The Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies at NC State hosted its first international conference on Middle East and North African migration. Experts from around the world met in Withers Hall Friday and Saturday to discuss their work in the field and develop new ideas.
The conference featured 20 panelists from the U.S., U.K., Scotland and Tunisia. The panelists presented their papers in the field, which discussed anthropology, history and how they intersect, especially with the issues of migration and mass displacement.
Dean Jeff Braden of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences welcomed the attendees and spoke about CHASS and the Moise A. Khayrallah Center.
“NC State has traditionally been known for its ag and tech,” Braden said. “Sometimes, in the United States, we would call schools like ours the ‘cow college’ or something like that because of our early and heavy investment in engineering and agriculture. However, we have always had strong humanities and social sciences here.”
The research papers discussed at the conference addressed issues of borders and territories, narrating the stories of refugees, examples of refugee engagement strategies and international politics.
In his closing remarks, Akram Khater, history professor and director of the Moise A. Khayrallah Center, concluded the conference by thanking the panelists and fellow organizers.
“Our expectations were far superseded by the quality of your individual papers, by the quality of conversations that you have carried through and, really, by all the new questions that we will not have enough lifetime to answer,” Khater said.
Khater also encouraged the panelists to submit their papers for publication before the end of August. The papers will go through the peer-review process and be published in Mashriq and Mahjar, the Journal of Middle East and North African Migration Studies.
“When we sent out the call for papers, we had always envisioned that we’d like to publish some of these papers,” Khater said. “First of all, we invite all of you to submit a real, fully developed paper based on having a little more time, based on comments.”
The various topics discussed in the conference have brought up more important questions about understanding migration, according to Khater.
“I wasn’t kidding when I said we’ve just developed a lot more questions than what we’ve answered at this point, but there’s been a lot of places where we identified holes we haven’t really quite filled,” Khater said. “Some from the beginning, even before we came together or as you can sort of imagine, for example, we really didn’t talk about Jewish immigration … but in general it hasn’t been a focal point in this regard.”
According to Khater, the conversation is not over. Many issues remain, and could be addressed in future conferences.
“Interestingly enough for a conference on Middle East migrants, we haven’t really talked about outflows of the region as much as sort of within the region,” Khater said. “However, there are a lot of other issues that we really could’ve addressed, we just sort of happened, we didn’t and I would like to name a few here.”
Some of the issues Khater mentioned include academics’ focus on governments rather than on the societies from which refugees come, and the roles of gender, sexuality and performances of masculinity or femininity in the lives of those who relocate voluntarily or involuntarily.
For more information about the conference, visit the Moise A. Khayrallah Center’s website, or follow them on Twitter.
