The conference focuses on the interrelationship between migration and refugee movements on the one hand, and the genesis of a distinct European space on the other. By situating migration in a long-term historical perspective and exploring how it has shaped the very idea of Europe, the conference aims to advance both historical scholarship and current debates on migration, borders, identity, and memory.
Lines that Cross: Migration and the Making of a European Space
Since (at least) the early modern period, migration, flight, and displacement have been central to European history—not only as forces shaping local and regional environments but also as processes that help define the spatial, cultural, political, social, and intellectual limits of what “Europe” actually means. The conference explores migration in and across Europe since the 19th century and examines how movements of migrants and refugees have contributed to the making of Europe as a geographical, cultural, and political space. It discusses how notions of European identity, belonging, exclusion, borders, and community have been shaped by the circulation of people, ideas, and memories.
The conference seeks to deepen our understanding of today’s challenges around mobility, inclusion and exclusion, and the uses of the past in shaping visions of Europe’s future.
Programm
Wednesday, 1 July
Arrival from 13:30
14:00–14:30
Sina Fabian, Florian Greiner, Jan Vermeiren
Welcome and Introduction
14:30–16:00
Panel 1 Regulating Mobility: Borders, Trade, and the European Imaginary in the Nineteenth Century
Conor Muller (Oxford)
French Merchant Shipping and the Policing of the Outer European Border, 1802–1814
Cathie Carmichael (Norwich)
Refugees and the 1875 Rebellion in the Lower Neretva Region
Gavin Murray-Miller (Cardiff)
Trans-Atlantic Ideologies and the European Imaginary in the Nineteenth Century
Chair: Stefan Ehrenpreis (Innsbruck)
16:00–16:30
Coffee break
16:30–18:00
Panel 2 Exile, Camps, and Political Thought in Twentieth-Century Europe
Donata Rega / Giuseppe Foscari (Salerno)
Refugee Life: Jews, Slavs, and Exiles in Internment Camps of Southern Italy, 1940–1947
Sarah Grandke (Regensburg/Heidelberg)
From Transit Station to Space for Action: Displaced Persons as Memory Activists
Domagoj Tomas (Osijek)
We Refugees: Croatia and Europe in Reflections from the Fermo Refugee Camp, 1946–1947
Chair: Hannah Ahlheim (Giessen)
Thursday, 2 July
09:00–10.30
Panel 3 Jewish Experiences of Flight, Gender, and European Memory
Irene Rabinovich (Holon)
Crossing Europe: Jewish Women’s Flight, Feminism, and the Cultural Making of Migratory Europe
Teresa Marx (Potsdam)
Biographical Self-Interpretations of Austrian-Jewish Female Emigrants after 1938
Melanie Carina Schmoll (Calgary)
The Memory of Flight: Holocaust Education and the Struggle over European Values
Chair: Ulrike Weckel (Giessen)
10.30 – 11:00
Coffee break
11:00 – 12.30
Panel 4 Unmixing Europe: Population Exchange, Nation-Building, and the Remaking of Borders and Belonging in Southeastern Europe
Erkjad Kajo (Aix-en-Provence)
Unsettled Europeans: Albanian Migrants, Border Crossings, and the Reimagining of Europe from the Margins
Alexandros Balatsoukas (Kyoto)
The Great Unmixing: The Treaty of Lausanne and the Reforging of Southeastern Europe
Nuri Korkmaz (Bursa)
Bulgarian–Greek Exchange of Populations and Ethnic Rearrangement
Chair: Cathie Carmichael (Norwich)
12.30 – 13:30
Lunch break
13:30–14:30
Exhibition visit
14:30 – 16:00
Panel 5 Postwar Europe before the Law: Violence, Redress, and the Making of Legal Belonging
Vitalij Fastovskij (Münster)
Arenas of Redress: Transnational Reparations Claims for Former “Ostarbeiter”
Anna Kuznicow-Wyszyńska (Warsaw)
Forced Deportations as International Crimes: Legal Histories and Contemporary Implications
Eugeniusz Kuznicow-Wyszyński (Warsaw)
From Displacement to Quasi-Citizenship: The Karta Polaka and Polish Diaspora Communities
Chair: Sina Fabian (Giessen/Berlin)
16:00–17:30
Panel 6 Borders and Boundaries: Mobility, Memory, and the Negotiation of Europe
Alessandro Ambrosino (Geneva)
Mobility Regimes beyond the Iron Curtain: The Lasciapassare and Counter-Hegemonic Memories
Matti Välimäki (Helsinki)
Contestations of Silence: Discourses of Cold War Defections to Finland
Iris Wigger (Loughborough)
Exploring Mixed-heritage families’ histories and digital agency in Europe
Chair: Jan Vermeiren (Norwich)
17:30–17:45
Break
17:45–19:00
Keynote Lecture
Peter Gatrell (Manchester)
European History Through the Lens of Migration: Further Reflections on the Unsettling of Europe
Friday, 3 July
09:00–10:30
Panel 7 Guest Workers Revisited: Migrant Agency, Public Discourse, and Alternative Visions of Europe
Francesco Vizzarri (Giessen)
Beyond Guest Worker Politics: Italian Migrant Organizations and Their Idea of Europe
Zeynep Selen Artan (Istanbul)
Heroes and Wantons: Gendered Media Discourses on Turkish Labour Migration
Nicole Immig (Giessen)
Interconnected Stories of Migration: The case of Greek labor migration to Germany and European History
Chair: Florian Greiner (Giessen)
10:30–11:45
Panel 8 From Asylum to Schengen: EEC/EU Migration Policy and the Limits of Solidarity
Eike Klages (Florence)
Shifting and Shirking the Refugee “Burden”: The Making of the EEC/EU Asylum System
Giuliano B. Fleri (New York)
What Europe Should Not Be: Schengen, Visa Policy, and Contemporary Europe
Chair: Bastian Högg (Giessen)
11:45–12:00
Short break
12:00–12:45
Final Roundtable and Closing Discussion
Europe as a Space Made by Migration
Moderation: Sina Fabian, Florian Greiner, Jan Vermeiren
We kindly ask for registration by June 29.