Announcements

Call for papers nº 44, 2026 – Subject: Migrations and migrants – Deadline for submission 30 September 2025

2024-11-28

Revista de História das Ideias, No. 44. 2^nd series – 2026

Thematic dossier: Migrations and migrants

Call for papers

Deadline for submitting articles: 30 September 2025

Migrations have played a vital role in the history of humanity, acting as a driving force for political, social, and cultural change. From the first movements of human populations out of Africa to contemporary migration flows, the history of migrations is inextricably linked to the development of civilizations and societies. Over time, migrations have shaped territories, created new borders, and fostered the exchange of ideas, cultures, and technologies, promoting the emergence of new identities. The great ancient civilizations – such as Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek or Roman, for example – expanded and flourished partly due to the contact and interchange with migrant populations, who brought with them new agricultural practices, technological innovations, and knowledge that contributed to the progress of those societies (Gabaccia, 2023). Moreover, access to new trade routes facilitated the circulation of people and knowledge, broadening the cultural and socioeconomic horizons of distant regions.

Nevertheless, migrations have not always been voluntary, peaceful or seen as an opportunity. Wars, persecutions, economic crises, and climate changes have forced millions of people to migrate throughout history (Gatrell, 2019; Ther, 2019), triggering profound changes in origin and host societies, and generating new forms of resistance and hybrid identities.

Currently, migrations remain at the center of both national and international political agendas. The search for better living conditions, security or political freedom continues to drive migratory flows that reshape borders, change demographies, foster the interchange of ideas and contribute to a much-needed debate on identity and integration.

Migrations continue to be, as they have been throughout the history of humanity, a complex and multidimensional phenomenon that seeks to meet a set of interwoven challenges. Migrations can be viewed as a way to solve individual problems (Carling and Collins, 2018; Nimwegen and van der Herf, 2010) and societal problems such as, for example, demographic crises and the shortage of working-age population able to contribute to the social progress and economic dynamism of host societies. However, a discourse presenting migrations and migrants as a threat to a certain lifestyle, cultural heritage, and livelihood has been spreading in recent years, especially in the so-called Global North (Adamson, 2021; Léonard and Kaunert, 2022). Thus, paradoxically, migrations offer an opportunity and pose an existential threat (Kaunert, Pereira e Edwards, 2022), which highlights the need to also analyse them from the perspective of the discourses and practices mobilized to address this phenomenon.

This thematic issue on migrations and migrants intends to promote a comprehensive and multidisciplinary understanding, opening room for academic and critical discussion on these phenomena across the historic, cultural, intellectual, political, social, economic, and identity dimensions. This call for papers welcomes original texts on this subject, drawing on different knowledge fields and focusing on the following topics:

Migrations and culture
Migrations and intellectual intersections
Migrations and ontological security
Migration narratives and discourses
Artistic and literary depictions of migratory flows
Refugees, conflicts, and border reconfiguration
Citizenship, integration, and the rule of law
Social and identity inclusions and exclusions
(Geo)political reconfigurations
Multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism
Migrations, scientific knowledge, and epistemic communities

Article proposals will be subjected to double-blind review. Texts should be submitted through the Open Journal Systems platform (https://impactum-journals.uc.pt/rhi/about/submissions) until 30 September 2025, and must be written in strict compliance with the norms published on the web page of the Journal of History of Ideas.

The coordinators: Vanda Amaro Dias (FLUC – CES) and Carolina Henriques Pereira (FLUC – CHSC)