Care in Passage: Deliberations on Life in Migrational, Relational Worlds
Arizona
Organization: Arizona State University
“A population does not renew itself only through the cycle of births and deaths, but also through the interplay of inward and outward migration.” – François Héran
This symposium brings care studies into conversation with migration, broadly understood as movement across physical, social, and psychological boundaries. While care is often entangled with power and politics, it also holds the potential to cultivate kinship, accountability, and more compassionate modes of coexistence. Thus, migration is more than a human phenomenon; it is a condition of life, shaping survival, adaptation, and evolution. In this sense, migration emerges as a broadly shared experience—if not always embodied, then lived abstractly—and one that persistently calls for care.
How can we negotiate boundaries as ecological, relational, and conceptual formations rather than national demarcations? How can reconceptualizations of boundaries generate new communities and practices of care? How are caregiving practices shaped by cultural, linguistic, or institutional contexts? How do biopolitical frameworks shape care, agency, and responsibility? Finally, how might nonhuman forms of migration—such as species movement or environmental change—challenge anthropocentric models of care, belonging, and ethical responsibility?
In this graduate student symposium, we invite you to explore intersections of migration and care, drawing on diverse theoretical, disciplinary, and lived perspectives. We seek to foster an interdisciplinary and inclusive space for investigating these questions together, encouraging dialogue across methods, scales, and forms of expertise. We are especially interested in submissions that challenge dominant care narratives and normative scopes of boundaries. How does your work engage with care—as responsibility, attention, resilience, or survival—in contexts of movement? Through this symposium, we hope to generate extensive conversations about the moral, material, and affective dimensions of care.
The list of possible topics below is by no means exhaustive; it is merely intended to spark inspiration and suggest potential examinations of migration through the lens of care:
Care in times of migration
Caregiving, rehabilitation, and reconstruction
Migration within borders
Culture shock and communities of care
Demands of migration representation
Multicultural therapy, trauma, and healing
Politics of un/caring, transactional care, etc.
Funding and resources for care
Migration of language, dialect, and/or register
Indigenous populations, displacement, and care
Migration of identity and culture
Invasive species and species migration
Biopolitics and individual agency
Submission Guidelines
We invite proposals for 15-minute individual presentations. To apply, please submit:
A 250-word abstract outlining your proposed presentation
A 100-word bio including your program and institutional affiliation
Please send submissions to CareASU@asu.edu by May 31, 2026. We are committed to making this symposium accessible and welcoming to all participants. Please let us know if you have questions.
Symposium Details
Date: October 15-16, 2026
Location: Arizona State University, Tempe Campus
Eligibility: Open to all students currently enrolled in graduate studies in the United States.
The symposium will be held strictly in person; no remote panels or presentations.
Presenters will be responsible for their own travel funding.
Related Readings
Brettell, Caroline, and James Frank Hollifield. Migration Theory?: Talking across Disciplines. Routledge, 2023.
Erikson, Kai. “Notes on Trauma and Community.” American Imago, vol. 48, no. 4, 1991, pp. 455–72. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26303923.
Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Harvard University Press, 1982.
Greenblatt, Stephen. Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto. Cambridge University Press. 2012.
Tronto, Joan C and Berenice Fisher. “Toward a Feminist Theory of Caring.” Circles of Care: Work and Identity in Women's Lives. SUNY Press. 1990
Reach out to us anytime at CareASU@asu.edu. We look forward to reading your proposals and fostering a vibrant conversation about care and migration in all its complexity!
Rohini Chakraborty