[News] Call for Paper (IMISCOE 2027, Brussels): Climate Belongings - Reconfigurations of Alterity and Belonging amidst the Climate Crisis

Mon Sep 14 10:41:15 CEST 2026

Dear list,
(sorry for cross-posting)

Please find attached, both as a PDF and below in this email, a Call for
Papers for the 24th IMISCOE Annual Conference, which will
take place in Brussels from 6–9 July 2027. The title of the call is:

Climate Belongings? Reconfigurations of Alterity and Belonging amidst
the Climate Crisis, and Socio-Ecological Responses in
Migration Societies

The session asks:

 1. How do climate change and its politics become “arenas” in which
relations and categories of difference and belonging within
    migration societies are (re-)negotiated? To what extent do climate
politics facilitate not only conflicts, but also the
    creation of transboundary alliances and new relationships within the
context of diversity?
 2. How can these re-negotiations, in turn, shape climate politics and
socio-political responses? What specific socio-ecological
    responses are emerging within the social realities of diverse
migration societies?

I would be very happy to exchange ideas with you on this topics and
would welcome short abstracts (150 words) by 22 September 2026
at: jan.winkler at geo.uni-halle.de 

Best regards,

Jan

...

Dr. Jan Winkler
Research Group Leader
European Centre of Just Transition Research and Impact Driven Transfer
(JTC)
Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg

https://jtc.uni-halle.de/ [https://jtc.uni-halle.de/]

Raum H4 2.24
Von-Seckendorff-Platz 4
06120 Halle (Saale)
Jan.Winkler at Geo.Uni-Halle.de [Jan.Winkler at Geo.Uni-Halle.de]

mobile: 0177/2488347

CLIMATE BELONGINGS?

RECONFIGURATIONS OF ALTERITY AND BELONGING AMIDST THE CLIMATE CRISIS,
AND SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL RESPONSES IN MIGRATION SOCIETIES

CFP– PANEL PROPOSAL FOR THE 24TH IMISCOE ANNUAL CONFERENCE, BRUSSELS,
6–9 JULY 2027

 JAN WINKLER (MLU HALLE, JUST TRANSITION CENTER, GERMANY)

Climate change is transforming societies in ways that reach far beyond
environmental politics. It raises fundamental questions
about responsibility and solidarity, redistributes vulnerabilities, and
creates new political conflicts as well as negotiations
over desirable futures. Yet we still know little about how these
transformations intersect with the social realities of diverse
migration societies. Moving beyond a focus on climate migration as such
(e.g. Nash 2019; Waters 2025), this panel asks how the
climate crisis is shaping migration societies and their ongoing
(re-)negotiations of belonging, difference and citizenship –
including the very categories of “self/us” and “other(s)”? And how do,
in turn, these re-negotiations – and thus the shifting
relations of diversity inherent in migration societies – shape
socio-ecological responses and ways of dealing with climate
change? 

The panel proposes the notion of climate belongings to explore how
climate change and its politics become ‘arenas’ in which social
and political positions, relationships and identities are
(re-)negotiated within the context of diversity and migration (Hills
2025; Turunen et al. 2026; Méndez-Barrientos et al. 2023; Verlie 2024;
Turhan and Armiero 2019; Shokry et al. 2025). How are
existing categories – self/other, (non-)migrant, minority/majority,
North/South – reproduced or unsettled through climate
politics? To what extent do (post-)migrant subjects and organisations
become actors in socio-ecological transformations and just
transitions (Fry et al. 2024)? Whose experiences, emotions and knowledge
become visible and meaningful (Hernandez et al. 2022; Van
Speybroeck et al. 2026)? Such questions also point towards central
tensions of climate politics. The planetary character of
climate change potentially invokes imaginaries of a shared world, and of
responsibilities transcending national and culturalized
borders (Roos & van der Sluijs 2025; Skrefsrud 2025; Smalen 2026).
Debates around environmental, planetary or climate
citizenship (Thompson 2001; Dobson & Derek 2006; Running 2013; Bauböck
2026) challenge territoriallypolitical community – while little is known about how such imaginaries
become operative within everyday contexts of difference and
belonging. At the same time, the climate crisis unfolds within societies
structured by unequal citizenship, racism, colonial
legacies and contested migration (Baldwin 2022; Verlie 2024).
Imaginaries of one planet thus coexist with nationalism, racialized
fears of climate migration and unequal exposure to environmental risks.
In sum, the climate crisis and its politics can
potentially both exacerbate social conflicts (Henrique 2024) and
generate new transboundary alliances as well as new forms of
post-migrant solidarity, visibility and political subjectivity (Muraca
2020; Turhan & Armiero 2019; Armiero et al. 2024; Neef and
Sheller 2024; Hills 2025). 

