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In December 2010, The workshop ‘Liberating Temporariness: Imagining Alternatives to Permanence as a Pathway for Social Inclusion’ brought together a multidisciplinary group of senior and emerging scholars from North America, Europe, and Canada, to examine the intensifying problem of temporariness in the Global North. Temporariness is being institutionalized, as an acceptable, permanent, condition shaped by national and multilateral measures that secure national borders; legitimize temporary employment; and restrict access to citizenship rights. ‘Permanent temporariness’ affects the terms of inclusion for non-citizens, and, surprisingly, even some national citizens. The most frequently espoused strategy for contending with the effects of being temporary, permanent residence, does not address the growth in temporary status and its increasing institutionalization.

The workshop: i) examined the ways in which temporariness is being made permanent through immigration, security, and labour market policies, as well as a restructured welfare state; ii) investigated alternative strategies for contending with the tensions between temporariness and permanence; and iii) articulated an interdisciplinary and collaborative research agenda. The workshop has been disseminated through presentations on the web, online working papers, an edited book, and a research proposal examining multiple dimensions of temporariness. With its web-based and print publications, the past workshop is contributing to timely theoretical, empirical and policy contributions to our understanding of the current global trend to entrench temporariness and redefine permanence.