Dear colleagues,

Please find the Call for Abstracts for our 'What is Transience' conference below and attached. This is the first conference of the Q1 journal Transitions: Journal of Transient Migration, celebrating the journal's 10th birthday. Event details are as follows:

Venue: RMIT University and hybridDate: Thursday, 11 February 2027 Deadline for abstracts: 1 July 2026

The ‘What is Transience’ conference is the opportunity to consider how the concept of Transience has shifted (or not) since we first conceived Transitions. We thus invite emerging and established scholars to consider the following, though not limited, interrelated themes:

Transience and Populism (e.g., anti-migrant sentiments)

Transience and Representation (e.g., in the media and communication spaces including social media and AI)

Transience and Precarity (e.g., in the gig and platform economies)

Transience and Agency (e.g., in citizenship, civil and human rights)

Transience and Policy (e.g., the impact transience has on policy or not)

New Transiences (e.g., besides transience for study, work, humanitarian and lifestyle reasons – what are the new transiences we have not talked about?

Transience and the End of Migration (e.g., does transience mean the end of permanent migration yet not mobility?)

Timeline 1 July 2026 – Abstracts due (submit to catherine.gomes@rmit.edu.au with the subject title: Abstract for ‘What is Transience’ Conference). 1 September 2026 – Authors to be informed about the outcome of abstract selection. 11 February 2027 – Hybrid Conference @ RMIT University in Melbourne. 1 April 2027 – Full papers due for consideration for a Special Issue in Transitions for double-blind peer review.

Helena Hof, Prof. Dr. SNSF Assistant Professor

University of Zurich ISEK - Social and Cultural Anthropology Andreasstrasse 15 CH-8050 Zurich

https://www.isek.uzh.ch/en/anthropology/about/people/staff/H/helenahof.html

Recent publications:

Hof, Helena. 2025. "The immobility of the highly mobile: Existential (im)mobility among transnational entrepreneurs in post-pandemic Singapore." Mobilities. DOI 10.1080/17450101.2025.2598269.

Hof, Helena. 2025. "‘White Innovation’: Conceptualizing Changing Racial Hierarchies Through Migrant Entrepreneurship in Singapore and Japan." In Migration, Transnational Flows, and the Contested Meanings of Race in Asia, IMISCOE Research Series, S. Lan & M. Debnár (Eds). Springer, pp. 121-140.

Monograph and Social Media:

CERC in Migration and Integration Borders & Belonging Podcast's Season 4, Episode 9, The social construction of skill, Toronto Metropolitan University.

Podcast of the EU Migrant Generation in Asia. New Books Network. https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-eu-migrant-generation-in-asia

Hof, Helena. 2022. The-EU-Migrant-Generation-in-Asia . Bristol University Press.