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CALL FOR PAPERS

‼️ The research team of Mig-Ambiance | Migrants’ right to urban Ambiance organises the session ‘Migrant Emplacement and Urban Ambiances: Fearscapes, Ethnoscapes, Commonscapes (No. 23)’, as part of the 13th International Conference of the Hellenic Geographical Society, ‘Geography Matters’, in Athens, Greece, on 27–28 November 2026.

📣We are now accepting paper proposals!!
DEADLINE: 1st of May 2026

Session 23: Migrant emplacement and urban ambiances: fearscapes, ethnoscapes, commonscapes
Organizers: Panos Hatziprokopiou, Haris Tsavdaroglou, Eva Papatzani, Zachos Valiantzas Antigoni Elefsinioti

✏️Session Abstract: This session aims at conceptualizing the embodied practices, relationships, and encounters of migrants in urban settings through the lens of (lived) urban ambiance(s). It embarks from the idea that urban ambiances dictate the conditions of migrant emplacement and are at the same time themselves transformed by migrant presence. While the concept of “ambiance” (or “atmosphere”) signals a burgeoning field of study – referring to the sensory and cognitive perceptions of place shaped by emotions, affective relationships, everyday social experiences, as well as material and aesthetic elements of the built environment— it remains largely absent in migration studies and debates about migrant emplacement in urban environments. Despite extensive research on how migrant populations contribute to the production of space, a significant epistemological gap persists regarding the intersection of these two fields. This study addresses this lacuna by investigating how migrants perceive existing urban ambiances and the ways in which their practices and relationships modify these or generate new ones.
The session aims at enacting a dialogue around three distinct “landscapes” that constitute migrant-related urban ambiances:
– Fearscapes: Referring to the ambiances related to spaces defined by xenophobic reactions, racially motivated violence, or police harassment.
– Ethnoscapes: Pointing to the ambiances of the infrastructures established by migrant themselves, such as ethnic businesses or community associations.
– Commonscapes: Accounting for solidarity initiatives that foster shared spaces for both locals and migrants.
By synthesizing perspectives from critical geography, urban sociology, and migration studies with recent conceptualizations of urban ambiance(s), this session intends to enrich scholarly debates concerning migrants’ emplacement and how it intersects with the production of space and the right to the city.

🟧 Abstract proposals must be submitted via the conference website: https://hellenic-geographical-society.com/el/conference2026
🟧 Abstracts should not exceed 300 words. Each submission must include the title of the paper, the author’s affiliation(s), and up to five keywords
🟧 The call for abstracts will remain open until 1 May 2026.

Migrants’ right to urban ambience: Fearscapes, ethnoscapes and commonscapes in Athens and Thessaloniki

MIGAMBIANCE intends to explore aspects of migrants’ embodied practices, relations and encounters in urban areas through the looking-glass of urban ambiance, which both determines migrants’ presence on the urban space and is transformed because of it. Its empirical perspective is organized along different “landscapes” of urban ambiance in relation to migrants’ presence: “fearscapes”, referring to spaces marked by xenophobic reactions, racially motivated violence and police harassment; “ethnocscapes”, relating to the infrastructures created by the migrants themselves such as shops and associations; and “commonscapes”, accounting for solidarity initiatives producing common spaces for locals and migrants. The project is innovative in combining critical geographic literature from urban and migration studies with recent works on urban ambiances, enrich thus the scholarly debates on migrants’ contribution to the production of space and the right to the city. The project will explore the above through an innovative combination of quantitative and especially qualitative methodologies, which give voice to migrant subjects and incorporate their perspectives in the research process itself, allowing for the production of critical cartographies of migrants’ (right to) urban ambiance(s) in Athens and Thessaloniki.

The concept of ambiance(s) (also termed ‘ambience’, ‘atmosphere’, ‘atmosphericity’) refers to sensory perceptions of place, shaped by emotions and lived experiences as well as the material environment (Anderson, 2009; Griffero, 2019; Thibaud, 2022). Given a longstanding recognition of migrants’ contribution to the production of urban space, including their active claims to the right to the city, research and conceptualization of the interlinkages between urban ambiances and migrants’ emplacement is strikingly absent. Hence arise the main questions MIG-AMBIANCE intends to address: How do established spatial ambiances may be allowable, accessible and viable for newly arrived migrants? And in which ways the latter’s practices and desires may alter them and give birth to new ones?

The research project’s key objective is thus to explore different (even though sometimes overlapping) dimensions of urban ambiance in relation to migrants’ presence and practice, focusing particularly on newly arrived migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. More specifically, the research aims to:

(a) examine whether, to what extend and in which ways established urban ambiances may involve spaces of fear, violence and exclusion, or safe spaces allowing for settling in, encounter and community, or collective spaces of meaningful contact, solidarity and common struggles;

(b) investigate migrants’ own acts and mundane embodied practices, relations, senses and emotions though which they navigate established urban ambiances or produce new ones in everyday life;

(c) compare and contrast formal policies, institutional practices and grassroots initiatives in making space for migrants’ right to urban ambiances.