Call for Papers

11-13.11.26

Bucharest

Similarity, Migration, and Postcolonial Entanglements: Rethinking Shared Histories

Research seminar of the European doctoral network of the universities of Augsburg (Germany), Verona (Italy), Limerick (Ireland), Bucharest (Romania), Santiago de Compostela (Spain), and Lorraine (France)
 

In recent years, Anil Bhatti’s theorization of similarity has opened a productive space for rethinking relationality beyond the binaries that have long structured postcolonial and migration studies. Rather than approaching cultures, histories, or identities through the lens of difference, hierarchy, or opposition, Bhatti proposes similarity as a non hierarchical, non essentialist mode of comparison—one that foregrounds proximity, overlap, and shared conditions without erasing asymmetry. This shift is particularly generative for the study of migration and postcolonial entanglements, where histories of mobility, displacement, and imperial governance produce unexpected affinities across linguistic, cultural, and geopolitical boundaries. Similarity, in Bhatti’s sense, allows us to trace parallel trajectories, resonant experiences, and interconnected pasts that challenge rigid narratives of national belonging or cultural purity. By adopting similarity as an analytical lens, we can illuminate how shared histories emerge not from sameness, but from the dynamic, often uneven interactions
 

This CFP invites contributions that explore how similarity, migration, and postcolonial legacies intersect to shape shared histories across regions, cultures, and temporalities. We encourage interdisciplinary work that examines how mobility—forced or voluntary—produces unexpected affinities, parallel trajectories, and entangled pasts that challenge national, ethnic, or disciplinary boundaries.
The aim is to rethink how histories are made together, even when shaped by asymmetrical power relations, colonial violence, or uneven mobility regimes.
 

We welcome papers that engage with questions such as:
•    How do migrant experiences generate new forms of similarity across cultures, languages, or identities?
•    In what ways do postcolonial histories create shared or parallel narratives between communities that never directly interacted?
•    How do concepts like diaspora, displacement, exile, and return reshape collective memory?
•    What methodological tools help us trace entangled histories across borders and empires?
•    How do contemporary migration regimes reproduce or transform colonial patterns of governance?
•    Can similarity be a critical category for understanding solidarity, hybridity, or transcultural exchange?
 

Submissions may address, but are not limited to:
•    Comparative or connected histories of migration
•    Postcolonial theory and shared memory
•    Transnational or transimperial mobility
•    Cultural similarity, mimicry, and hybridity
•    Migration literature, film, and visual culture
•    Border regimes and colonial continuities
•    Entangled histories of empire, nation, and diaspora
•    Linguistic contact zones and translation
•    Race, identity, and belonging in postcolonial contexts.