Call for Papers: Migrants and the City, Urban History Review

The Urban History Review / Revue d’histoire urbaine is calling for article proposals for a special issue on “Migrants and the City,” scheduled for publication in the Spring of 2025.

Cities are destinations, places to visit, and transit points; they are created, shaped, and transformed by the presence and actions of migrants. In a context of ongoing political debate about the present and future implications of migration in Canada and abroad, its history demands ongoing attention. This special issue will focus on people who arrived in cities as part of voluntary or involuntary migrations of various scales. Exploring the city through the lens of migration also means thinking about both the city and migration in terms of contact and exchange networks, from colonial and imperial trade routes to the global flow of capital that drives labor migration in the post-industrial era. As sites of power and centers of material, intellectual, and artistic production, cities have attracted and hosted workers and union organizers, artists and political activists, academics, and civil servants. The representations we have of cities, even their position within urban networks, come in part from histories of mobility.

While the meanings and consequences associated with being “foreign” have often been understood at a national scale and via the category of citizenship, urban history reveals the importance of power relations ranging from the global to the local that have also shaped migratory experience.

This special issue invites scholars to ask: To what extent have migrants and minorities with migrant backgrounds enjoyed access to urban space, to housing and property, to places of entertainment and leisure? How have authorities and developers planned and managed urban spaces with these populations in mind? How have migrants drawn the attention of urban institutions? How have their activities contributed to the local economy? To what extent have they driven economic change? In what ways have migrants and migrant communities interacted with the mainstream population and with other minorities? What issues have shaped their conflicts and struggles? How have they contributed to public debates, to intellectual and artistic production, to the dissemination of knowledge?

These questions can be addressed through a variety of historical and interdisciplinary approaches. We also hope that the theme of “migrants and the city” will inspire contributions from scholars active in diverse areas of historical research. Finally, we remain open to proposals that deal with Canadian cities as well as urban centers in other countries, or that adopt a comparative approach.

Schedule

May 30, 2023: deadline for receipt of article proposals (250–300 words)

June 30, 2023: notification to authors selected for inclusion

November 30, 2023: deadline for submission of articles ready for peer review (maximum length of 8,000–10,000 words)

Please follow the Review’s guidelines available at:

https://www.utpjournals.press/journals/uhr/submissions

Please submit your proposals to:

Harold Bérubé, co-editor: harold.berube@usherbrooke.ca

Nicolas Kenny, co-editor: nicolas.kenny@sfu.ca

Jordan Stanger-Ross, guest editor: jstross@uvic.ca 

Sylvie Taschereau, guest editor: Sylvie.Taschereau@uqtr.ca