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Global & Area Perspectives (GAP) Symposium

An annual symposium offering regional perspectives on key global challenges

Welcome to our inaugural Global and Area Perspectives Symposium! This new annual event features diverse regional perspectives on key global challenges. Our inaugural theme is migration. This year’s symposium will show how studies from multiple disciplines and world regions can enrich our understanding of what drives and shapes migration. It will also help point the way toward constructive social and policy responses. After a keynote address highlighting global trends, we will hear from several panels of experts. Panels will examine youth migration and politics in the Global South, legal and institutional factors shaping migration in East Asia, the politics of refugee resettlement in Europe, and efforts to preserve linguistic and cultural identity among refugee communities in the United States.

Drawing on experts from Indiana University and leading institutions around the world, this symposium reflects a key principle underlying our approach at the Hamilton Lugar School – the value of fusing global and area studies to grapple with the most pressing issues of our time. I hope you enjoy the symposium!

Dean, John Ciorciari

John D. Ciorciari
Dean, Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies

2024 Schedule

Friday, November 1
3:00 - 4:00 pm — Keynote Address by Tariq Roland Riebl, Norwegian Refugee Council
4:10 - 5:25 pm — Panel 1: Youth Migration and Politics in the Global South
5:30 - 6:30 pm — Reception in the HLS Atrium

Saturday, November 2
8:30 - 9:30 am — Coffee & pastries outside Shreve Auditorium
9:30 - 10:45 am — Panel 2: Migration and Institutional Design: Lessons from East Asia
11:00 am - 12:15 pm — Panel 3: From Asylum to Bedlam? Migration, Refugees and the Future of the European Union
12:15 pm — Lunch served in the HLS Atrium
12:45 - 2:00 pm — Graduate Student Poster Session in the HLS Atrium
2:00 - 3:15 pm — Panel 4: Empowering Displaced Communities through Language and Culture
3:15 pm — Closing Remarks

Keynote

Sponsors: Center for the Study of Global Change, Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center, African Studies Program

Tariq Riebl is the Global Programme Strategy and Innovation Director at the Norwegian Refugee Council. He is an experienced Humanitarian Response Director, having worked on conflicts, natural disasters, and epidemics in more than fifteen countries around the world since 2006 for the United Nations, the International Rescue Committee, Oxfam, and Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

His work has covered many of the largest crises of the past years, including the Yemen civil war, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, the Ebola outbreaks in West Africa and DR Congo, and the droughts of the Horn of Africa and West Africa, amongst others.

Besides his operational work, he has been an outspoken advocate on a range of humanitarian policy issues, both through public lobbying and silent diplomacy.

Watch Keynote Address

Tariq Roland Riebl, Norwegian Refugee Council

Panel 1: Youth Migration and Politics in the Global South

This panel will examine youth migration in Latin America and Africa, and will address the roles that leadership plays in the decisions that young people make to undertake migration, both intra- and inter-nationally. How does local, national, and international leadership create drivers of migration, and how might leadership create opportunities for young people to pursue their dreams closer to their homes?

Watch Panel 1

Panel 2: Migration and Institutional Design: Lessons from East Asia

This panel will examine how institutional design affects migrant access and experiences in three East Asian cases: those of Japan, South Korea, and China/Taiwan. Panelists will discuss guest worker schemes in Japan, asylum rules in South Korea, and restrictions in mobility across Chinese provinces, which have contributed to foreseeable and unanticipated challenges for migrants and surrounding populations in all three locales.

Watch Panel 2

Panel 3: From Asylum to Bedlam? Migration, Refugees and the Future of the European Union

This panel will examine challenges to the EU’s migration system in an era of large-scale migration from Syria, Ukraine, Africa, and elsewhere. It will discuss the wide array of approaches to welcoming, integrating, granting status to or rebuffing migrants that has emerged across EU member states. It will explore real and perceived threats to European security and cohesion, as well as nationalist politics and fear mongering, and the effects these have had on European politics and policy.

Watch Panel 3

Panel 4: Empowering Displaced Communities through Language and Culture

This panel will examine how universities, local governments, and civil society institutions are working to preserve linguistic and cultural diversity within refugee communities. Speakers will focus on the case of Chin refugee communities in Indiana, as well as efforts elsewhere to ensure the continued vitality of languages and cultures that refugees transport around the world.

Watch Panel 4

Jennifer Goodlander

Director of Hamilton Lugar School Southeast Asian Studies and ASEAN Studies, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Indiana University (read bio)

Kelly Harper Berkson

Associate Professor of Linguistics, IU; Director, Chin Languages Research Project (read bio)

Jon Kay

Associate Professor, Folklore and Ethnomusicology; Interim Director, Arts & Humanities; Director, Traditional Arts Indiana, Indiana University (read bio)

Michal Temkin Martinez

Professor and Chair of the Department of Linguistics, Boise State University (read bio)

Kenneth Van Bik

Assistant Professor, Department of English, Comparative Literature, and Linguistics, California State University at Fullerton (read bio)

Graduate Student Poster Session

Dee Degner
PhD candidate, School of Education, IUB
Poster Title: English Learners Thriving and Surviving in Rural Schools

Michelle Medved
PhD candidate, School of Education, IUB
Poster Title: Constructing Home: A Thematic Analysis of Poems Written by Refugees

Eden Melles
PhD candidate, Political science, Northwestern University
Poster Title: African diaspora and migration

Sui Par
PhD candidate, School of Education, IUB
Poster Title: Migration and Cultural Continuity

Irene Routté
PhD candidate, Social Work, University of Michigan
Poster Title: Youth Engagement Frameworks, Refugee Led Organizations and Youth Councils: A Social Work Practice Based Case Study

Nahid Sharifi
PhD candidate, School of Education, IUB
Poster Title: From Displacement to Empowerment: Challenges and Support for Afghan Refugees Post-2021 in the United States (A Case Study of Afghan Refugees in Bloomington, Indiana).

Dillon Smith, James C. Wamsley, Grayson Ziegler, Amalia Robinson, Amanda Bohnert, Em Em, Sui Hnem Par, Van Nei Par, Elly Hnem, Neel Naam, and Hannah Hunt
IU Linguistics, Chin Languages Research Project
Poster Title: The Indianapolis Chin Community Language Survey

Event Contact

Email Heather Duemling, Director of Events & Outreach / Special Assistant to the Dean