how does the un talk about human mobility? a textual analysis of narratives by iom and unhcr on migrants and refugees

Intervention d'Antoine Pécoud (Université Sorbonne Paris Nord), dans le cadre du Workshop "Revisiting the Intersection of Migration, Economy, and Language", coorganisé par Cécile Vigouroux, professeure associée de sociolinguistique à l'Université Simon Fraser, Canada, résidente 2022-2023 de l'IEA de Paris, et Salikoko S. Mufwene, détenteur de la Chaire Edward Waller Carson de linguistique, Université de Chicago, avec le soutien du University of Chicago Center in Paris.

Présentation

In this two-day workshop, the participants will discuss the role that economy plays in shaping migrants’ language repertoires and ideologies. We will also examine various ways in which governmental institutions and NGOs prepare migrants for insertion in their new, host countries’ economies.

This interdisciplinary workshop will include political scientists, historians, sociologists, sociolinguists, and linguistic anthropologists. One of the key questions that will be addressed is how experts in different academic disciplines interpret economy, as well as the key sites where economic dynamics are deployed.

One of the originalities of the workshop will be to bridge the multiple areas of scholarship that address the question of how ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ economies shape language dynamics and ideologies, highlighting differences and similarities.