Importing and Exporting Migration Theory across Continents: Europe, North America, and East Asia / (1) Importing North American Theory in Europe

On the occasion of the publication of the 3rd edition of Caroline Brettell and James Hollifield's international reference work, Migration Theory: Talking Across Disciplines, and as the first half of the mini-symposium on Importing and Exporting Migration Theory Across Continents, our session proposes a roundtable of distinguished scholars on the "exportability" of American theory to European context. Involving four of the book's authors, who together cover politics / political economy (Hollifield, co-editor), migration law, citizenship and nationality (Abraham), demographics and assimilation (Bean), and culture, ethnography and geography (Favell), we have asked two critics to pick up the issues in the current state of comparative transatlantic theory building from politics, race & ethnicity (Bleich) and history/sociology (Foner). The emphasis will be on questioning the difficulties of transposing theories, in terms of asymmetries and contrasts between regions, while contemplating the possibility of a unified set of "global" migration theories. American conceptions have often reigned in European research engaged in scientific model building about immigration politics and economics, assimilation/integration dynamics, race relations, or ideals of multicultural citizenship but do these de-nature the issues about immigration or ethnic change in specific European contexts? Has American scientific hegemony had distorting effects, or are we now seeing emerging a genuine cross-Atlantic scientific agenda? What is the future for "global" migration theory beyond the West? We will debate these and other issues in an open, dynamic roundtable format, allowing for cross-questioning and free flowing debate.