The international seminar Diasporas, migration et infrastructures de l’interactionnisme symbolique was the second event organised as part of the CIVIS project. Held in Casablanca between June 8th and 12th 2022, the interdisciplinary meeting brought together professors from the University of Bucharest (Institute of African Studies, Department of Ancient History, Archaeology and History of Art within the Faculty of History, as well as the Faculty of Political Sciences), the University of Athens, the Sapienza University of Rome and the Hassan II University of Casablanca.
The debates were centred on complex topics correlated to the conceptualisation of identity, a dialectic process that entails a variety of aspects that call for transdisciplinary approaches, as well as around the role that material and immaterial patrimony plays in identitary constructions.
Two major axes have been articulated and discussed in depth – one of them targeted the subject of migration within the African continent, as well as from Africa to Europe, and the second one involved the methods of aggregating diasporas in close relation to embracing and handing over cultural heritages within the context of transactional practices.
The seminar was the first physical meeting within the project and was a very good opportunity for identifying opportunities for prospective future projects, thus strengthening the partnership network. A first effect of this meeting was the decision to organise every year, alternating between Casablanca and Bucharest, seminars on subjects of joint interest that would constitute the starting point for new scientific projects.
The full program of the event can be accessed here.
Two sessions have been dedicated to these axes. The first one, titled Heritage, patrimoine et digitalization, included a series of papers that debated various ways of approaching the concepts of tradition and patrimony, as well as the possibility of preserving various types of patrimony through digitalisation. The second session, Mobilité, migration, identité, was dedicated to the analysis of various ways of conceptualising mobility and migration phaenomena and to the roles, that patrimony in its various interpretations plays in articulating and defining identity. The presentations held as part of the second session were the result of research done within the Conceptualising and Understanding the African Diasporas in Europe and in Africa project coordinated by Domnica Gorovei from the Faculty of Political Sciences within the University of Bucharest.
