Migration and social protection: policies, politics and practices of a contested nexus

Abstract

In the last decades, the intensification of international mobility and rescaling dynamics have challenged the bounded logics of national welfare states, while migrants’ access to social rights has become increasingly salient and contested. This panel focuses on the policies, politics and practices of the welfare-mobility nexus in origin and residence countries, addressing different social protection domains and territorial levels in Europe and beyond. In particular, the panel engages with how different actors (policymakers, street-level bureaucrats, public and private welfare providers, welfare brokers) in origin and residence countries deal with social protection demands of different mobile groups, as well as with migrants’ lived experiences to access social protection and the ways they cope with, negotiate ‘bounded’ understandings of social protection. Combining qualitative and quantitative studies, the panel ultimately aims to contribute to the conceptual understanding of the complex relationship between international mobility and welfare states, its challenges and contradictions.

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