Un/Commoning Migration

Over the last decades, one of the most discussed questions in social sciences has been what does decolonising knowledge production means and how we can achieve this. Following the overarching theme of (un)commoning, we believe that sharing a common planet should “utopiacally” mean abolishing migration studies since without borders, there will be no migration, only mobility (De Genova 2017). However, doing away with migration studies is not a new argument, as dominant patterns in the field (un)consciously frame migrants and refugees as a crisis. Additionally, anthropologically speaking, (illegalized) migrants and/or refugees per se should not be an anthropological inquiry, as this could lead to dehumanising and dehistoricising them (Malkki 1995, De Genevo 2007). Yet, recent migration patterns, violence induced displacements as well as current and anticipated environmental crises leading to (forced) (im)mobilities, keep migration studies on the top of the agendas of social scientists, state- and non-state actors. It is therefore needed to develop new answers to these challenges.

We are inspired by attempts at proposing new concepts and theories from the South striving for creating a global conversation on social theory which should be multilingual (Menon 2022). We ask how should migration studies look like? How narratives of migration challenge each other? What analytical and methodological approaches do vernacular concepts/terms about migration offer us? What do we learn from these to promote a multilingual and decolonial approach in migration research?

We invite migration researchers to this roundtable to address these questions in situated empirically grounded arguments.

Editorial Board:

Karim Zafer (University of Trier)
Souleymane Diallo (University of Münster)
Friedemann Yi-Neumann (University of Helsinki)

Panel:

https://tagung.dgska.de/zeitplan/#16058