Migrant organisations, (inter-)religious communities, climate justice
movements, neighbourhood initiatives and municipal actors
increasingly encounter one another in local socio-ecological projects
and struggles (Kieslinger 2023). Intercultural networks for
climate protection, initiatives linking climate justice with migration
justice (Farbotko et al. 2022; Neef et al. 2024), and
projects mobilising migrant subjects’ experiences of climate impacts in
the Global South for political education in the North all
display potential reconfigurations of belonging and alterity – pointing
to the ways how diverse migration societies
(re-)articulate climate politics (Roos & van der Sluijs 2025). These
dynamics may also take place in everyday settings and through
more mundane practices (Liedholz 2020) – for instance, when a local
mosque installs solar panels on its roof and thereby, almost
incidentally, becomes visible as an actor in the socio-ecological
transformation of the city; or when residents of diverse
neighbourhoods share different experiences with climate change and heat
in everyday encounters. These practices, whether
explicitly political or more mundane, can subtly reposition actors
within local contexts: organisations perceived through the
lenses of migration or integration may become visible as actors of
socio-ecological transformation, reshaping public perceptions.

Finally, this also opens up reflections on climate knowledge(s).
Experiences and practices shaped by migration and transnational
lives (Van Holstein & Walker 2023; Ou-Salah & Van Praag 2025)
increasingly enter climate debates in European societies, shaping
socio-ecological alliances and responses (Van Praag 2023). For example,
initiatives encouraging migrant subjects to act as
‘witnesses’ regarding climate impacts in the Global South (e.g.
“Klimagesichter”; Winkler 2026), or initiatives that strengthen
(post-)migrant experiences of belonging and exclusion as an
intersectional contribution to climate movements (e.g.
“Klima.Gerecht.Machen”, Munich; “queerstadtein”, Berlin, Germany) make
this particularly visible (Garcia & Tschakert 2022; Daniel
2025): they raise questions about how migrant experiences or
transboundary (e.g. intercultural) relations are translated into
climate (justice) knowledge (Klocker et al. 2018; Walker 2020; Mascia
2020; Kotsila 2024; Fry et al. 2024; Smalen 2026). Whose
experiences are recognised as relevant knowledge for understanding and
responding to climate change? How do they interact with
dominant forms of climate expertise? And how does the recognition – or
marginalisation – of (post-)migrant perspectives affect who
can speak and act as a legitimate ‘climate subject’? (Baldwin 2022;
Verlie 2024; Winkler 2026). At the same time, such initiatives
themselves require critical scrutiny as they may reproduce paternalistic
notions of integration (Nies et al. 2015), victimize
migrant subjects or reproduce processes of othering. 

The session invites theoretical and empirical papers examining these
dynamics as they play out within the postmigrant and diverse
societies of the Global North. It asks:

 * What climate-political practices, knowledges, claims and
socio-ecological responses emerge from the experiences, relations and
   struggles of diverse migration societies?
 * How do climate politics reshape positions, relations and forms of
recognition within diverse migration societies (e.g.
   Kieslinger 2023)? 
 * How do these intersections and negotiations become manifest in and
through mundane and everyday practices, material
   transformations and changing forms of visibility?
 * What happens within migration societies when climate change becomes
an increasingly pervasive horizon of everyday life,
   politics and social transformation? How does the climate crisis
reconfigure the ways in which belonging, citizenship,
   participation and political community are imagined, practised and
lived?

Both traditional paper presentations and short inputs followed by
questions for the audience are welcome, as are creative and
multimedia formats. I look forward to receiving short abstracts (approx.
150 words) by 22 September 2026 at:
jan.winkler at geo.uni-halle.de
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