Soziologie

When I submitted my abstracts to the 23rd IMISCOE Annual Conference in 2025, I was working as a research associate in India. By the time I arrived in Girona, I was introducing myself as a doctoral researcher in the RTG 2951 “Cross-Border Labour Markets” at Bielefeld University—a sentence I had rehearsed more than once, given that I had started in this new role only three months earlier. This year's conference thus marked a personal transition as much as an academic one. It was my first major conference as a doctoral researcher, and the shift in perspective was as significant as the change in affiliation.

My contributions were spread across two panels. In the panel Rethinking Migration Skill Corridors through Stakeholder Engagement on Both Sides of Origins and Destinations, chaired by Dr Helen Schwenken (Principal Investigator of RTG 2951) and Dr Izabela Grabowska, I presented jointly with Daria Huss on stakeholder dynamics and governance structures in the India–Austria migration skill corridor. I also presented in Intermediary Agents of Educational Mobility: Rethinking Brokerage, Agency, and Engagement in International Educational Migration, chaired by Rica Agnes Castaneda and Dr Felicitas Hillmann. Alongside these presentations, I participated in the workshop More Collaborative, Less Extractive: Decentering Migration Research and Methodologies, which explored approaches to data extraction, collaboration, and community engagement in migration research.

I have attended similar conferences before, but almost always as someone reporting on project deliverables and scanning the programme for potential collaborators. Attending as a doctoral researcher felt different. For the first time, I found myself sitting in sessions not only to stay informed about developments in the field, but also to think carefully about what each presentation might contribute to my own emerging research project.

Some of the most valuable conversations happened outside the formal programme. Alongside exchanges with established scholars during panels and plenaries, I spent a great deal of time talking with fellow doctoral researchers. Some were further along in their journeys, generously sharing reflections on navigating fieldwork and the slower, often solitary process of writing. Others, like me, were only just beginning to define the contours of their projects. And some had come primarily to reconnect with the intellectual curiosity that had led them to doctoral research in the first place. Those conversations offered reassurance, practical advice, and a welcome reminder that research trajectories rarely follow a straight path.

Girona itself contributed to that sense of connection. In a smaller city, the conference naturally extends beyond the venue. Conversations continued on evening walks through the old town and over shared dinners. Many of these informal exchanges introduced me to research that initially seemed far removed from my own, only for surprising points of overlap to emerge as the conversations unfolded. These moments reminded me that interdisciplinary dialogue often happens in the spaces between scheduled sessions.

Looking back, IMISCOE 2026 was more than an opportunity to present my work. It was a chance to reconnect with former colleagues and friends, meet researchers whose work I had previously encountered only through publications, and engage with some of the most exciting scholarship in migration studies today. As someone at the beginning of a doctoral journey, I left Girona with new ideas, new connections, and renewed enthusiasm for the work ahead.