The Russian International Affairs Council, the Center of Theoretic and Applied Political Science of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration and the International Committee of the Red Cross are hosting in Moscow the 5th international conference on migration.

The 2019 conference will be dedicated to the presence of migrants and the displaced in urban settings. This focus allows for avoiding falling into the trap of methodological nationalism. Within the latter, the local population on the one side and migrant communities on the other are considered as two separate entities, but we suggest looking at the situation differently. The focus of the conference is shifted from the communities and closely examines the setting, the context, where the migrants and displaced find themselves, which gives a possibility for a more detailed analysis of social transformations.

The urban landscape, constantly changing in the face of growing population diversity due to migration and displacement, is one of the most sought-after research topics in OECD countries. In Russia, this problem until recently was on the periphery of the attention of scientists and professional managers. The way the post-Soviet cities are organized in many respects differs from that of the cities in North America and Europe. This results in differences in the trajectories of integration of migrant and displaced population, which does not allow Western analytical and management models to be mechanically transferred onto the Russian soil. Nevertheless, both in the OECD countries and in Russia, migrants and the displaced influence the change in the qualitative and quantitative parameters of the human capital of cities, thereby changing the conditions of their economic and socio-cultural development. The international exchange of scientific knowledge about such experiences and practices, of course, can make a great contribution to the formation of an effective migration policy in Russia.

A growing proportion of refugees and people internally displaced by armed conflict and other violence live in cities and towns. Urban displacement is permanently changing the landscape and social fabric of many towns and cities across the world. Displaced people often end up living with the urban poor in peripheral slums where housing is low-quality and access to jobs and services is limited. We propose to have a closer look at the experiences of both the displaced and the host communities, the response of humanitarian organizations to urban displacement and the opportunities urban displacement might present as opposed to the habitual portrayal of displacement in cities as a burden to host families, host communities and the cities themselves.

During the upcoming conference we aim at addressing the following questions:

• Are there objective criteria, allowing for assessing the contribution of migration to urban development? How to measure the influence of migration processes on human capital?
• How could the policies of the city/town authorities contribute to the human capital increase in the framework of migration influx?
• What are the key factors of social mobility of first and second generation migrants? How is social mobility linked to the settlement patterns?
• What migrant settlement patterns are discovered by comparative studies of modern metropoles?
• What is an ethnic enclave? And how are they different from “migrant ghettos”?
• How could migrant communities contribute to neighborhood revitalization?
• How do migration processes transform the socio-cultural landscape of modern cities?
• How do people displaced by armed conflict, other situations of violence and disasters influence the landscape and social fabric of cities? What is the host perspective on urban displacement?
• How to ensure that refugees and IDPs find and receive the vital support they need in large and anonymous cities?

We invite specialists in the field of sociology, social and cultural anthropology, demography, economics and political science to take part in the conference. Applications and abstracts are accepted until June 1. You can register for participation in the conference, as well as offer your own abstracts to participate as a speaker or a discussion participant at here.

September 26–27, 2019, Moscow