International Conference
Children and Migration: identities, mobilities and belonging(s)
9-11 th April 2008
Venue: University College Cork , Ireland
The Migrant Children team hosted a major international conference on the theme of childhood and migration in University College Cork on 9-11 th April 2008. Over 130 delegates from countries all over the world attended the event, which provided a unique forum for academics, NGOs and policy makers to exchange experience and ideas in this area.
Sixty-nine papers were presented during the conference. The book of abstracts is available here.
While children's experiences of migration are beginning to receive attention from a variety of different perspectives, there are few opportunities to bring these together in an integrated forum. This conference provided such a forum by focusing on the intersection of these perspectives and by attending to children's own experiences and perspectives of migration, diaspora and transnational life. One of the aims of the event was to facilitate a dialogue between academics, practitioners and policy-makers, and to overcome the current fragmentation between and within policy and research approaches to childhood and migration.
The conference was officially opened by Melanie Verwoerd, Executive Director of UNICEF Ireland, in UCC on April 9 th . Click here to view the key points of her address to the conference.
Keynote speakers were:
Katy Gardner ( University of Sussex , UK ):
Diasporic childhood: transglobal children in East London
Jill Rutter ( Institute for Public Policy Research , UK )
Changing patterns of child international migration in Europe : challenges for research, public policy and practice
Click here to view keynote lectures.
Pictured at the opening of the conference in UCC on 9 th April:
Melanie Verwoerd, Executive Director, Unicef Ireland
l-r. Dr. Allen White (UCC), Dr. Fina Carpena-Méndez (UCC), Piaras Mac Éinrí (UCC), Melanie Verwoerd (Executive Director, UNICEF Ireland), Dr. Caitríona Ní Laoire (UCC), Dr. Naomi Bushin (UCC)