IMISCOE Research Group "Contested childhoods and multiple crises"

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The IMISCOE (International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion in Europe) research network unites 29 institutions and over 200 researchers in Europe and beyond. From 2013, NOVA co-ordinates a new IMISCOE Research Group, Contested childhoods and mul tiple crises: When children and young people form part of migration processes, new questions arise at the intersection of childhood studies and migration studies. Tensions between different value systems may normally have little practical importance, but a crisis often makes underlying conflicts more acute. An increasingly "omniphobic Europe" - connected to economic, cultural or moral crises and to a perceived problematic role of Islam in many migrant families - strengthens the motivation of governments t o control migrants' family life and childhood. Families, nation-states, markets and children themselves are central actors engaged in contesting the meaning of childhood. Such contestations may range from minor tensions to violent conflicts. We seek to ad dress questions that become especially pressing in times of crises, such as: * How are children regarded as representing the future of the societies of emigration or immigration, the future of their families, or their own futures? * How do societies striv e to include the children of immigrants/migrant children? * How do children and young people seek to establish their positions, and how may these efforts conflict or converge with families' struggles for continuity and belonging? * Which ideas, ideals, an d practices of childhood do diverging interests represent and how are they negotiated in different social fields? * How may migration lead to changes in the understanding and practicing of childhoods?