On September 25 and 26, Prof. Dr. Christoph Rass, Dr. Sebastian Huhn, Annika Heyen, and Jessica Wehner participated in the international workshop on Forced Migration and Agency at the University of Southern Denmark, which was organized by Morten Baarvig Thomsen and sponsored by the Carlsberg Foundation. Following a visit by Morten Baarvig Thomsen in April 2025 to the Chair of Modern History and Historical Migration Research, plans began for a joint workshop in Denmark.
The first panel on “Agency in practice and structure” opened with a keynote speech by Christoph Rass and Jessica Wehner on Displaced Person’s Agency and the Production of Migration. The presentation introduced the theoretical premises of the Collaborative Research Center 1604 – Production of Migration – as well as theoretical considerations on the concept of agency. Using a specific case study, they explained the role categories play in negotiation processes and the opportunities for negotiation that exist even in restrictive systems.
In his presentation, “Agency or the lack thereof? ‘Agency-spotting’ in Danish DP Camps 1945-1953,” Morten Baarvig Thomsen presented his ongoing dissertation project. Using specific examples from three Danish DP camps, he discussed the ‘zones of possibility’ for DPs and the scope of voice and agency available to DPs.
In her talk, “Managing Asylum Waiting time in the formative years (1983‒1988) of the Danish Asylum System,” Karen N. Breidahl discussed the role of frontline organizations as street-level actors and de facto policymakers. She understands agency as a process of political learning both upwards and downwards.
The second panel, “Reactions to forced displacement,” began with a presentation by Heidi Vad Jønsson. In her talk, “204 Vietnamese Refugee Children in 1975: An Inherent Refugee Crisis?”, she discussed the situation and political implications of the “Kindertransport” of 204 Vietnamese children in 1975 and how different actors exercised agency.
Against the backdrop of some critical reflections on the “Western-centric” historiography of the refugee regime after the end of the Second World War, Sebastian Huhn used Venezuela in his talk “Host Countries in the Global South as Co-Creators of the Post-Second-World-War Refugee Regime” as an example of an actor from the Global South that played a decisive role in shaping global refugee policy during and after the war. In the 1950s, certain actors had an interest in exaggerating their own role in the UNRRA and the IRO; in this narrative, the Global South became a “blank spot on the map” where the alleged Western architects of refugee policy could resettle refugees. However, according to Huhn, looking at history from Venezuela’s perspective makes the global nature of the refugee policy negotiations at that time easier to understand.
In his talk, “They must be taught to understand… Efforts to combat Nazism and promote democratization in the German refugee camps in Denmark, with special reference to the school and education sector, 1945-47,” John V. Jensen discussed the ‘denazification’ program for German teachers who were supposed to work in camp schools in Denmark. He showed which questionnaires were used in these processes and presented the results of the denazification efforts.
After the first workshop day, Morten took Team NGHM on a tour of the city of Odense. He showed them historical photographs of Displaced Persons Camps and how the buildings look nowadays. After the tour, they concluded the evening with a workshop dinner with all participants.
The third panel, “Theoretical and empirical perspectives,” was opened on the second day by Garbi Schmidt with her presentation on “Addressing methodological presentism in migration research with a focus on migration statistics and statistical categories.” In her presentation, she discussed the development of migration-related statistics in Denmark, including how these statistics produce migration, which groups were taken into account, and which were not.
Simon Turner gave a talk on “Carceral Junctions: refugee camps as sites of stagnation and sites of mobility.” He described how refugees in camps were, on the one hand, stripped of their political subjectivity and treated as simply bodies to take care of by officials. On the other hand, he states, refugee camps are also spaces of new possibilities, hierarchies, and structures, especially for younger, healthier, and more educated individuals; stepping stones in their ongoing state of mobility.
In her microstudy on Sol Bloom, one of the United States’ delegates to the 1943 Bermuda Conference, Annika Heyen explored the restrictions on the agency of individual actors within larger processes and structures, as well as their strategies for following up on their own agendas. She argued that through subtle interventions, individuals like Bloom, although limited by controlled surroundings, still managed to co-produce the post-war refugee regime.
In his closing remarks, Christoph Rass advocated three ideas: first, that spotting agency requires reading beyond surface performances to grasp the actual games being played; second, that a two-level reflexivity prevents us from reproducing the very categories we seek to critique; and third, that not only forced migrants, but also powerful actors operate within constraints – agency is always relational.
This article is an English translation of the original German post: International Workshop on Agency and Forced Migration at the University of Southern Denmark