Conference: Asylum Seekers in Europe: A New Transcultural Home or A Homeless Nation?

09.-10.06.2022 | 9.30-17.30 Uhr
Ort: Online via Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83553288916?pwd=ajMzUDVTOUZ1VnZ1VzR3UGJrdEM2dz09


Event in English.



With the ongoing Russian war on Ukraine, there have been many tensions, debates, and questions regarding the blatant differential treatment of Ukrainian refugees in comparison to non-Ukrainian refugee and migrant groups. In light of these dynamics, there is an urgent need to understand, analyze, and reflect on the European Union’s stance, its migration, asylum, and integration policies, as well as the “cultural” logics and lines of argumentation that inform these policies. Therefore, at this conference we foreground transculturality as a framework to reflect on the entanglements of EU asylum systems, migration and integration policies, (trans)cultural dynamics, and the realities of refugee and migrant lives, identities, and political and social participation in so-called post-migrant societies.

Moderator: Franziska Grillmeier


Preliminary schedule


Day I

9:30 to 10:00: Greeting message | Omid Nouripour (German politician of the Alliance ’90/The Greens and member of the Bundestag since 2006) / Zohre Esmaeli (managing director of the Zohre Esmaeli Foundation)

10:00 to 11:00: Transcultural Competences in the Asylum Procedure (project presentation film) incl. Q & A | Peter van Gielle Ruppe (project manager)

11:00 to 11:15: Break

11:15 to 12:30: EU Refugee Policy and Asylum System | Marius Rascanum (European Commission, Department of Migration and Home Affairs, Asylum)

12:30 to 13:45: Lunch Break

13:45 to 15:00: The European Migration and Border Regime, Europeanisation, and Asylum Policies in Europe | Dr. Bernd Kasparek (Network for Critical Migration and Border Regime Studies (kritnet))

15:00 to 15:30: Break

15:30 to 17:00: Keynote: “Belonging and Cohesion in Post-Migrant Societies – Germany’s Ambivalent Plural Democracy” | Prof. Dr. Naika Foroutan (Berliner Institut für empirische Integrations- und Migrationsforschung (BIM), HU Berlin)

17:00 to 17:30: Summary and outlook


Day II

9:30 to 09:40: Welcome

09:40 to 11:30: Input by partner organizations

11:30 to 11:45: Break

11:45 to 13:00: Socio-psychological aspects of war in the context of the European asylum procedure/policy | Dr. Rohulla Amin

13:00 to 14:00: Lunch Break

14:00 to 15:30: Discussion: Illegal Refugees or Legal Immigrants: First- or Second-class Asylum Seekers? | Catherine Woollard (European Council on Refugees and Exiles, ECRE, Director), Gábor Gyulai (Director of the Refugee Programme, Hungerian Helsinki Committee), other speakers tbd

15:30 to 15:45: Break

15:45 to 17:00: Keynote: Syrian Refugees between European Politics, Integration and Return | Anwar Al-Bunni

17:00 to 17:30: Goodbye/Evaluation