24 August 2020, 6 pm, Panel Discussion
The Normal to Return to? Learning (from) Migration in Times of Pandemic

Panelists:

Maksym Butkevych (human rights activist, coordinator of the NGO “No Borders Project”, Ukraine)
Altynay Kambekova (social activist, member of the queer-feminist initiative “Feminita”, Kazakhstan)
Estela Schindel (scholar, Institute of European Studies/European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder))

Moderation: Gwendolyn Sasse (director of ZOiS – Centre for East European and International Studies)

Despite the repeated official statements about us all “being in this together”, the inequalities with regard to capabilities to maintain safety and necessary wellbeing could hardly be more glaring in our quarantined societies. During the current disruption of an accustomed course of life through the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic precarisation of (social) lives goes along with a stronger interweaving of biopolitical governance, citizenship and the rights for basic living conditions. What can/should we learn from this disruption and the various strategies of dealing with it? What is the social “normal” that we want to return to and (how) can the current pandemic serve as a portal to a fairer future? What can the figure of the migrant (in times of pandemic) tell us about the notion of citizenship as the right to have rights and the entitlement to have a social safety net to rely on?