News from Members

12th IMISCOE conference Rights, Democracy and Migration, Geneva, 25-27 June 2015

The panel: Researching with and through migrants' associations and relevant social organisations

Social organisations have been key partners in research on migration and integration. They have been both subjects of research as well as research partners facilitating researchers’ access to migrants. A number of times, we, as researchers, have listened to criticisms and concerns voiced by these same organisations regarding the lack of commitment of researchers in returning the results of their work back to the organisations that assisted in its development or asking for more embedded, longer term collaborations between academia and social organisations. This panel proposes a critical reflection around methodological issues within research involving or being carried out with the collaboration of social organisations. Especially thinking on how these interactions between academia and social organisations has been taking place and could evolve in the future we propose to organize our debate around the following questions:

1. Which methodological approaches have been used in research on migration through social organisations that mediate the contact of the researcher with migrants? Which benefits and critiques could be pointed?
2. Which methodologies are employed when the social organisations themselves are subjects of study? Which benefits and critiques could be pointed?
3. What are the implications of different kinds of methodological approaches?
4. How useful are alternative methodologies (visual methods, participatory action-research) and what is their potential?
5. How to think critically on the role of research for social organisations in the field of migration studies?

 We invite contributions proposing a reflection around these themes (but not restricted to them) to advance our critical thinking on methodological approaches in this field and how to improve them.

Please submit your abstracts (max. 250 words) until 6^th January to:

Sonia Pereira: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Concha Maiztegui: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.