Roundtable Discussion on the Book “From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity” (Rahbari & Burlyuk, OBP, 2026)

Abstract

This roundtable discussion of the book “From the margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity” (OBP, forthcoming April 2026) co-edited by Ladan Rahbari and Olga Burlyuk [ https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0508 ]. 'From the Margins' is the much-anticipated second volume following 'Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity and Resilience in Europe' (OBP, 2023) [ https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0331 ]. This new collection deepens and expands the conversation on the lived experiences of migrant academics navigating global academia. Maintaining the autoethnographic and narrative approach of the first volume, From the Margins brings together diverse voices that challenge the Eurocentric framing of academic mobility by extending the focus beyond Europe to contexts such as the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Africa, and the Middle East. Through deeply personal, creative, and reflexive narratives, the contributors delve deep into the notions of privilege, migration, and precarity, revealing how academic hierarchies and colonial legacies shape everyday experiences of belonging, vulnerability, and resilience. Bridging scholarship and storytelling, this volume offers an intellectually rich and emotionally resonant exploration of academia’s margins, inviting readers to rethink what knowledge, care, and solidarity mean within and beyond institutional borders. The panel brings together the two co-editors of the two books, who will speak to the project idea and the intention for and contents of the new volume; three contributing authors of “From the margins”, who will speak to their chapters in the book; and one contributing author from the first volume who will discuss the second, also drawing on their own contribution in the earlier volume and their own (separate) book project on scholars at risk.

Title	Details
Migrant Academics Narrating Their Precarity: The Exhausting, the Imperative, and the Joyful	View Paper Details
The Power of Small Talk: Catching Up with the Academic World of International Law	View Paper Details
Moving Through Power	View Paper Details
From Denial to Shaming: Resentment and Other Stories on Being Critical, Muslim, Person of Colour in Global Academia	View Paper Details