Experts in migration from around the world came together at the University of Sussex on Wednesday 30 November for the fourth Sussex Centre for Migration Research (SCMR) annual conference.

Over 180 participants came to see researchers from world-leading institutions speak at the event, including academics from Berkeley at the University of California, the Social Science Center Berlin (WZB), the French Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). 

This year’s conference, hosted in collaboration with the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (JEMS), was entitled Migration & Changing Societies: Research Agendas, and was introduced by Professor Paul Statham, SCMR Director and Editor-in-Chief of JEMS.

The event celebrated the very latest cutting-edge global migration research, covering issues of citizenship, migration theories, migration and masculinity, ‘colour-blindness’, ethnic relations in France and the ‘refugee crisis’.

Opening the conference, Professor Statham also launched the Sussex Year of Migration, a University-wide initiative that will promote and help disseminate innovative and influential research on migration conducted at Sussex.

Keynote speakers included immigration expert Professor Irene Bloemraad, from Berkeley, who spoke about why holding citizenship matters, for whom, and in what contexts? Professor Susanne Choi demonstrated how Chinese men had their masculinity transformed through migration to cities, while Professor L. Alan Winters, from the Sussex-led Migrating Out of Poverty consortium, suggested there are few short-term economic benefits in rural to urban migration in China.

For more information about the conference, the programme can be downloaded here. Video-recordings of the presentations will be uploaded on the conference’s webpage in the next weeks.