Global & Area Perspectives (GAP) Symposium

An annual symposium offering regional perspectives on key global challenges

November 1-2, 2024
Inaugural Theme: MIGRATION

Discover how studies on migration — from multiple disciplines and world regions — can enrich our understanding and point the way toward helpful social responses and policy engagement.

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.

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 - 6:45 pm — Reception

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 Global Lounge
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

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. 

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?

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.

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.

Co-sponsored by the Institute of European Studies and Polish Studies Center

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.

Panel 4: Empowering Displaced Communities through Language and Culture

Jennifer Goodlander

Director of Hamilton Lugar School Southeast Asian Studies & 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)

Accommodations

For the convenience of GAP Symposium attendees, hotel room blocks are available for two local hotels:

Hyatt Place
217 W. Kirkwood Ave.
Bloomington, IN 47404  

Visit the Hyatt Place GAP Symposium booking page and click the “Book” button. This leads to a booking page that should automatically provide the symposium rate (G-HLSS should be pre-selected in the “Corporate or Group Code” pull down menu).

The Hyatt block reservation ends October 17, 2024.

SpringHill Suites
501 N. College Ave.
Bloomington, IN 47404

Visit the SpringHill Suites website, for the Hamilton Lugar School Global and Area Perspectives Symposium (HLS-GAPS) block.

The SpringHill Suites block reservation ends October 17, 2024.

Event Contact

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