The series accesses the field of Migration Studies by distinguishing two different and complementary perspectives. The first sees migration as linked with crisis and vulnerability, the second sees it as linked with diversity and cultural difference. The lectures will focus on recent debates revolving around two concepts that epitomize these parallel approaches: resilience and conviviality.
Dr. Tilmann Heil will lecture on « Contesting conviviality. Conceptual, political, and epistemological explorations about a troubling wor(l)d ».
Tilmann Heil (University of Cologne, Iberian and Latin American Department of the Historical Institute Maria Sybilla Merian Center Conviviality-Inequality in Latin America) is a specialist in migration studies and one of the leading figures in recent debates on migration, diversity and conviviality. In his book “Comparing Conviviality” (2020), he has sharpened the understanding of conviviality as a process of interaction, negotiation and translation from which forms of minimal and fragile sociality emerge. His ethnographic work focuses on situations of ethnic and religious plurality and multilingualism. In his current research project “Valued Difference,” he addresses urban hierarchies and inequalities by looking at West African and Southern European migrants in Rio de Janeiro.