Network News

Organizers:

• Ana Raquel Matias (CIES-Iscte, Iscte)
• Simone Castellani (University of Cadiz)
• Sofia Gaspar (CIES-Iscte, Iscte)
• Thais França (CIES-Iscte, Iscte)

Activity part of the seminar cycle: Migration in Digital Space: experiences, change and resistance (https://www.cies.iscte-iul.pt/np4EN/233/)

The digital space has played a crucial role in transforming migration dynamics. Its double-edged potential has boosted migration, fostered information flow, networking and resistance practices (Tolstokorova, 2010 Baldassar et al., 2016; Niebla, 2020), and increased its governments’ migrants oversight by enhancing monitoring and control practices (Hess and Kasparek 2017). Migrants’ different uses and occupation of the digital space has posed new ethical questions to migration studies (Smets et al., 2019). Likewise, the use of technology in migration governance has brought added concerns about migrants’ surveillance, personal data protection and freedom (Sandberg et al., 2022; ). Ethical issues in migration studies have always been key, as in some cases, migrants are in a vulnerable position and in others power asymmetry between migrants and researchers risks to reproduce hegemonic structures. Looking at migration in the digital space complexifies these themes adding further issues to migrants’ privacy and security and migration care (Mol, 2008; Munk, 2019; Stierl, 2020). In this panel, we aim to reflect on the ethical challenges, pitfalls and opportunities migration studies face in investigating migrants’ virtual practices. Against this background, we invite authors to present papers that are inspired by, but not limited to, one or several of the following questions:

   · How to conduct ethical research with migrants in the digital space?

   · Who benefit from the knowledge produced on digital migration?

   · How safeguard migrants’ safety throughout the entire research process (before, during and after)?

   · How to approach migrants’ digital data “with care”?

   · How can our researcher on digital migration inform policy makers on the ethical use of digital infrastructures for migration governance?

   · What are the opportunities research on migration in the digital space to advance the debate on ethics in the migration field?

   · What are the ethnical challenges that Metaverse can bring to migration?

Please send your abstract (max. 200 words) to Ana Raquel Matias (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), Simone Castellani (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) Sofia Gaspar (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), Thais França (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) before 25th November 2022. We will inform all authors on whether their abstract is accepted for the panel before 1st December 2022.

Mailing list of the seminar cycle: https://bit.ly/Mailing_MigDigital