Political Citizenship and Social Movements

27 - 28 June 2016 - Derek McGhee, Chris Moreh and Emilia Pietka-Nykaza were delighted to be presenting their latest research at the 'Political Citizenship and Social Movements' conference.

The two day event, held at the University of Portsmouth, comprised of keynote talks and research presentations and was an opportunity for academics to discuss ideas and share experiences. The conference looked at how citizenship and social movements or group actions such as protests where people are campaigning for a common goal, interact with each other in today's world. Particularly focussing on how social movements such as the Occupy movement, which organised camps in public spaces across the world to protest against social and economic inequality, have changed peoples' perception of their own citizenship and how social movements and citizenship continue to evolve together.

Chris Moreh, whose work focuses on the sociology of citizenship, mobility and political discourse, commented "I am delighted to be among a group of academics who will represent the University of Southampton at this conference. I am delivering a paper on "External ethnic citizenship constellations in Central Eastern Europe". The paper provides a partial theoretical underpinning to a research project I will be working on which explores 'citizenship experience' and the naturalisation decision-making process."

Emilia and Derek presented a paper as part of the special panel 'Beyond European National Boundaries'. Of the opportunity to present their work Emilia said "I am really looking forward to attending the conference and presenting our work on political participation and political rights of Polish migrants in Scotland in the context of the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014 and the General Election in 2015." This work is part of the 'Examining the drivers, impacts and long-term trajectories of Polish migration a decade after accession' project which focuses on how and where in Scotland Polish migrants' settle and patterns of returning to Poland.

Organised by the BSA Citizenship Study Group and the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) Standing Group on Citizenship, further information about this event can be found on the University of Portsmouth website.

Posted 24/06/2016 15:56