Workshop: Building Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Immigrants, Immigration, and Border Enforcement

University Of California-Davis, Davis CA

Investigators

Abstract

This workshop will address issues related to immigration and immigration policy enforcement from a multidisciplinary approach. It seeks to investigate questions related to the effects associated with border enforcement policies, along with broader questions related to the effect on 'quality of life' issues in society more broadly. The workshop will also feature a roundtable to assess possible changes in enforcement policy at both the federal and national level. The participants include political scientists, sociologists, economists, psychologists, law, and representatives from the policy community. The workshop brings together researchers who otherwise might not collaborate. The output of the conference is likely to foster important interdisciplinary research that would be of interest to policy makers and practitioners. A number of disciplines investigate questions related to immigration and border enforcement. Too often, however, these researchers communicate to others in their field, reducing the impact of the work they do. This conference seeks to bring scholars together from a variety of fields -- political science, sociology, economics, law, psychology -- to generate collaborative research on matters related to immigration and border enforcement. It seeks to address how these policies have affected particular groups, but also how they influence important quality-of-life indicators in society more generally. In addition to including scholars from a diverse set of disciplines, the program includes participants representing important policy practitioners and journalists. The project promises to generate a more well-integrated research agenda, as well as have the capacity to distribute those findings to scholarly and policy communities alike.