Diversity, Integration, Inclusion, Participation Governance – Actors, Actions and Policies

According to the latest ‘World Migration Report 2024’ by the International Organisation for Migration, compared to its 2000 edition, the estimated number of international migrants increased from 150 million to 281 million, which translates into a significant change in the estimated proportion of world migrant population from 2.8% to 3.6%. At the same time, the number of refugees increased substantially from 14 million to 35.4 million, and the number of internally displaced persons increased from 21 million to 71.4 million. Intensifying international migration flows is a global trend. Receiving/host/settlement societies are becoming increasingly diversified in terms of their resident populations, including migrants with different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, from different countries of birth/origin/usual residence and with different legal residence statuses. This results in many central and local-level efforts (or lack thereof) in diversity/integration/inclusion/participation governance “for” migrants, “with” migrants or “by” migrants. These efforts involve numerous national and international actors - public, societal and private. Their activities may take the form of official policies targeting specific groups of migrants; they may be mainstreamed within broadly defined social policies and based primarily on bottom-up initiatives and programmes. This looks different in unitary, highly centralised states and complex states where numerous competences are implemented at lower levels of territorial administration with a high degree of autonomy. In this context, we encourage the authors to explore the experiences of various countries whose migration experience and approaches to migration governance may differ but inspire each other in terms of best practices. We are also interested in different theoretical approaches to the issue of integration and their conceptualisations by key actors. We welcome panellists addressing these considerations in their research.