse is frequently dominated by hostility toward migrants and the very idea of a migration society. Such reinforced exclusionary practices have led to a widespread perception that critical and rights-based perspectives are being marginalized. Actors who mobilize human rights when striving for the inclusion of migrants frequently find themselves on the defensive, trying to protect “achievements” made during a phase of expansion against regression (“human rights backlash”). We may currently be witnessing a fundamental change in a constellation that has emerged over the past 30 years, in which human rights have opened up a discursive space for challenging migration control and exclusionary practices.
The MeDiMi project
The interdisciplinary research group “Human Rights Discourse in Migration Societies” (MeDiMi) is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). We study discursive practices in migration-related conflicts: How do human rights law, semantics, images, and narratives function in the context of migration? MeDiMi focuses primarily on the practices of actors who advocate for the inclusion of migrants and, explicitly or implicitly, mobilize human rights as a normative resource: as a legal argument, a moral-political claim, or a maxim of (professional) ethics. Combining legal analysis, social-science research, and cultural studies, we develop a practice theory of human rights that is centered on the concept of humanrightization.
The conference
With this multidisciplinary conference, we aim to present and discuss our empirical and conceptual findings and to continue a dialogue with other researchers working in related fields, thus facilitating exchange across established communities and disciplinary boundaries. The conference in May 2026 concludes MeDiMi’s first research period, while the renewal application for the second one (2026–2030) is pending. For the state of our theory development, see our discussion paper here.
Practical information
Contact: MeDiMi(at)recht.uni-giessen.de