2026 Conference

About the theme

From Departure to Belonging: Advanced Digital Technologies between empowerment, control and exclusion in migrant journeys explores how advanced digital technologies (ADTs) have fundamentally transformed human mobility, reshaping every phase of the migration experience—from initial departure decisions to long-term integration and belonging.

Operating in a complex space between empowerment, control, and exclusion, these technologies simultaneously offer unprecedented opportunities for connection and advancement while creating new mechanisms of surveillance and barriers to participation.

About the conference

This conference examines how ADTs influence migrant journeys across their entire trajectory, recognizing that digital technologies are not merely tools used by migrants but are themselves drivers of migration decisions and patterns. From pre-migration information gathering and border crossings to settlement and civic participation, digital technologies serve as both bridges and barriers, tools of liberation and instruments of control.

The discussions will address how ADTs mediate every stage of migration:

• Pre-migration: Where algorithms influence what opportunities, routes, and destinations become visible, and economic displacement from automation and digitalization may prompt migration decisions.
• Transit and border crossing: Where migrants encounter state surveillance technologies, biometric systems, and algorithmic screening that can both facilitate and impede movement.
• Settlement: Where digital platforms become crucial for accessing services, finding employment, and building social networks, while potentially perpetuating exclusion through algorithmic bias or inaccessible interfaces.
• Long-term integration and belonging: Where digital literacy, access to technology, and digital citizenship systems influence civic participation, identity formation, and transnational connections.

By examining how these technologies create new possibilities for empowerment while simultaneously reinforcing mechanisms of control and exclusion, the conference seeks to illuminate the dual nature of ADTs in shaping migration today.