Call for Papers

Post-Socialism, Migration and Memory in Britain and Beyond 

Extended deadline for submission: 28 February 2023 

What happens to memories of state-socialism and of post-communist transition when its carriers move across borders? How do individuals and communities grapple with the legacies of regimes in host societies with different kinds of legacies? As a culmination point of the research project “Post-Socialist Britain?: Memory, Representation and Political Identity amongst German, Polish and Ukrainian Immigrants in the UK“ (https://postsocialistbritain.bham.ac.uk/), funded by the UK Arts & Humanities Research Council and led by Professor Sara Jones (University of Birmingham), we are organising a series of virtual webinars in April and May 2023. These will be co-hosted by the Memory Studies Association and featured in its dMSA line-up so that they will be available as live streams and via the MSA Youtube Channel. We envision that selected contributions will be featured in a special issue edited by Dr Charlotte Galpin (University of Birmingham) and Prof Jenny Wüstenberg (Nottingham Trent University), who are Co-Investigators on the project. 

They very much welcome proposals for papers of approx. 15 minutes that address the above questions and/or the following (or related) questions: 

  • How do processes and experiences of migration affect political identity and behavior in host countries?  
  • How do different debates about the past and their dominance in different countries interact through the process of migration?  
  • How does post-socialism interlink with post-colonialism in realms of remembrance?  
  • How do narratives about populism, migration, and memory interact in migratory settings? 
  • Is there a link between collective memory, migration, and support for, or resistance to, far-right and right-wing populist movements? 
  • What has changed in terms of the memory-migration nexus in the context of key events such as Brexit, Covid -19, the climate crisis, or the war in Ukraine?  
 They are especially keen to receive comparative and interdisciplinary contributions.  

Timeline and Procedure:

Please submit an abstract (250 words) and short bio (200 words) in a single Word or PDF file to Dr. Charlotte Galpin (c.a.galpin@bham.ac.uk) and Prof Jenny Wüstenberg (jenny.wustenberg@ntu.ac.uk) by 28 February 2023.
They are also happy to answer any questions pre-submission, and submissions are welcomed from people at all career stages, including Ph.D. students and early career academics. They particularly encourage submissions from Black, Asian, and minority ethnic academics and those belonging to other groups marginalized in academia. 

The decision will be notified by 7 March 2023, and Webinars will occur between April and May 2023. The organizers will work with the selected speakers to find a suitable slot in this timeframe.