International migrations and the construction of the Mediterranean
15 October 2024. From 18:30 | Conference | Spanish | IEMed
The opening session of the Aula Mediterrània 2024-2025 conference series with Virginie Baby-Collin, Professor of Geography, Aix Marseille Université.
Opening remarks by Senén Florensa, executive president of the IEMed.
Virginie Baby-Collin is Professor of Geography at the Université Aix Marseille and member of the Research Centre TELEMME (Temps, Espaces, Langages, Europe méridionale, Méditerranée), as well as a junior member of the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF). Her research focuses on urban and social geography with a qualitative approach. She examines socio-spatial segregation and gentrification in the urban context, transnational ways of life and integration issues of migrants, as well as international migrations. Having specialised within Latin America for over 20 years, her contemporary research has extended to the Euro-Mediterranean region. Baby-Collin also coordinates the interdisciplinary research programme “Migrations and Territories in the Mediterranean” at the Maison Mediterranéenne des Sciences de l’Homme of the Université Aix Marseille.
ABSTRACT
Contemporary migratory politics are transforming the Mediterranean into a border area and a cemetery. This lecture addresses how migrations and mobilities have shaped the Mediterranean societies and cultures throughout history, and how it has contributed to the construction of its territories. The lecture originates from a collective research project of historians, geographers and social science researchers that analyse the continuities, evolutions and fractures that migrations face in the Mediterranean since ancient times. Through several examples that illustrate the plurality of mobilities, we will analyse the structures that frame, control or accompany migrations (routes, borders, shelters, political frames), the actors that promote them (merchants, workers, slaves, religious people, intellectuals, artists) and the forms of contact between migrants and their recipient societies (invasions, colonisations, transferences, cosmopolitanism, xenophobia).
Session moderated by Sònia Parella, full professor and director of the Department of Sociology, UAB. Session co-organised with the Master’s Degree in Contemporary Migrations, Rights and Social Cohesion, UAB/UB.
This conference is in Spanish at the IEMed conference room, Girona, 20 – Barcelona.
It can also be followed on IEMed’s Youtube Channel.
Read the AulaMed Article by Virginie Baby-Collin.
Speakers
Virginie Baby-Collin
Professor of Geography Aix Marseille Université
Senén Florensa
Executive President IEMed
Agustí Fernández de Losada Passols
Secretary of Foreign Action and the EU Government of Catalonia
Sònia Parella
Full professor and director Department of Sociology, UABOrganised by
