Academic Border Guards? Locating and Unsettling Conceptual Borders in Migration Studies (original) (raw)

Contribution to ISA Annual Convention 2015, New Orleans (USA), 2015

Abstract

In my contribution, I problematize practices of conceptual bordering in Migration Studies and discuss ethical and political implications thereof. Concepts in the field of migration are subject to debates on definition and attribution between policymakers, researchers, and activists. Mostly treated as more or less accurate reflections of ‘reality’, their constitution and the underlying logic of differentiation remain unquestioned. Using the example of the “refugee”/“labour migrant” dichotomy I show how research, by resorting to static distinctions, risks being complicit with practices of bordering. Conceptual bordering is supplementing modes of differential inclusion that open positions of legitimate presence and participation for some migrants, while others remain excluded. Against the background of Discourse Theory, Structural Marxism, and the Autonomy of Migration approach, I argue that it is crucial to address the double excess of migration to locate and unsettle these practices: Migration as a social and political reality is (co-) constituted by a surplus of meaning and marked by a surplus of reality, since it always already exceeds conceptual and material borders. I propose to systematically contrast the privileged academic position of enunciation with migrants’ power to define and contest to rethink ethical modes of research in and beyond the field of migration.

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