Forced Migration in a Global Perspective

In the year 2017, over 65 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced by violent conflicts, forms of political persecution, human rights violations and environmental disasters. Forced migration is one of the central challenges in world politics today, and it is very likely to remain so in the short to medium term.

Only a small – albeit increasing – number of forced migrants manage to migrate to the OECD countries of the Global North. The main flows happen within the Global South. This observation stands in stark contrast to the economy of attention in Europe and the United States, where migration processes and questions of integration have dominated policy, public and partly also academic debates since the mid-2010s.

The fourth annual GIGA Global Transitions Conference aims to present a globally more adequate, pluralistic picture of major trends, causes, dynamics, and policy implications of forced migration flows around the globe today. It focuses particularly on the globally most dominant processes of “South–South” forced migration within and between Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

High-ranking academics and practitioners in the field of forced migration from around the globe will address the following issues:

• Important concepts and historical trends in forced migration research, presenting less alarmist and less Western-centric perspectives

• Interrelations between migration and conflict: causes of forced migration, dynamics during flight and migration processes per se, and the politics of reception and integration in host contexts

• Cross-cutting issues of forced migration in global perspective

The GIGA launched the Global Transitions Conference Series in 2015 to promote analysis and debate on key problems the world faces today from diverse academic and practitioners’ perspectives, and to propose innovative and feasible solutions. Once a year, leading thinkers from around the globe are invited to join GIGA scholars for this dynamic interaction at the GIGA in Hamburg, Germany.