Ali Chaudhary and Marieke van Houte introduce the seminar series on migration, politics and political change and their TRANSMIC project, examining the links between migration, citizenship, and migration and development This presentation is part of the 2016 IMI Hilary Term seminar series, which seeks to interrogate the relationship between migration, politics and political change. The series offers a wide range of (inter)disciplinary, methodological and theoretical approaches to the study of the processes and outcomes that link migration, emigrants and immigrants with politics and political change. The series seeks to discuss both how political actors govern migrants’ actions and movements ‘from above’, through policies and resources, and how migrants may shape politics ‘from below’, and can be grassroots ‘agents of change’.

Key themes highlighted in this collection of seminars include research on diasporas, transnational engagement, im/migrant politics in origin and receiving countries and political change, and the implications of migration as manifestation of social transformation. The seminar series is organised and coordinated by IMI postdoctoral fellows Dr. Marieke Van Houte and Dr. Ali R. Chaudhary who are currently working on TRANSMIC, a Marie Curie-funded project, which explores the topic of migration, politics and political change. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/