Organizers:


University of Gdańsk (Poland)

McGill University (Canada)

InMind Support (Poland)



Organizing Committe:

Professor Wojciech Owczarski – University of Gdańsk: Department of Languages;

Research Unit for Dream, Memory and Imagination Studies

Amanda Chalupa and Deniz Kilinc – McGill University: Social & Transcultural Psychiatry



MIGRATION, ADAPTATION AND MEMORY: CALL FOR PAPERS:



How do we remember and represent our migration experiences? Who is involved in these processes? How does history remember these events and experiences? What helps migrants and societies to adapt? The significance of these and related questions have made their way into our daily lives. From the refugee crisis to policy decisions, individual psychotherapy to (re)building identities, communities, and memories, this year's conference themes are ever-present. We strongly believe in the value of approaching these topics from an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspective, in order to engage various perspectives on these pressing issues we encounter today.


The previous editions of the Memory series conferences, which have brought together more than five hundred scholars from around the world, have addressed the relationship between memory and solidarity (“Solidarity, Memory and Identity”, 2012), memory and dreams (“Dreams, Phantasms and Memories”, 2013), memory and forgetting (“Memory: Forgetting and Creating”, 2014), memory and nostalgia (“Memory, Melancholy and Nostalgia”, 2015), and trauma and recovery (“Memory, Trauma and Recovery”, 2016).


In 2017, we turn our attention to processes that are integral to human experience: migration, adaptation, and memory. We are interested in all aspects of migration and adaptation experience, in their individual and collective dimensions, in the past and in the present-day world. We would like to examine the role of memory, the processes of migrating and adapting to various dynamic life circumstances, across time, space, culture, language, and discipline.



Therefore, we strive to represent and discuss the crossroads of migration, adaptation, and memory in their multiple representations: psychological, social, historical, cultural, philosophical, religious, neurological, organizational, methodological, economic, political, and many others. As usual, we will also devote considerable attention to how these phenomena appear and transform in artistic practices: literature, film, theatre, and visual arts. This is why we invite researchers representing various academic disciplines: anthropology, history, psychiatry, psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology, politics, philosophy, economics, law, history of literature, theatre studies, film studies, design, project management, memory studies, migration studies, consciousness studies, dream studies, gender studies, postcolonial studies, medical sciences, cognitive sciences, and urban studies, to name a few.


Different forms of presentations are encouraged, including case studies, theoretical inquiries, personal reflections, problem-oriented arguments, comparative analyses, and creative expressions.


We will be happy to hear from experienced scholars and young academics, doctoral and graduate students, as well as professionals from various disciplines. We also invite all persons interested in participating in the conference as listeners, without the obligation to give a presentation.



Our repertoire of suggested topics includes but is not limited to:



Arts

- Literature, poetry, film, theatre, etc. as adaptive mediums

- Adaptation through artistic creation and destruction

- Artistic imagination and adaptation

- Migration as represented in arts

- Art created during migration

- Creative expression through memories



History

- Adaptation across history

- Memory processes in writing history

- Documenting history and memories in migration



Humanitarian work, Governments and NGOs

- Roles and responsibilities

- Management of temporary and transitory spaces

- Project management and evaluation

- Best practices

- Welcome contexts



Medical sciences

- Genetics/epigenetics in adaptation processes

- Neurobiology and biochemistry of adaptation and memory

- Evolutionary approaches to memory, adaptation and migration

- Chronic diseases, memory, and adaptation



Philosophy and Worldviews (Eastern, Western, Indigenous…)

- Epistemology and metaphysics

- Existential and postmodern adaptation

- Ethics in migratory context

- Philosophy of memory



Political Sciences and Law

- Policies related to migration and adaptation

- Human rights and migration

- Bureaucracy in relation to migration policies

- Judiciary systems

- Political agendas, memory and migration

- Objective vs. subjective memory in politics

- International politics and adaptation



Psychology and Psychiatry

- Mental health and adaptation

- Abnormal behaviors and adaptation

- (Mal)adaptive memory processes

- Social and transcultural psychiatry

- Perception/cognition/attention

- Personality

- Psychoanalysis



Sociology and Anthropology

- Cultural determinants and adaptation

- Race/ethnic identity and adaptation

- Religion, adaptation and migratory experiences

- Gender, adaptation and migratory experiences

- Social networks and adaptation

- Language of adaptation, memory and migration

- Family relations and adaptation

- Urban planning and adaptation

- Diaspora and community development



Economics and Business

- Adaptation and job security

- Private sponsorship and adaptation

- Adaptation in economics (Marxist, Capitalist…)





Deadline for paper proposals: 23 July 2017

Notification of acceptance: 25 July 2017

Deadline for early-bird registration: 20 August 2017

Final deadline for registration: 31 August 2017



Please submit abstracts (no longer than 300 words) of your proposed 20-minute presentations, together with a short biographical note, by 23 July 2017 to:

migrationmemory2017@gmail.com



The conference language is English.

A selection of papers will be published in a post-conference volume.