PATHWAYS @ IMISCOE 2026 đź’ˇBeyond mobility: The consequences of involuntary immobility for migration studies.
The 1st of July, Nicolás Caso and Naiara RodrĂguez Peña co-chaired a panel at #IMISCOE2026 in Girona.
The panel brought together five compelling contributions that showed how far the field has come.
Polina Koriukina opened with a mapping of emigration bans across Asia and Africa ➡️ a much-needed contribution to a migration policy field that almost exclusively focuses on immigration restrictions.
Jørgen Carling then unpacked the vicious circle between involuntary immobility and subjective well-being, drawing on rich data from #FUMI project.
Charlotte Scheerens presented survey evidence on the negative implications of unfulfilled migration aspirations for emotional well-being, mental health, and anxiety among Senegalese youth.
Naiara RodrĂguez Peña and Murray Kennedy showed the trade-offs of collapsing different dimensions of migration aspirations into a single indicator and how perceived ability to migrate shapes aspirations in ways that complicate standard frameworks.
Finally, Josef Neubauer closed the panel with a dynamic, longitudinal lens on how aspirations and behaviors evolve over time under conditions of constrained mobility.
What made the session particularly exciting was how well the contributions spoke to each other, building a compelling case for re-centering immobility in migration research.
The diversity of methods and levels of analysis also pushed us to think about the immobility-development nexus in a more holistic way.
We thank all the presenters for a rich and stimulating discussion. 🙏
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