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- Convenors:
-
Karim Zafer
(University of Trier)
Souleymane Diallo (University of Münster)
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- Format:
- Roundtable
- Transfers:
- Open for transfers
- Working groups:
- Migration
- Location:
- Seminargebäude S13
- Sessions:
- Thursday 2 October, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract
Following the theme of (un)commoning, we believe that sharing a common planet should “utopiacally” mean abolishing migration studies. Inspired by attempts at proposing new concepts striving for creating a global conversation on social theory, we ask how should migration studies look like?
Long Abstract
Over the last decades, one of the most discussed questions in social sciences has been what does decolonising knowledge production means and how we can achieve this. Following the overarching theme of (un)commoning, we believe that sharing a common planet should “utopiacally” mean abolishing migration studies since without borders, there will be no migration, only mobility (De Genova 2017). However, doing away with migration studies is not a new argument, as dominant patterns in the field (un)consciously frame migrants and refugees as a crisis. Additionally, anthropologically speaking, (illegalized) migrants and/or refugees per se should not be an anthropological inquiry, as this could lead to dehumanising and dehistoricising them (Malkki 1995, De Genevo 2007). Yet, recent migration patterns, violence induced displacements as well as current and anticipated environmental crises leading to (forced) (im)mobilities, keep migration studies on the top of the agendas of social scientists, state- and non-state actors. It is therefore needed to develop new answers to these challenges.
We are inspired by attempts at proposing new concepts and theories from the South striving for creating a global conversation on social theory which should be multilingual (Menon 2022). We ask how should migration studies look like? How narratives of migration challenge each other? What analytical and methodological approaches do vernacular concepts/terms about migration offer us? What do we learn from these to promote a multilingual and decolonial approach in migration research?
We invite migration researchers to this roundtable to address these questions in situated empirically grounded arguments.
Accepted contributions
Session 1 Thursday 2 October, 2025, -Contribution short abstract
This contribution not only attempts to re-imagine the field of migration studies, but also attempts to re-imagine how all actors interested in decolonizing and de-constructing the long-standing colonial structures inherent in the field have a seat at the table to push us past our own boundaries.
Contribution long abstract
A recent article asked if, as academics, we should move away from forced migration studies to general displacement (Owen, 2024). However, this is the wrong question and does little to decolonize and re-think ‘the field’. Many African scholars and scholars from the so-named ‘global South’ have been arguing for years that it is high time to decolonize and re-imagine migration studies. Sharam Khosravi (2024) talks about the need in doing migration studies ‘with an accent’. Patricia Daley (2021) speaks to reclaiming mobility using a Pan-Africanist approach as our understanding of migration is Euro-centric and holds political limits to human mobility. Finally, Kudakwashe Vanyoro (2024) argues that chronopolitics posits that one should study movement while abandoning essential terms like ‘border’ or ‘migrant’.
In addition, Amelung et al (2024) question how we can reinvent the politics of knowledge production in migration studies as many non-academic actors produce authoritative knowledge, which has proliferated over the last decade. Also, such knowledge production, whether by academics or non-academic actors is being challenged by social movements and digital information which need to be taken seriously (Amelung et al, 2024).
Therefore, this contribution questions how we can use our imagination not only to re-imagine ‘migration studies’ in the future, but who can be included and how all such actors can participate in a meaningful way. This includes social movements and refugee and community-based organizations which are more likely to contest the colonial history, power structures, and euro-centric bias inherent in the field.
Contribution short abstract
Mobility research has often been limited by the migrant/ non-migrant categories used, suggesting clear distinctions between sedentary and mobile lives. This paper argues for reimagining migration/mobility research beyond the binaries using arts-based methods to centre participants' voices.
