Making Family while Seeking Asylum
Renegotiating Kinship and Gender against European Asylum Regimes. ANR AMORE Project
23.04.2026 – 24.04.2026
14:00 – 17:00
Tillion-Saal
Asylum-seeking in Europe reshapes not only legal trajectories but also family relations. Household transnationalisation, renegotiations of status among siblings and generations, changing gender roles within couples and families, and new forms of parenthood are all part of these transformations. Asylum and migration policies play a key role in this process, as they create specific systems of opportunities and constraints that deeply affect the way asylum seekers and refugees do and imagine family life. This workshop examines how asylum-seeking in Europe transforms family relationships once asylum seekers and refugees have reached the continent, drawing on the anthropology of kinship, transnational studies and street-level approaches to public policy to explore how families adapt to asylum procedures, which strategies they deploy, and with what transformative effects. Particular attention is paid to the gaps between policy assumptions about kin relations and the social reality of lived family ties. While a focus on Afghans one of the largest refugee populations in Europe ensures strong coherence and dialogue among the papers, theoretical contributions and case studies focusing on other asylum-seeking populations provide a broader perspective. The empirical studies cover a range of European countries and analyse the effects of different policy frameworks, including family reunification, the Dublin system and resettlement, on family relations, particularly gender relations, generational dynamics and sibling relations.
Programm
Program PDF: Making Family while Seeking Asylum
23 April 2026
2:00 – 2:30
Welcome and coffee
2:30- 6:00
Session 1: Afghan Perspectives on Making Family under Asylum
Introduction et moderation: Giulia Scalettaris (Centre Marc Bloch/AMORE)
Narges Ghandchi (Aarhus University), Power dynamics of kin relationships among Afghan
refugee families in Denmark.
Giovanni Penna (University of Antwerp), Reconfiguring Responsibility: Shifting Gender
Roles in Afghan Family Reunification.
Mursal Rasa (University College London), Afghan Resettlement in England: Gender and
Generation.
Semih Nargül (Van Yüzüncü Yıl University), Mobility strategies against the Dublin
Regulation. The role of kinship networks.
Nina Khamsy (University of Neuchatel), Making Family through Digital Practices:
Rethinking Polymedia among Afghans Living in Legal Precarity.
7:00
Dinner
24 April 2026
8:30 – 9:00
Welcome and coffee
9:00-12:30
Session 2: Comparative and Theoretical Perspectives on Kinship, Gender, and Asylum
Moderation: Nina Khamsy (University of Neuchâtel/AMORE)
Hala Abou-Zaki (Université Paris Cité), Scattered Palestinian Families: Family Life and
Practices across Multiple Statuses
Shaden Sabouni (Fulda University of Applied Sciences), Renegotiating Kinship, Gender, and
Authority under Asylum Regimes: Syrian Families in Germany.
Giulia Scalettaris (Marc Bloch Zentrum Berlin), Bridging Policy and Anthropology: A
Scoping Literature Review on Afghan Family-Making in Europe
Laura Odasso (Paris 8 University), Ascribed, Performative, Transformed. Exploring Kinship
Redefinition and Its Materiality in Refugee-Related Formalities.
Benjamin Etzold (Bonn Centre for Dependency and Slavery Studies), From Displaced
Families to Translocal Lives in Times of Conflict – Empirical insights and Conceptual
Reflections.
12:30 -2:00
Lunch and coffee
2:00 – 5:00
Session 3: Mobility-related Categories and Belonging. A Dialogue with Heike Drotbohm
Heike Drotbohm (University of Mainz) discusses with the AMORE research members around
her article:
Heike Drotbohm (2025), “Categories as learning practice: navigating contested belonging
along transatlantic mobile trajectories”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 48:4, 812-835