Call for papers "Migration in the Age of AI: Work, Education and Belonging" to be held on 3–4 October 2026

We invite scholars and practitioners to submit proposals for participation in the workshop Migration in the age of AI to be held on 3–4 October 2026. It will take place in a hybrid format, allowing for both in-person (Tokyo, Japan) and online participation.

Workshop Focus: 

The digital world has long shaped migration experiences and transnational lives. From earlier diasporic practices of maintaining connections through letters, postcards, and prohibitively expensive phone calls, contemporary migrants now engage in instant, low-cost communication, sharing everyday life through images, videos, and real-time interactions. These shifts have transformed how migrants sustain family ties, construct belonging, and navigate mobility across borders. More recently, the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) has pushed digital technologies further along, reshaping migration experiences through AI-enabled translation applications, platform governance, and automated services that ease linguistic barriers, support early settlement and integration, and increasingly mediate access to information, rights, and opportunities.

At the same time, the growing reliance on AI-driven systems raises critical concerns. Algorithmic decision-making increasingly shapes migration governance, access to employment, asylum procedures, and legal pathways, with automated systems selecting, ranking, or rejecting applications—often in opaque and unaccountable ways. Overdependence on digital tools may also alter migrants’ social and linguistic practices, discourage language acquisition, intensify surveillance, or reinforce existing structural inequalities. Digital platforms shape migrants’ information environments in complex ways: they may amplify misinformation and idealized imaginaries of migration, yet they also enable the circulation of counter-narratives, including candid and often humorous depictions of everyday migrant experiences through memes and digital storytelling.

This workshop invites scholars to critically examine the promises, tensions, and consequences of migration in the age of AI, and how it shapes contemporary migratory processes. We welcome interdisciplinary, theoretical, empirical, comparative or practice-based contributions that explore how digital systems transform migrant experiences, governance structures, and transnational relations, as well as the broader ethical, social, cultural and political implications of AI in migration contexts. We particularly welcome papers that engage with one or more of the following themes: 

• AI and related digital technologies in migration governance, asylum systems, and border management

• The politics of AI and digital technologies in migration: power, policy, and control

• Algorithmic decision-making, bias, discrimination, and exclusion in migration and migrant labor systems

• Digital diasporas, transnational communication, and changing forms of belonging

• Translation technologies, language learning, and integration processes in migrant communities

• Digital surveillance, datafication, and migrant rights

• Misinformation, trust, and digital literacy in AI-driven media environments affecting migrants

Submission Requirements:

Interested participants are requested to submit the following materials:

• An abstract of up to 250 words

• A short biographical note of up to 150 words

• Abstract Submissions should be sent by 6 March 2026

Authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to submit a full paper of approximately 6,000 words no later than one month prior to the conference. This will allow for discussant feedback and meaningful engagement during the event.

Please use this link for submission:  https://forms.gle/6EH91yQVmCXfQ3Yq7

Publication Opportunity:

Selected papers presented at the conference will be considered for inclusion in a peer-reviewed special issue. Participation in the conference is therefore linked to a commitment to submit a full paper and engage in the collective publication process.

Funding and Participation:

Limited funding is available to provide partial support for those who are unable to fully self-fund their participation. While we regret that full costs cannot be covered, interested applicants will have the opportunity to apply for financial support after acceptance. We welcome submissions from early-career researchers and scholars from around the world.

• Megha Wadhwa, Sophia University 

• Michiel Baas, Leiden University

• David H. Slater, Sophia University 

This conference is a part of Sophia Symposium funded by Sophia University and Organised by Institute of Comparative Culture, Sophia University 

For further queries please contact: wadhwamegha@sophia.ac.jp