International Conference
Young People’s (Self-)Positioning in the World: Subjectivities, Discourses, and Inequalities
September 08–11, 2026 • Essen, Germany
Conference team: Jessica Schwittek, Alexandra König, Katarzyna Jendrzey, & Maraia Bonsignore
Block 1: (Auto-)Biographical Narratives About Europe
Xiarong Gu – University of Suffolk
"Imagining Europe: Overseas Chinese Students’ Narratives of Host Societies Across a Century"
September 9, 2026
Beata Gromadzka – Adam Mickiewicz University
"Europe as Promise and Disappointment: Young People’s Socio-Spatial Self-Positioning in Polish Post-Transformation Narratives"
September 9, 2026
Block 2: Imagined Futures and Structural Constraints
Anand Panamthottam Cherian – George Mason University
"Aspiring to Move, Positioned to Serve: Middle-Class Indian Student Migration, Recruiters, and the Production of Cosmopolitan Subjectivities"
September 9, 2026
Dasarath Chetty & Sheetal Bhoola – University of Zululand
"Present and Future (Im)mobilities: Self-positioning, Intersectionality and Precarity amongst South African and African Youth"
September 9, 2026
Block 3: Processual Perspectives on Young People’s Mobilities
Onallia Esther Osei – Maastricht University
"From Migration Aspirations to Future-Making: Bright Spots and Trajectories within the Migration Aspirational Landscapes of Ghanaian Stayer Youth"
September 9, 2026
Rukayat Usman – University of Ibadan
"Living on the Inside and Outside Like Doors: Data Disclosure and Fluidity among Returning IDPs in the Lake Chad Region"
September 9, 2026
Block 4: Views from the Diaspora
Jiayin Li-Gottwald – Northern Business School, University of Applied Sciences / Helmut Schmidt University
"Constructing China: From Positioning to Place – Transpositioning and the Construction of China among Chinese-German Youth"
September 10, 2026
Block 5: Constructions of Migrants and Their Position in the Society of Residence
Stella Louise Wolter – University of Vienna
"Conditional Belonging: Youth Self-Positioning in Austria’s Integration Regime"
September 10, 2026
Dmitry Erokhin – International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
"Framing Themselves: YouTube Discourses on Young Migrants and the Conditions of Self-Positioning"
September 10, 2026
Block 6: Young Migrants as Pupils
Presentation - Korpela
Mari Korpela – Tampere University
“'In My Memories I Just Teleported from Other Places'. The Self-Positioning of Children and Teenagers Attending an International School in Finland"
September 10, 2026
Anzhela Popyk – SWPS University
"Reflexive Self-Positioning: Ukrainian Refugee Adolescents Navigating Educational Transitions in Poland"
September 10, 2026
Block 7: Political Subjectivities
Ons Chaabane – Eötvös Loránd University
"Between Homeland Politics and Diasporic Life: Self-Positioning and Political Subjectivities among Tunisian Youth in France"
September 10, 2026
Riza Franchesca Regala – Polish Academy of Sciences
"Youth Participation in High-Level Migration Governance Spaces: Mobility, Discourse, and Self-Positioning"
September 10, 2026