CRS Seminar: The (Im)mobility Nexus

Building Bridges Between Migration and Resistance Studies to Understand the “Self-Confinement” of Indigenous and Afro-descendant Communities in the Colombian Pacific Region

September 30 2025

1:00 - 2:30pm

This is a virtual event

Zoom: https://yorku.zoom.us/meeting/register/AAUfcDaxRsODEgYU0rzYWA

With guest speaker: Raquel Araújo de Jesus, Postdoctoral Fellow, São Paulo Research Foundation

Abstract:

In the past twenty years, there has been a growing number of studies on the immobile aspects of human migration, referred to in recent literature as the “(im)mobility turn” in migration studies. Most of these studies problematize the binary or dichotomous distinction between mobility and immobility, as well as the marginalization of the latter, pointing to the intrinsic relationship between the two concepts/phenomena. Although this emerging literature highlights that immobility should not be taken for granted, much of it focuses on the forced, or “involuntary,” characteristics of this condition – in other words, on the constraints, regulations, and pressures that prevent people from exercising their human right to migrate. While recognizing the importance of this debate, this presentation aims to take a step further in migration and resistance studies by unpacking the (im)mobility nexus in the Colombian Pacific region. Drawing from an intersectional and intercultural perspective, it seeks to show that immobility is not merely the result of social structures that prevent or restrict movement, but can also be an expression of political agency and decision-making – even amidst a context of internationally recognized armed conflict and humanitarian crisis, as has been the case in Colombia for over half a century.

Bio:

Raquel Araújo de Jesus holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), with a sandwich period (PDSE-CAPES) at the Faculty of International, Political, and Urban Studies at Universidad del Rosario in Colombia. She is a collaborating researcher at the Federal University of ABC (UFABC), affiliated with the MIGREF Research Group, and currently holds a postdoctoral fellowship funded by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP). She is also a member of the Colombian Network of International Relations (Redintercol) and was a visiting scholar at the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University (2025). Her research takes an interdisciplinary approach and focuses on the forced displacement and resistance of Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities in the Colombian Pacific. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6839-6177.