Transnational Perspectives on Strained Mobility Governance: Securitization, Solidarity, and the Search for Just Solutions Across Regions

This panel invites scholars to step back from easy generalizations and look closely at how mobility governance is being strained, resisted, and reimagined across different regions. We deliberately bring together voices from both the Global North and Global South to explore the uneven landscapes of control and care—asking not only how states tighten their grip, but also how civil society, international organizations, and migrants themselves navigate, adapt, and push back against these regimes. Our conversation unfolds around three core threads: first, the accelerating trends of securitization and externalization, from digital surveillance to border privatization; second, the emergence of solidarity networks and humanitarian initiatives that challenge exclusionary policies and stand up for the rights of people on the move; and third, the urgent search for governance alternatives that are genuinely just, sustainable, and capable of transcending the nationalist reflexes that dominate today's political discourse.
We are particularly interested in work that takes non-state and transnational actors seriously—whether that means studying illiberal policy shifts, civil society strategies for inclusion, the rise of digital authoritarianism in migration control, or creative governance models that bring multiple stakeholders to the table. Comparative studies across regions are especially welcome, but we also value deep single-case analyses that speak to broader transnational dynamics.
Ultimately, this panel aims to do more than diagnose problems. We want to move beyond crisis narratives and toward a grounded, hopeful, yet clear-eyed conversation about how mobility governance can become more just, more accountable, and more human—not in spite of today's pressures, but because they demand nothing less.