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- Convenors:
-
Jill Alpes
(Ghent University)
Nicolas Lainez (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement)
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- Chair:
-
Anouk de Koning
(University of Amsterdam)
- Discussant:
-
Heath Cabot
- Formats:
- Roundtable
- Mode:
- Face-to-face
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 23 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Madrid
Short Abstract:
What kind of critique is necessary, possible, and useful in the face of migrants’ and citizens’ right violations and exploitation? What happens with anthropological data on human mobility in policies, law and politics? How do anthropologists connect with the knowledge practices of practitioners?
Long Abstract:
This roundtable discusses the potential of anthropology to mitigate migrants’ and citizens’ right violations and exploitation. Anthropologists of development have explicitly reflected on different positionalities with practitioners, ranging from radical rejection of utility to complete integration, activism and conditional reform (Lavigne Delville and Fresia, 2018, Olivier de Sardan 2008, Grillo 1985). Anthropologists of migration and mobility have been less explicit on these questions. Diverging theoretical frameworks for the state, law and politics, however, drive both research design and positions on how anthropology can tangibly contribute to human dignity. On the one hand, critical scholars have offered radical critiques that cannot be converted into political or legal actionable pathways in existing state systems in the short and medium term (De Genova, 2002; Khosravi, 2020). On the other hand, an eagerness for relevance has at times resulted in uncritical reproductions of problematic assumptions in state policies (see critique by Cabot, 2016; and Stierl, 2020). Against this backdrop, the roundtable explores three questions: What kind of critique is necessary, possible, and useful in the face of migrants’ and citizens’ right violations and exploitation? What happens with anthropological data on human mobility in policies, law and politics? How do anthropologists connect with the knowledge practices of practitioners? By raising these questions, we hope to stimulate a debate about how we (un)do anthropological authority about, with and for disadvantaged populations, pushing us to move beyond a no-harm ethics (Borofsky and De Lauri, 2019).
Accepted contributions:
Session 1 Tuesday 23 July, 2024, -Jovana Bogicevic (University of Palermo)
Contribution short abstract:
The paper will aim to draw upon the ongoing dialogue regarding the intersection between anthropological knowledge and legal practice in the context of asylum and broader migration framework and the broader issue of applicability of anthropology in legal setting.
Contribution long abstract:
The proposed paper will aim to draw upon the ongoing dialogue regarding the intersection between anthropological knowledge and legal practice in the context of asylum and broader migration framework (Di Donato 2020; Gill and Good 2019), and the broader issue of applicability of anthropology in legal setting through the prism of “cultural expertise” (Holden 2021) by providing practical insights based on the ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Italy with immigration lawyers and refugee legal clinics.
Namely, in the context of the broader influx of migratory flows where the judges and decision-makers of “immigration countries” are increasingly being confronted with the need to make decisions based on the facts produced in different socio-cultural settings, the employment of anthropological (and more broadly the knowledge of social sciences) can be increasingly observed. The way this will take place, however, varies greatly from the respective legal systems of individual countries and the willingness of legal professionals to engage in it, as well as the judges to accept the anthropological analysis as “objective evidence”. Despite the recognized lack of education in social sciences that characterizes law schools, by observing lawyers as “cultural brokers” the paper will aim to demonstrate how anthropological knowledge is already being employed in the everyday practice of immigration lawyers and the implications it has on presenting the life stories of the asylum seekers and connecting them with the legal categories on refugee status determination; finally, this will be analysed through the issue of the “future of anthropology” and the need to rethink the way the discipline is thought and conceptualized (Foblets 2016), and indicate that the “application” of anthropology in the legal field can contribute both to the relevance of the discipline in the public sphere and contribute to its academic development.
Sevda Tunaboylu (Universitat de Barcelona) Olga Jubany (Universitat de Barcelona) Alèxia Rué (Universitat de Barcelona)
Contribution short abstract:
In this contribution, we examine what drives EU funding for further research on migration governance when policymakers already have ample evidence to propel change and, what is more, why we, as researchers, continue to seek such funding.
