RN35 - Sociology of Migration

RN35 Midterm Conference 2021, in collaboration with the IMISCOE Standing Committee “Reflexivities in Migration Studies”

Keynote presentations:

• Pawel Kaczmarczyk (University of Warsaw): Migration transition and migration realities in contemporary Europe: a useful or misleading concept?
• Sharam Khosravi (Stockholm University): Migration studies with an accent
• Gökce Yurdakul (HU Berlin): Getting Respect in Germany: Between Gendered Racialization and Immigrant Role Models

Local Organizers:

• Anna Amelina (Cottbus University, „Migration, Conflict and Social Change“ Research Platform)
• Janine Dahinden (Neuchâtel University, IMISCOE SC “Reflexivities in Migration Studies")
• Felicitas Hillmann (Humboldt University Berlin)

Fees and accommodation: No conference fees will be charged. The conference will be held online via Zoom.

Registration: If you are interested in participating without presenting a paper, please register by sending a brief email to RN35conference [at] h-da.de by 15 January 2021.

Mirroring recent trends and debates in the field of migration studies, our 2021 midterm conference will focus on the topic of reflexivity in migration research. The conference is organized in close cooperation with the newly founded IMISCOE Standing Committee on “Reflexivities in Migration Studies" as well as with local organizers from Humboldt University Berlin, Cottbus University and the University of Neuchâtel.

We invite all interested scholars join the discussion at our conference. RN35 wants to provide a platform for those who have already met at earlier conferences to continue our exchange, and at the same time invite other scholars to join our discussions. RN35 aims to have lively and focused debates at its midterm conferences. Hence, submissions that have a clear and strong link to the conference theme will be given priority. A more detailed elaboration of the conference topic can be found here.

Conference theme

Calls for reflexivity have become widespread in migration studies. As the field of migration research continues to grow, it is increasingly faced with the need to reflect upon its relations to social and political dynamics surrounding “migration”. At the same time, the field is also becoming more and more differentiated and contested concerning its conceptual, epistemological, and methodological foundations. In this setting a variety of strategies of reflexivity emerge, including the reflexive use of categories and concepts and a self-reflexive stance on researchers’ positionality; awareness of the mechanisms of knowledge production; and the public engagement, positioning as or collaboration with actors outside academia. The critique of methodological nationalism and essentialism, the denaturalization of key migration concepts, and the de-migrantization of research themes are just some of the elements relevant of a reflexive approach. It is also crucial to rethink the distinction of categories of practice from those of analysis. Finally, reflexivity implies a critical engagement with dominant (Western) epistemologies and the structures of knowledge production, as well as with existing power hierarchies and postcolonial legacies and continuities.

However, the foundations of reflexivity, the ways in which it can be achieved, as well as its consequences and implications for migration studies often remain unclear. Against this background, the aim of our conference is to clarify and discuss understandings of reflexivity in the field of migration. The conference seeks to grasp the complex entanglements of academic and non-academic knowledge production, their multiple contestations as well as their transnational post-colonial embeddedness. Among others, our conference will address the following pressing issues:

• Which social theories and concepts (e.g. regime, dispositive, belonging, boundary, positionality, reflexivity) help us to analyse or deconstruct normative and hegemonic discourses about migration and support us to develop alternative narratives? How can these inform social theories more broadly?

• How can the inputs of post- and de-colonial perspectives (as well as the postsocialist lens) be used to advance reflexivity and to unravel the mechanisms of knowledge production and the contestations and conflicts around migration?

• What kind of answers and strategies do particular methods, methodologies and ethics (e.g. feminist, post-colonial, transnational or critical race theories) offer or imply to produce critical knowledge?

• How is academic research related to practice and activism, and what role does knowledge produced outside academia play inside and outside of it? How can we critically engage with the origins and assumptions behind key concepts of the field? Does a reflection on the conditions of knowledge production and the underlying power structures question the relevance of those concepts? Can they be fruitfully rethought or redefined?

• How does accounting for power relations affect our understanding of migratory phenomena and their study? And do the categories of global North, global South, or global East do justice to the challenges we face?

• How do national histories and local contexts affect the understanding of the notion of reflexivity? (ex. The question of power relations is likely to differ in the West and in the East of Europe). How can we take this variety of national and local perspectives and positions into account? How is spatial re/organisation and re/scaling related to these dynamics and how are urban transformations in the Global North and the Global South becoming connected through migration?

• What use can be made of the notions of positionality and situated knowledge? What does it mean to put those ideas into practice in the field of migration studies?

• What ethical or deontological questions are specific to the field of migration studies and how has this field addressed them? What are future paths?

• What tools allow for a reflexive conceptualization and contextualisation of research findings? What are ways to effectively communicate researchers’ position without invalidating one’s findings in the so called post-truth era?

• What are best practices when it comes to our own roles in terms of activism and research? How can we balance normative considerations and aspiration to objectivity in scientific studies?