In cooperation with the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Goethe University and the network Peace and Conflict Studies in Anthropology (PACSA) of the European Association of Social Anthropologists we held the international conference “Im/mobilities: Products and generators of conflict”, from 2 to 4 September.
The world is increasingly defined by, and realized in, the movement and circulation of people, goods and ideas. However, the same processes that promote movement and mobility also produce the contrary, namely, immobility, exclusion and disconnection. In order to highlight how im/mobility dynamics work within situations of conflict and peace the focus was set on constellations of power, the creation of identities and the everyday.
Prof. Tobias Kelly from Edinburgh University opened the meeting on 2 September with a keynote lecture on “The immobility of human rights”. More than thirty participants from eleven countries engaged in lively discussions and presented their research in the following two days, on causes, effects, and contradictions of im/mobilities. The conference was jointly organized by PD Dr Birgit Bräuchler (Goethe University), Dr Sabine Mannitz (PRIF) and Dr Erella Grassiani, Dr Nerina Weiss and Andreas Hackl from PACSA.