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Call for Papers: International Conference on Migration, Borderlands  and Development organized by the Institute of Ethnic Studies (INR) at  Yunnan University and the Interculturalism, Migration and Minorities  Research Centre (IMMRC) at the Catholic University Leuven in  collaboration with the International Metropolis project, to be held at Yunnan University in Kunming, Yunnan, P.R. China, on April 17-18, 2014.Aims and objectivesWe are seeking critical and creative contributions focusing on the topics of migration, borderlands and development from a wide range of disciplines in social sciences and humanities. Within the migration/mobility contexts, borderlands and development are central interrelated concepts. Borderlands refer to both physical as well as imagined places. Borderlands emerge with border crossings by voluntary migrants in search  of a better life.Contrarily, its emergence might also be the unplanned outcome of political and economic crisis, securitization of borders, and restrictive migration and integration policies of nation states and changing into a temporary in-between buffer zone. Moreover, as imaginary places borderlands refer to the creative and political responses of people who are positioned in the margins of well-established majorities, and therefore in search of recognition. Therefore, an understanding of borderlands must incorporate a link between the emergence, flexibility, and changeability of borders and boundaries (constituting the borderlands), the mechanisms of maintenance and change, and processes of resistance, hybridization, and creativity. It must equally incorporate the variety of linkages between space, body, and objects. The nexus development and borderlands can lead to both human and regional development in bothmaterial and nonmaterial forms as a result of border crossings and borderland dynamics. These might lead to increased marginalization, but under particular circumstances it might also lead to new economic opportunities, such as transnational investments, transnational entrepreneurship, niche developments, etc. Such developmental dynamics evidently impact the well-being or the lack thereof of migrants.The conference will address these issues, but will also interrogate local, regional and national policy interventions. Which policies at whatever side of the border, help foster the proliferation of economic opportunities? How do local, regional and national authorities channel transborder mobilities? What ethnic and national diversities are atplay in these borderlands and which policies contributes to the creation of a 'diversity dividend' of sorts?More information on H-Asia