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Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility
from 2020 NSSR Viewbook
Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility
The Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility builds on the intellectual tradition of migration studies at The New School and provides a space for research, policy debate, and discussion among activists and artists on global migration and mobility and their economic, political, and psychological consequences and relationship to citizenship and identity.
The Zolberg Institute is the world’s first migration center to focus on mobility. The institute—named for the late Aristide Zolberg, NSSR professor of politics and pioneer in immigration politics, studies of ethnicity, and practices of integration—constitutes a reinvigoration of Zolberg’s International Center for Migration, Ethnicity and Citizenship, founded in the 1990s. Directed by former UN Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees T. Alexander Aleinikoff, the institute brings together global scholars with unique talents and skills to innovatively rethink human mobility and advance debates about migration and claims for social justice.
A truly interdisciplinary endeavor, the institute unites the university’s schools and programs to address migration and mobility. Critical perspectives prepare students and faculty to question political terms such as borders, sovereignty, citizenship, and nation-states and examine global mental health. Faculty and students from Parsons School of Design bring a focus on design, technology, and material culture, which helps the institute reassess the reasons why people move and the traces they leave behind. The Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment and the School of Media Studies employ their own scholarly approaches in innovative forms of public outreach, including engagements with media (e.g., Feet in 2 Worlds) and public education (e.g., Humanities Action Lab). This enables the institute to make sense of current events and tackle new problems more effectively.