Contribution long abstract
Research into mobility has often been limited by the categories that we use, such as ‘migrant’/‘non-migrant suggesting clear distinctions between sedentary and mobile lives. Starting from the idea of a ‘spectrum of mobility’, research can explore rather than assume the impact that different forms of movement have on people’s social, economic and political networks, and their sense of belonging. Furthermore, research is usually written up in academic genres which exclude many of those written about. As such in this paper I present research that explored the sense of being and belonging to the city of Johannesburg, South Africa from the perspective of women living in the city, occupying different positions accross the mobility spectrum; women born in the city, those who migrated from other cities and provinces, and from outside South Africa, from an intersectionality theory informed lens. Using arts-based research methods in the form of poetry writing workshops, visits to art exhibitions, museums, and the city’s recreational spaces to prompt women’s discussions and writing about the city. The paper shows that by starting from the mobility spectrum, the project considered being and belonging to the city, outside of the binary frames of migrant/non-migrant, allowing for the exploration of the significance of migration status. Arts-based methodologies shift power from a ventriloquist researcher, centering the participants' voices in the artworks/ poetry produced. The paper argues for a reimagining of the ways we conceptualize migration and mobility research beyond the binaries including shifting the researcher/participant relationships.
Contribution short abstract
In this presentation, I explore the (im)possibilities of anthropological writing in two languages, based on my thesis (Patriarca, 2023) both in italian and portuguese, while simultaneously attempting to communicate with the two cultural contexts, diverse and unequally marked in global geopolitics
Contribution long abstract
I explore the discussion on how to present a bilingual thesis, starting from and discussing the effects of my lived experience in academic and working contexts, while also officially holding Italian and Brazilian citizenship. In an attempt to communicate with the two cultural contexts, diverse and unequally marked in global geopolitics, I discuss the (im)possibilities of anthropological writing in two languages. Since my lived experience allows me to start from a multiple circulation, I reflect on the possibilities of academic writings and dialogues that are also multiple and simultaneous. Ispired in Gloria Alnzadúa's work, I situate my production as a form of knowledge that is intended to be between, as a bridge that allows for multiple and simultaneous communications and dialogues with different audiences. In addition to placing myself between knowledges and cultural contexts, arises a decolonial and counter perspective in the attempt to write in Italian (and also in English) with a Brazilian bibliography that is not translated - highlighting coloniality of knowledge and epistemic violence. Therefore, through my knowledge located between, I go through methodological discussions about textual fabrication and the formal presentation of a work that intends to communicate, at the same time, with different cultural contexts, without losing their disputes and specificities, which often require a different contextualization. I also discuss the possibilities of elaborations and fabrications in formats plastered by a necessarily written academic tradition and in the face of tacit or implicit norms that limit the (textual) presentation of knowledge.
Contribution short abstract
Looking through the lens of labels, this paper presents the tensions within categorisation work in the context of forced return movements. How do people labelled as 'returnees', coming 'back home', challenge unidimensional understandings of mobility through their ways of self-identification?
Contribution long abstract
Over the last decade, government initiatives aimed at people without legal residence status in Germany have become increasingly visible. These programmes call for a "voluntary return", aim for "sustainable integration of returnees" and draw on ambivalent notions of "homecoming".
Based on collaborative ethnographic research conducted in Ghana in 2023 and 2024, this paper explores how returned Ghanaians reflect on being immobilised and labelled as 'returnees' in a place they once left. How does their analysis of their movement challenge dominant narratives of migration? In which way does their self-positioning call for an understanding of human mobility beyond the logic of a methodological nationalism (Glick Schiller 1999), expressed in terms such as 'country of origin' linked to a nation-based understanding of 'home'?
By following my research collaborators' narratives around the self-identification as 'traveler' in relation to the socially embedded hypermobile figure of the 'borga' (Nyarko-Afriyien 2019) and the classification as a ‘returnee’, this paper focuses on the tensions between self-making and being made. As a form of critical standpoint on migration (De Genova et al. 2022), the empirically grounded conceptual work proposes a way of rewriting linear migration theories and offers a perspective for a more relational understanding of belonging.
The frictions between the categories at work point to the need for a nuanced, multidimensional understanding of human mobility (Vigh/Bjarnesen 2016) and center the question: What does shifting our gaze to the conceptualizations of our research collaborators offer us in terms of rethinking social theory within human mobility research?