2024 Alumni Conference

Alumni Conference: Weatherhead Research Cluster on Comparative Inequality and Inclusion 

Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University

Chair: Michèle Lamont 

Saturday, February 10, 2024 

William James Hall 1550

and Virtual 

8:30–9:10 am: Welcome and Breakfast 

9:10–9:25 am: Introductions 

Michèle Lamont (Harvard University)

9:25–11:00am: Panel 1: Taming unpredictability 

Chair: Luuc Brans (KU Leuven University), In-Person

Lorenza Antonucci (University of Birmingham), In-Person

“I have to thank whoever invented this – can I say that?” Examining the ambivalent effect of platform work on precarity and its role in reproducing inequality.

Ioana Sendroiu (University of Hong Kong), On Zoom

“An exciting future is one click away”: Environmental entrepreneurship and climate crisis action

Elena Ayala-Hurtado (Harvard University), In-Person

The Projected Futures of Insecure College Graduates in Spain and the United States

11:00–11:20 am: Coffee Break 

11:20–12:25 pm: Panel 2: Meritocracy and inequality

Chair: Luca Carbone (KU Leuven), In-person

Elke Winter (University of Ottawa), In-person

Middle Class Nation Building Through Immigration?

Jonathan Mijs (Boston University), In-person

The Social Life of Inequality: Why Unequal Countries Stay That Way

12:25–1:25 pm Lunch

1:25–3:00 pm: Panel 3: Classifying outsiders – immigrants and others 

Chair: Riva Kastoryano (National Center for Scientific Research and SciencesPO, Paris), In-person

Talia Shiff (Tel-Aviv University), On Zoom

Asylum Decision-Making under Trump: Shared Aspirations for Moral Realignment as Mechanisms of Moral Boundary Work in Times of Crisis.

Anna Skarpelis (CUNY, Queens College), In-person

The Moral Pixel: Troubling Genealogies of Composite Person Classification, from 19th Century Eugenics to Computer Vision

Derek Robey (Harvard University), In-Person

Memory Politics and the Struggle for Recognition

3:00–3:20 pm: Coffee Break 

3:20–5:25 pm: Panel 4: Boundary management 

Chair: Maha Shehade Switat (Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard), In-person

Gökce Yurdakul (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), In-person

Undoing one-dimensional immigrant: Revisiting difference through postmigrant paradigm in Germany

Matias López (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva), 

On Zoom 

Democracy and land inequality: Urban elites in the making of agrarian politics in Brazil and beyond

Yuval Feinstein (University of Haifa) and Ameer Fakhoury (Polonsky Academy, The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute), On Zoom

How are political boundaries drawn in countries with trapped minorities? A new triangular approach based on the case of Arab-Palestinians in Israel

Yossi Harpaz (Tel-Aviv University), On Zoom 

War and Solidarity: A Natural Experiment Following the October 7th Attack on Israel

5:25–5:55 pm Closing 

Michèle Lamont (Harvard University)