21st Annual International Roundtable
MIGRATION
8-11 October 2014
The 2014 Macalester International Roundtable (IRT) will examine human MIGRATION as a dynamic and powerful social force shaping societies, past and present. The IRT will highlight the multi-directional movement of people and the related flows of goods, capital, and ideas. By engaging the movement of people across and within borders, it simultaneously interrogates the concept of borders and the institutions created to police them. Human beings have always moved in search of new opportunities, or to escape war, poverty, oppression, and environmental degradation. These migrations, historically as well as today, have accelerated conflict while also spurring creativity and introducing ethnic and racial diversity. Technological change– from gun powder to Google, from Ford to Facebook–have spurred new kinds of movement, while creating, sustaining, and reconfiguring human relationships.
The IRT will promote critical examination of historical, existing and emerging challenges and possibilities in migration through three broad questions:
- How does migration develop and transform identities, diasporas, or cultures?
- How do borders limit, shape and propel patterns and possibilities of migration?
- What is the relationship between migration and economic, intellectual or technological change?
Plenary sessions, student-led workshops, and engagement with the Twin Cities Arts and Immigrant communities will explore a multitude of themes.
Committee co-chairs:
| Dianna Shandy | Ernesto Capello |
Shortcuts
T. Alexander Aleinikoff is the United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and former Dean of the Georgetown University Law Center.
John Jota Leaños is an award-winning new media artist, animator, social documentarian, and associate professor of Documentation at University of California, Santa Cruz.
Aihwa Ong is Professor of Sociocultural Anthropology and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
Susan Brower is the Minnesota State Demographer and directs the MN State Demographic Center.
See Macalester’s NETWORK OF connections to MIGRATION/IMMIGRATION! |
Migration Mural
This mural was created with the guidance and support of local artist and social activist, Gustavo Lira, in collaboration with Adelante! and the DML’s Xpressions during Adelante’s 2014 Latin@ Week. The mural explores the meaning of migration and what it means to belong. We asked the question: What does Migration mean to you? and asked members from several cultural organizations to submit their answer as a drawing. We collected the images and picked several to become a part of the mural. We began with a blank slate and through the collaboration and creativity of many people it was finished in four and a half hours. Currently on display in the DML.
Those who participated in painting the mural include: Yolanda Burckhardt ’15, Merita Bushi ’14, Jocelyne Cardona ’14, Emily Cavazos ’16, Abby Cox ’16, Cyrus Hair ’15, Gabriella Gómez ’14, Omar Leal ’15, Elisa Lee ’15, Wayne Lee ’14, Gustavo Lira (Community Artist), Adan Martinez ’16, Carol Mejía ’15, Jessica Muñoz ’14, Zoe Nardone ’15, Natalie Ramos ’16, Ariana Zaia ’16, Francesca Zepeda ’16, Zoe Kulik ’16.
The following people’s images were used: Natalie Ramos ’16, Gozong Lor ’17, Emily Cavazos ’16, Ollin Montes ’17, and Adan Martinez ’16