Immigration, Migration and Movement

Keywords:

Today’s politically charged attention to immigration suggests that it is primarily a matter of protecting borders and controlling the entry of “aliens.” Other aspects of the concept are typically ignored, including the fact that the history of the human race is in some sense a history of movement—of ideas, resources, goods, and political and economic activities, as well as of populations. Indeed, it may be that migration and movement lie at the core of what it means to be human.

Taken together, (im)migration and movement underpin global debates about nationhood, citizenship, and belonging; values and social otherness; questions of social justice; individual, national, and cultural identities; and the ways in which people reinvent themselves, their cultures, and their worlds in new contexts. Since 2005 the IHR has funded a number of projects that study these topics.

IHR Fellows program

IHR Fellows from various disciplines are spending the year, 2011-2012 addressing and analyzing the role of the humanities in illuminating the interrelated concepts of immigration, migration and movement, broadly conceived.

The 2011-2012 Fellows theme was "The Humanities and Immigration, Migration, and Movement."

"Shielded by the Blood of Christ:" Evangelical Migrants in Mexico and the United States
Principal Investigator(s): Leah M. Sarat, School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies

From Land to Body: Reinterpretations of the Self in Jewish Narratives from the Hellenistic Diaspora
Principal Investigator(s): Françoise Mirguet, School of International Letters and Cultures

The Experiences of Migrants from the BRIC Countries
Principal Investigator(s): Claudia Sadowski-Smith, Department of English, Wei Li, Asian Pacific Studies

Traveling Moralities: Obligations, Materiality and Water in Ceará, Northeast Brazil
Principal Investigator(s): Andrea Ballestero, School of Human Evolution and Social Change

Visiting Fellows:

Central Americans in the US: The Politics of Belonging and Non-Belonging
Principal Investigator(s): Yajaira M. Padilla, Assistant Professor, Spanish and Portuguese, The University of Kansas

Of Borders and Belonging: Toward a Politics of Citizenship at the Crossroads of America
Principal Investigator(s): Sujey Vega, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Sam Houston State University

IHR Seed Grants

Islamism and the Crucible of Immigration

Project Director(s): Abdullahi Gallab, Assistant Professor, African and African American Studies, School of Social Transformation; Religious Studies, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies

Aloha Compadre: Transpacific Latina/o Migrations to the Hawaiian Islands
Project Director(s): Rudy P. Guevarra, Jr., Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Asian Pacific American Studies

American Movements: Understanding the Ideological and Institutional Basis for Japanese American and American Indian Relocations
Project Director(s): Myla Vicenti Carpio, Assistant Professor, American Indian Studies; Karen J. Leong, Associate Professor, School of Social Transformation

Art and Ritual in the Creation of a Transnational Refugee Community
Project Director(s): Hjorleifur Jonsson, School of Human Evolution and Social Change

Contesting Borders: International Human Rights
Project Director(s): Stanlie James, African and African American Studies; Mark Von Hagen, History

Transnational Adoption in Arizona
Project Director(s): Claudia Sadowski-Smith, Assistant Professor of English, Women and Gender Studies, Asian Pacific American Studies; Karen Miller-Loessi, Associate Professor of Sociology, School Social Family Dynamics; Hyung Chol (Brandon) Yoo, Assistant Professor of Asian Pacific American Studies & School of Social and Family Dynamics