Join us for an Inspiring Evening on Migration and European Solidarity
We are delighted to invite you to the opening lecture of the first UCSIA Winter School, titled: “Dignity Amidst Despair: Migration Challenging European Solidarity”.
Following the lecture, Milena Belloni, Coordinator of MIGLOBA at the University of Antwerp, will provide an insightful response.
The event will conclude with a Q&A session, offering an opportunity to engage in dialogue on one of the most pressing issues of our time.
Multicultural Societies and the Requirements of a Democratic State
The increasing cultural diversity in European societies brings with it the question of whether, and if so, under what conditions, the law can continue to play the role of an instrument for bringing about social cohesion.
This analysis comprises two mutually complementary parts. The first part briefly describes the various legal techniques that have been developed in a number of (chiefly Western) European countries since the post-war period (the 1950s and 1960s) in order to address problems and issues of (potential) conflicts between cultures, religions and/or beliefs.
The second part takes a closer look at the role of human rights in this regard, with a number of examples drawn from recent cases that focus in particularly on the protection of freedom of religion and belief, in conjunction with the principle of personal autonomy.
Marie-Claire Foblets
Director of the Law & Anthropology Department at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale, Germany
She is also a professor at the Catholic University Leuven (Belgium) and an Honorary Professor at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (Germany) and the University of Leipzig (Germany).
She has been teaching law and social and cultural anthropology at the universities of Antwerp, Leuven and Brussels for over twenty years. She served for several years also as co-president of the Association française d’anthropologie du droit (AFAD).
Her research focuses on the application of Islamic law in Europe and more recently on the accommodation of religious and cultural diversity under State Law throughout the EU. In 2004, she received the Francqui Prize, the most prestigious academic award in the humanities in Belgium.
She holds the title of doctor honoris causa from the Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis in Brussels (2016) and the University of Uppsala (2019). She is a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts (2001) and also of the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities (2015).
Milena Belloni
Coordinator of MIGLOBA, the Network on Migration and Global Mobility of the University of Antwerp
She is an ethnographer specialized in migration and refugee studies. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Italy, Belgium and Holland. Her research mainly concerns refugees’ migration dynamics and inclusion pathways, transnational refugee families, migrant smuggling, protracted displacement in Europe and in the Global South, home and housing studies, and ethnographic methods.
She published in several international peer reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Refugee Studies, the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and Global Networks. Her monographic study on the migration of Eritreans to Europe, The Big Gamble, is published by the University of California Press (2019).
Schedule
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19:00
Welcome and introduction, Erik De Bom, Deputy Director UCSIA -
19:10
Lecture by Marie-Claire Foblets, Director of the Law & Anthropology Department at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale, Germany -
19:55
Response by Milena Belloni, Coordinator of MIGLOBA, the Network on Migration and Global Mobility of the University of Antwerp -
20:15
Q&A