Contribution long abstract:
This contribution, emerging from an ongoing EU-funded research project, tackles vital but often-overlooked ethical questions related to the role of funding in a highly politicised research topic. Specifically exploring whether EU-funded research on irregularised migration can tangibly counter existing policies, practices, and discourses that frame irregular migrants as a problem to be addressed. Thereby perpetuating the notion of migrant illegality and justifying the violence of the current migration regime. We examine what drives EU funding for further research on migration governance when policymakers already have ample evidence to propel change and, what is more, why we, as researchers, continue to seek such funding. Thus, we interrogate our position as anthropologists, in a field that is generously funded but where results are often disregarded in the revision and drafting of policy (Kalir & Cantat, 2020), questioning whether our position is merely self-reproducing, as its only actual impact is to promote our careers as migration scholars.
Without disregarding any of these concerns and acknowledging that most of our work will not effectively contribute to change -or not to change as desired-, we seek to bring together radical critique and relevance by an approach to anthropological work that focuses on scientific rigor and “small” impact. Through a series of examples from previous research experiences, we address how we hope to abandon our eagerness to ‘do good’ (Fischer, 1997; Cabot, 2019) using our position of authority as scholars to do what is needed from us.
Lisa Riedner (LMU Munich)
Contribution short abstract:
This paper introduces the reseach group "Contestations of ‘the Social’ – Towards a Movement-based Ethnographic Social (State) Regime Analysis”. It argues that looking at material and conceptual negotiations around migration is crucial for addressing current crises of social reproduction.
Contribution long abstract:
I would like contribute to the roundtable by introducing the junior research group “Contestations of ‘the Social’ – Towards a Movement-based Ethnographic Social (State) Regime Analysis” (DFG, 2022-2028). We cooperate closely with multilingual community organizations of unemployed and precariously employed people that struggle against exploitation, destitution and violations of migrants' and citizens' rights in cities of the Global North. We argue that looking at everyday negotiations around migration, welfare, and borders is key to unterstanding current crises of social reproduction. Conceptually, this project responds to suggestions from within migration studies 1) to analyse migration and border ‘regimes’ as conflictual spaces of negotiation in which researchers are entangled and their knowledge practices necessarily have effects (Hess/Tsianos), 2) to understand contestations around migration through the lense of (anti-)racism (Bojadzijev) and 3) to ‘migrantize’ social research (Römhild/Bojadzijev) and ‘re-exceptionalize citizenship’ (Anderson). We seek an understanding of the processes that construct, structure and contest 'the Social' in racialized, gendered and classed societies of migration. The current sub projects are located in Frankfurt, Oldenburg and Berlin. The second phase will open a transnational perspective. Four ethnographers take concrete struggles of migration, labour and social reproduction as a starting point and aim to understand, reflect and go beyond categories of government. At the same time, we’re not afraid of getting our hands dirty by participating both practically and conceptually in the very processses of world making that we are researching. In July, I will be able to critically reflect on our first experiences within this project.
Laura Lambert (Leuphana University)
Contribution short abstract:
Based on my research in Niger, I argue that migration research can be both critical and actionable if a) it centers data practices to trace how they enact migration as an object of governance and b) pursues the ideal of benefitting others through collaboration with IOs, counter publics, CSOs.
Contribution long abstract:
Following discussions on reflexivity and my research in Niger, this contribution suggests two reorientations to may make migration research critical and actionable. First, I suggest focusing on data practices (Scheel et al. 2019) by International Organizations and states rather than migrants’ trajectories, orientations, or experiences. Examining these data practices shows how they enact migration as an object of governance and may uncover their inconsistencies and political effects. I will shortly illustrate this based on the bad data that the International Organization for Migration produces on trans-Sahara migration. Following the lens of material politics (Barry 2013, cf. Lambert 2023), it is central to include migrants’ critique of these practices in the analysis. Second, public anthropology’s ethical standard of “benefitting others” (Borofsky/De Lauri 2019) means centering a policy that not only prevents a further marginalization of migrants, but fosters an actual improvement of their situation. I point to three collaborative research practices that may contribute to this: a critical engagement with International Organizations, creating and sustaining counter publics like migration-control.info, and collaboration with civil society.