The purpose of SPIRE is to workshop research in progress by both faculty and graduate students on the politics of immigration, race and ethnicity. The goal is to provide constructive feedback for revisions and eventual publication of work. Meetings will also provide opportunities for networking and mentoring between faculty and graduate students.

We welcome proposals to present research on these topics from all disciplines, subfields, and methodological approaches, including but not limited to topics such as race and representation, the politics of racial inequality; race and political development; gender and politics; political behavior; social movements and opinion; immigration politics and policy; racial capitalism; and immigrant socialization and participation.  We welcome especially work that examines immigration, race, and ethnicity as they intersect with the politics of, e.g., indigeneity, gender, sexuality, class, and disability.

The first SPIRE meeting was held on October 12, 2012 at Yale University. We have held subsequent meetings at Rutgers University,  Indiana University, Princeton University,  Vanderbilt University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Washington.