Call for papers : Aid Networks and Mechanisms in a Migratory Context: Europe and the Middle East (1945-1970)
International Writing Workshop
Paris, 3-5 December 2025
Aid Networks and Mechanisms in a Migratory Context: Europe and the Middle East (1945-1970)
This call for papers aims to prepare a collective publication focused on the actors and practices of assistance to migrant populations in Europe and the Middle East between 1945 and 1970. The project adopts an innovative perspective, emphasizing on-the-ground dynamics and the interactions among the various actors involved in migration-related aid, between cooperation, competition and entanglement. It also seeks to shed light on lesser-known figures—third-party actors in the field of displacement assistance—whose roles, though significant, have often remained marginalized in historical scholarship. An editorial workshop, designed to coordinate and refine the submitted texts, will be held at the German Historical Institute in Paris on December 3-5, 2025. Selected contributors will have reviewed the draft papers of the other participants ahead of time, so that the workshop can be fully dedicated to collectively aligning and revising the contributions. All participants will be expected to submit their draft papers prior to the event to enable in-depth collaborative work during the workshop.
Rationale
This project focuses less on the macrostructures governing migration than on the practices of aid and benevolence, and their effects on migratory trajectories. While the history of institutions overseeing migration is relatively well documented, that of local-level practitioners working directly with affected populations remains underexplored. By shifting focus in this way, the project also aims—where possible—to foreground the voices of assistance recipients, aligning with a new paradigm in migration history that moves away from an exclusively institutional perspective (Lucassen & Lucassen 2005; Diaz 2021). Drawing on a dynamic and evolving historiography, it seeks to reconstruct entire migratory trajectories, also responding to a persistent imbalance between the dominant field of immigration studies and the relative scarcity of research on emigration (Moch 2003; Brettell 2014). Finally, examining transnational relief practices—beyond the scope of national welfare policies—offers a means to analyze the dynamics of an aid field shaped by interwoven, cooperative, and competing networks.
“Assistance” to migrants is often understood as the range of mechanisms aimed at meeting the basic needs of precarious migrant populations—the term highlighting the asymmetrical power dynamics at play in these practices. While the concept has already been studied, it has been mainly within the framework of national welfare policies addressing both immigrants and nationals. In contrast, this project focuses on the transnational chains of aid that accompany migration journeys, emphasizing the forms of interaction between aid actors, and drawing on scholarship on the mixed economy of welfare and relief (Giomi, Keren, Labbé 2022).
| Download the call for papers → |
Submission Guidelines
Proposals for papers, preferably in English, should be no longer than 500 words, and accompanied by a short bio-bibliographical note of maximum one page. Please send both documents as a single PDF file to anm@francemel.fr by 30 June 2025. As the workshop aims to produce a coherent edited volume, selected contributors will be asked to submit a first draft of their paper (20,000-30,000 characters, including spaces) ahead of the meeting, by 1 November 2025. Travel and accommodation expenses will be covered in full or in part, pending final funding confirmation.
Organization
- Alexandre Bibert (Deutsches Historisches Institut)
- Fabrice Jesné (Université de Nantes, CRHIA)
- Marie Levant (École française de Rome, Institut français du Proche-Orient)