Borders & Belonging

Ayşe Çağlar shares how her experiences growing up in Turkey and living in multiple countries shaped her approach to using migrants as an entry point to explore how societies define themselves, draw boundaries, and govern communities. She is joined by Ana Ćuković, whose research looks at how displacement unfolds in cities, including Detroit through urban planning and policy, and how historical and economic contexts shape who is included or pushed out of cities.Guests: Ayşe Çağlar, Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna; Ana Ćuković, Philanthropy Fellow, Council of Michigan Foundations and Hudson-Webber Foundation.🎧 Follow Borders & Belonging on LinkedIn. 🌎 Have a question or episode idea? Email [email protected].

From his notable research on migration aspirations and the factors that shape whether people move or stay, Jørgen Carling reflects on how his early experiences in Oslo and fieldwork in West Africa shaped his approach to understanding mobility. He is joined by Kerilyn Schewel, whose work examines why people remain in place and how life goals, family ties and social constraints influence those decisions. Guests: Jørgen Carling, Professor in Migration and Transnationalism studies, Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO); Kerilyn Schewel, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina.🎧 Follow Borders & Belonging on LinkedIn. 🌎 Have a question or episode idea? Email [email protected].

From growing up in suburban Chicago to studying cultural encounters in Trinidad, influential migration studies scholar Steven Vertovec reflects on how those experiences shaped the concept of superdiversity and its enduring relevance nearly two decades later. He is joined by Maria Schiller, who draws on her own research inside European city governments to show how public officials interpret and manage diversity in practice, and why policy trends often struggle to keep pace with social realities.Guests: Steven Vertovec, Founding Director, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity; Maria Schiller, Professor of Public Governance, Erasmus University RotterdamTo find books, publications, and media mentioned in this episode please see the show notes.🎧 Follow Borders & Belonging on LinkedIn. 🌎 Have a question or episode idea? Email [email protected].

To kick off season 4 of Borders & Belonging, host Maggie Perzyna explores the concept of "demigranticization" in migration research with Janine Dahinden and Maissam Nimer. They discuss how the label "migrant" is not objective but rather a political construct rooted in nation-state logic that can reinforce harmful power structures and exclusion. Both scholars argue that migration research should step back from treating migration as an isolated phenomenon and instead examine how societies create "others" to define themselves, connecting migrants' struggles with those of other marginalized groups. Despite the dark political climate and rise of populism, they find hope in growing critical voices within academia and emerging solidarities between migrantized and non-migrantized communities.Guests: Janine Dahinden, Professor of Transnational Studies, University of Neuchâtel; and Maissam Nimer, Associate Professor of Sociology, Akdeniz University.To find books, publications, and media mentioned in this episode please see the show notes.🎧 Follow Borders & Belonging on LinkedIn. 🌎 Have a question or episode idea? Email [email protected].

What happens when established voices in migration studies sit down with the rising scholars shaping the field's future? This season of Borders & Belonging explores reflexivity: the practice of turning research back on itself to examine how we know what we know.Season 4 draws on the lived experiences of pioneering scholars whose work has transformed how we understand human movement across borders. We then ask each scholar to nominate an up-and-coming scholar they admire, whose research builds on, challenges, or complements their own.What follows is a dialogue where mentor and mentee explore the evolution of ideas, the personal journeys behind the research, and the questions that keep them both up at night. Join us as we trace the threads connecting scholarship across time, experience, and perspective.🎧 Follow Borders & Belonging on LinkedIn. 🌎 Have a question or episode idea? Email [email protected].