Dr. McDaniel speaks at European University Institute workshop on cities and migration

KENNESAW, Ga. (Oct 28, 2019) — Dr. Paul N. McDaniel, Assistant Professor of Geography, recently spoke at a workshop about “Cities and the Global Governance of Migration, An Under-Explored Link,” which was held at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, October 17-18. The workshop included researchers from many countries, and was organized by the Migration Policy Centre, in the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, at the European University Institute in Florence.

The Migration Policy Centre describes the workshop as follows: “In the last two decades research on various aspects of subnational governments’ policymaking on migration and diversity issues has been expanding and consolidating, leading to a ‘local turn’ in migration scholarship. Case studies and comparative research in Europe and beyond have shed light on how migration policies and laws are not only implemented but also actively produced and shaped in local arenas in which actors with different interests and conceptions of migration-related challenges continuously interact. More recently, a relational and multilevel governance perspective has been emerging: local governments are conceptualised more and more as actors in complex regulatory processes which include a multiplicity of actors at different territorial scales, both public and non public. In this panorama though, the dimension of the global mobilisation of local governments on migration is still underdeveloped, especially vis-á-vis other policy fields such as environment and climate change. Why and how cities get engaged in policy processes around migration issues beyond the borders of their national principals are still open questions. Yet cities are becoming more and more active on the international and global migration scene, as demonstrated by their participation in the Global Compact of Migration or by the mobilisation of – old and new – transnational city networks on the issue of refugees’ reception. In this workshop, we aim at establishing a dialogue between scholars who, from different disciplinary perspectives and using different theoretical and methodological approaches, are working on the mobilisation of cities in the global governance of migration. We welcome studies that take a city perspective as well as those that focus on the organisations (e.g. City Networks) or venues (e.g. GCM forum) promoting/enabling cities’ international mobilisation on various aspects of migration-related policies (e.g. integration, asylum seekers reception, access to social assistance etc.).”