Date: 20 January 2026, 5-8pm
Place: ÖAW Campus, Seminar room 1 + 2, Bäckerstraße 13, 1010 Vienna & Online
Livestream: You can follow the event live here: https://www.oeaw.ac.at/veranstaltungen/live
Presentation of Belachew Gebrewolds book Postcolonial African Migration to the West as a Desire for Recognition and panel discussion with the author and migration experts on African Migration to the West
Postcolonial African migration to the West is more than a search for safety or opportunity. This book argues that it also springs from a mimetic desire for being: aspiring to recognition by imitating the West—its lifestyles, beauty ideals, and soft and hard power—against the long shadow of slavery, colonialism, and ongoing dominance. Even as the “model” erects physical and digital fences, migrants strive to cross them; the tighter the fences, the stronger the impulse to scale them. Reading migration through this relational lens helps explain why movement may persist even if poverty, conflict, or climate pressures recede. The author discusses how desire, recognition, and historical legacies shape choices today and to consider what this means for policy, culture, and belonging.
This event will consist of two parts.
Part 1: Belachew Gebrewold will present his book in discussion with Rainer Bauböck (EUI, Florence)
Part 2: A round table will take the publication as a starting point to discuss perspectives for migration from Africa. Topics will include: the root causes and dynamics of this migration and its consequences for African states as well as European perspectives regarding control of irregular migration, migration-development partnerships etc.
Participants:
Belachew Gebrewold, MCI Innsbruck
Miriam Mona Mukalazi, Lead Africa Policy Programme, Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation (VIDC)
Mathias Czaika, Department for Migration and Globalisation, University for Continuing Education Krems
Chair: Wiebke Sievers, Thematic Platform for Migration and Diversity, Austrian Academy of Sciences