College Year in Athens is proud to announce its 4th Annual Student Conference: “People on the Move – Migration, Refugees, and Human Mobility in Past and Present” The conference will take place in Athens on May 4 & 5, 2020.

In the past decade, issues pertaining to migration and human mobility have come to the fore in the social sciences. Today, abject poverty, civil and interstate warfare, and climate change continue to cause many to cross international borders, be it in North America, Australia, Asia, or Europe. Consequently, in many countries, refugee camps have become a reality of daily life, and immigration policies often define national political discourse. Scholars from various disciplines in the social sciences as well as the humanities are thus increasingly focusing on the study of migration in both past and present. We hereby invite young CYA scholars to present their original research pertaining to different aspects of migration studies. The conference will be divided into three separate sessions, with four or five papers selected per session by the organizing committee.

Session 1: Archaeology, Ancient History, and Migration Studies

Advances in ancient DNA and strontium isotope analysis allowing us to track past human mobility as well as a pressing theoretical need to analyze and comprehend conflict-induced and environmentally-generated migration in antiquity have led to an impressive rise in archaeological and historical research on these topics in recent years. Papers dealing with theoretical and empirical issues of ancient migration in the prehistoric, ancient Greek, Roman, and medieval periods will be presented in this session.

Session 2: Human Mobility, Politics, and Economy in the Modern World

The modern world as we know it was, to a great extent, shaped by refugees and economic migrants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The situation is little different today, and immigration continues to be an intensely debated topic in Europe and elsewhere since immigrants keep pushing the borders of nation-states as they flee from active war zones, politically oppressive countries, and areas that have recently become uninhabitable because of climate change. Papers concerning the economic, political, and social aspects of modern immigration will be presented in this session.

Session 3: Refugees in Athens: The Changing Face of the City

Athens has always been one of the first European stops for refugees coming from the East and typically headed thereafter to Northern European countries. However, following the Dublin III Regulation and the recent closure of central European borders, Greece, and Athens in particular, has gradually become more than a temporary stop for many. Refugees have consequently had a profound impact on Athens in terms of cuisine, the arts and music scenes, and both pro-immigrant and anti-immigrant political activism. In this session, papers on the anthropological, political, and cultural effects of immigration in contemporary Athenian and Greek society will be presented. Both theoretical and empirical papers are welcome.

For submissions / inquiries please contact the Committee Chair at [email protected]

Deadline for Abstracts (Papers and Posters): February 28, 2020