Positionality and power of migration researchers: Searching for reflexive ways of knowledge production
The IMISCOE Standing Committee “Reflexivities in Migration Studies” calls for contributions which critically reflect on positionalities of migration researchers and related alternative ways of producing knowledge on migration.
This session will shed light on the academic fabrication of migration-related knowledge, its embeddedness in societal power relations and its interrelations with and dependencies on media, public opinion and funding, politics, administration, arts, civil society actors, and other areas of society. The session’s aim is twofold: (i) to better understand the positionality of migration researchers in past and presence by scrutinizing the conditions, power, implications and limitations of their practices and knowledge production; (ii) to explore alternative, reflexive ways of knowledge production, which take the epistemic power of differently positioned migration researchers into consideration.
We are inviting paper proposals addressing the following questions:
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What are we doing when we research migration? Who is the “we”?
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What are the factors that establish and change the societal position and the (potential) influence of ‘migration researchers’?
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How does the ‘migration studies industry’ produce migration and migrants? How does it in/exclude people who have experienced migration and migration-related discrimination?
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Which ways are useful to visualize the effects of research methods and particular conceptual approaches?
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How to avoid the unconscious reproduction of dominant (e.g. “European”) narratives on migration and how to stimulate alternative modes of knowledge production?
We particularly welcome proposals from young scholars.
Please send your abstract (300 words) and a short biographical note (150 words) to the coordinator of the Standing Committee, Anna-Lisa Müller:
Deadline for application: 30th November 2021.
You also find the Call for Contributions pdf here(428 KB) .