IMISCOE 8th Annual Conference: Warsaw, 9 September 2011

Call for papers

The local Policymaking of Interculture between national integration policy, diversity, cohesion and development

Organised in the context of the Imiscoe Standing Committee on The multilevel governance of migration and integration policy by Tiziana Caponio (FIERI) and Ricard Zapata (GRITIM-UPF)

In the context of the Standing Committee on ‘The Multilevel Governance of Migration and Integration Policy’, a special focus on intercultural policymaking as emerging at a local level and in the context of relations with other levels of government appears of a particular interest. The motto “Together in diversity” of the 2008 EU intercultural year (Decision n. 1983/2006/EC) clearly points out the ambition of building, out of group differences and individual diversity, a cohesive and integrated society. Cities cannot but represent strategic contexts under this respect, since it is at a local level that contacts between different cultural, ethnic, linguistic and/or religious groups take place daily, and the necessity for effective conditions of interaction is most urgently felt.Current EU agenda insists to invest major political efforts in underlining that diversity enriches, and it is not only a problem to be ‘managed’.

Nevertheless, the concept of intercultural policy is still far from being clear and research on how this discourse is being articulated in different local contexts in terms of specific policy actions are still scarce.  In this WS we look for different strategies that can strength the inter-link between diversity, cohesion, and development of the city in cultural and social terms.

This WS intends to contribute to the emerging academic debate on the local governance and policymaking of intercultural relations by addressing key-questions such us: How can we define a policy committed to diversity? How cities can transform into action their commitment to diversity? And more in particular, how a city can transform what initially may be viewed as a conflict into a public resource contributing to consolidate it as factor of development and cohesion? What are the resources and the constraints set by other levels of government in the pursuing of intercultural policy at a local level? And what is the difference between diversity and intercuturality? What intercultural policy means in practice?

The final aim is to benchmark the policies seeking to link diversity, interculturality, cohesion and development, analysing local policy-making processes on interculture in the context of national and supra-national integration policies, and envisage further research.

We welcome theory-based papers as well as empirical ones, city-specific or comparative, that can help to frame this research programme.

Paper proposals should contain a preliminary title, an abstract of 500 words. The abstract should contain a clearly stated research question, indications of methodology and/or approach and key references. Please submit paper proposals by 20^th of July 2011 to tiziana.caponio@unito.it and to ricard.zapata@upf.edu.

The authors of accepted proposals will be asked to submit full draft versions of their papers until 1 September 2011.

The Standing Committee on The Multilevel Governance of Migration will cover travel and/or accommodation of those participants who have presented an accepted abstract and do not have any other funds. The Standing Committee will not cover the conference fees.