The editorial team of Migration Politics is seeking innovative and original paper proposals for the virtual residency taking place from 18-22 January 2027. We call for submissions that theorize political agency in relation to migration politics, or that investigate empirically how different types of actors exercise their political agency within the context of migration governance.
Public discourse on migration often portrays migrants as either exceedingly rational utility-maximizing agents reacting seamlessly to push and pull factors, or as powerless victims at the mercy of unscrupulous smugglers and mischievous governments. In recent years, migration scholarship has increasingly challenged this dichotomous view, by carefully investigating how a multiplicity of state and non-state actors – including migrants, smugglers, border guards, NGOs, lawyers, judges, doctors, religious leaders, and decision-makers – exercise their agency. These actors either reify or circumvent norms, influence policy making and implementation, maintain or challenge relations of power, and negotiate various forms of access, privileges, rights and belonging.
This virtual residency aims to push the research on political agency in the context of migration politics further by examining the ways in which political agency is exercised in different sites and by different actors. It also aims to analyse factors that impact the exercise of political agency, including the role of emotions and the relational dimension of agency. Finally, we also want to investigate the consequences of political agency at the micro-level of individual lives and relationships, the meso-level of organizations, and the macro-level of the state.
Successful applicants will participate in an intensive, one-week online residency programme curated by the senior editorial fellows of Migration Politics. The programme will include two presentations by each participant, as well as in-depth feedback sessions with the Senior Editorial Eellows, fellow authors-in-residence, and invited migration scholars. This year’s residency will be organized by Julia Mourão Permoser and Lea Müller-Funk, who will be supported by Ahmad Wali Ahmad Yar and other members of the Department of Migration and Globalisation at the University of Continuing Education Krems. The primary aim of the residency is to offer authors the opportunity to work intensively on their manuscripts during an entire week and benefit from an in-depth exchange with other scholars, fostering dialogical and collaborative research practices in line with the philosophy of Migration Politics.
Submissions should demonstrate theoretical and methodological rigor and transparency. In case of empirical papers, data collection must be completed prior to submitting a paper proposal. We particularly welcome submissions that investigate regions, actors and sites that have not been prominent in the literature so far, and that adopt an innovative methodological or conceptual approach.
By participating in the residency, participants commit to submitting their manuscript to Migration Politics. Submitted manuscripts will then undergo rigorous peer-review. Please note that acceptance into the residency does not automatically mean that the paper will be accepted for publication. If accepted for publication, we offer full open-access publication without article processing charges (platinum open access).
The proposal deadline is 15 August 2026.
| If your proposal is selected, the deadline for a first full paper draft is 7 December 2026. Please note that only authors who have submitted a full draft of the paper (around 8,000–9,000 words excluding references) by the deadline stated above will be able to attend the residency. |
Please submit your proposal, with a length of 1,000 – 1,500 words, through this form.
The proposal should contain:
- Main research question(s) of the paper.
- The expected key contribution of the paper to ongoing scholarly debates, explaining which debates it connects to and citing relevant work.
- A detailed description of the theoretical and methodological approach.
- The empirical material if applicable. (Data collection already needs to be completed.)
- Preliminary findings.
- An explanation of the ways in which the contribution is original/innovative and advances the state of the art in the discipline.
- References (these do not count towards the word limit).
Proposals will be evaluated based on their originality and innovation, the strength of their theoretical and conceptual framework, and their methodological approach and empirical material. In addition, overall clarity, coherence and suitability to the Migration Politics journal, as well to the theme of “Migration Politics and Political Agency” will be decisive.
If your paper has a different focus, or if the dates of the virtual residency are not convenient for you, please consider submitting to a later call or to another submission track of the Migration Politics journal. Please note that a paper can only be submitted to one track.
For questions directly linked to the virtual residency, please read our FAQ. If any of your questions remain unanswered, please send an e-mail to migrationpolitics@donau-uni.ac.at with the subject line: “Virtual Residency 2026”.