The title migrations & identities represents a programme: We aim to interrogate notions of ‘identity’ while asking how the fact of mobility and displacement does shape understandings of self and the wider world, among both migrants and ‘host’ societies. By the same token, we seek to understand how ideas and concepts are transformed as they ‘migrate’ from one place and culture to another. These issues have been, and continue to be, addressed under a number of rubrics and through a number of approaches in the humanities and social sciences. In acknowledgement of this, migrations & identities is multi- and interdisciplinary in its conception and management. It also aims to cover the widest possible range of places, periods and methods, subject only to a shared curiosity and enthusiasm about the possibilities of working at the interface between the investigation of the material conditions of migration processes and the study of ideas and subjectivities. In particular, we hope that scholars working in many fields will find in migrations & identities a forum for discussion of the methods appropriate to a project of linking observable experience and mentalities in different times and places, and that among the topics of discussion will be the real challenges involved in conversing across disciplinary boundaries.

We invite manuscripts from scholars representing all disciplines and methodologies which can contribute to this discussion. These might include case studies based on empirical research which are framed by and reflect on the methodological and theoretical issues set out above, essays which focus on questions of theory and methodology, or review articles. The journal will be published twice a year.