Migration Brokerage in a Changing World: Bringing Practice and Research into Dialogue8.11.2026 {en}

The convenors would like to invite you to the upcoming online event „Migration Brokerage in a Changing World: Bringing Practice and Research into Dialogue.“　This is a rare opportunity for scholars and practitioners to share their experiences and expertise on migration brokerage. Brokerage is contested in some contexts, yet it remains a necessary process in (cross-border) mobility.

Date: Thursday, 12 November 2026
Time: 9:00-11:15 CET
Place: Online

The event consists of two parts:

Part 1: Practitioners on brokerage in Asia and Europe (9:00-10:00 CET)

This session will feature invited practitioners, who are activists, representatives of civil society organizations, trade unions, and migrant support organizations. Participants will reflect on the changing dynamics of migration governance in their areas of work, their experiences with regulating, monitoring, or collaborating with brokers, as well as the opportunities, risks, and unintended consequences associated with brokerage.

Speakers: William Gois (Regional Coordinator, Migrant Forum in Asia); Shom Luitel (Human Rights Lawyer, Nepal), Marina Sultana (Director, Programme, RMMRU, Bangladesh) moderated by Dr. Stefan Rother (ACT, Freiburg University)

Short break

Part 2: Roundtable among scholars across regions (10:10-11:15 CET)

The second session will bring together four scholars working on migration brokerage and related topics from different disciplinary perspectives, such as sociology, anthropology, political science, and international relations. The speakers will engage in a moderated dialogue exploring brokerage as a social, economic, and political institution. Particular attention will be paid to competing interpretations of brokerage: as a mechanism of exploitation, as an infrastructure of mobility, as a response to gaps in migration governance, and as a potentially indispensable component of contemporary migration systems.

Speakers: Dr. Sandhya A.S (Bielefeld University), Dr. Mira Burmeister-Rudolph (Arnold Bergstraesser Institute Freiburg), Dr. Liberty Chee (Former Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow) and Dr. Aimi Muranaka (Waseda University)

The event follows a dialogue format to encourage active discussion among the speakers and with the audience.

Please register here: https://uni-bielefeld.zoom-x.de/meeting/register/f7hHNH8gR42lM0g11q8xDw

Source: [ONLINE] “Migration brokerage” (Thu, Nov. 12th), H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online „CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.“