This symposium will focus on the effects that migrants, refugees, exiles, and displaced people have had, or are having, on the dynamics of European culture and society. Based on historical trends and outcomes, our conversations intend to reflect on the role that class and community have to play in shaping the response of municipalities, states, and the EU to population flows across borders. What sort of intentional communities and institutional policies are we likely to see emerging? Is there, for example, a useful connection to be made between the current dynamics of the European response to the refugee crisis and the fiscal crises eroding European solidarity? What pressures will continued migration put on our analytical concepts, from “community” and the “welfare state” to “property” and the “market?”

The event will be organized into three panels. The first will examine the history and sociology of labor migration within Europe and its former empires. The second will take up the strategies available to social, cultural, and political actors for shaping the contemporary refugee crisis in ways that are culturally and socially empowering. The final panel will feature Indiana University faculty who participated in IU’s “Themester” Program, an innovative interdisciplinary initiative that coordinates thematic approaches to undergraduate teaching. The topic for the 2015-16 Themester is “@Work: The Nature of Labor on a Changing Planet,” and these faculty members will discuss how they addressed issues of labor and migration directly with students in their classrooms. The symposium will close with a reception and keynote address.

For more information please contact Prof. Alex Lichtenstein at lichtens@indiana.edu.