Visual Methodology in Migration Studies: New Possibilities, Theoretical Implications, and Ethical Questions
Karolina Nikielska-Sekula and Amandine Desille, 2021
This open access book explores the use of visual methods in migration studies through a combination of theoretical analyses and empirical studies. The first section looks at how various visual methods, including photography, film, and mental maps, may be used to analyse the spatial presence of migrants. The second section addresses the processual building of narratives around migration, thereby using formats such as film and visual essay, and reflecting upon the ways they become carriers and mediators of both story and theory within the subject of migration. Section three focuses on vulnerable communities and discusses how visual methods can empower these communities, thereby also focusing on the theoretical and ethical implications of migration. The fourth section addresses the issue of migrant representation in visual discourses. Based on these contributions, a concluding methodological chapter systematizes the use of visual methods in migration studies across disciplines, with regard to their empirical, theoretical, and ethical implications.
Politics of (Dis)Integration
Sophie Hinger and Reinhard Schweitzer, 2020
This open access book explores how contemporary integration policies and practices are not just about migrants and minority groups becoming part of society but often also reflect deliberate attempts to undermine their inclusion or participation. This affects individual lives as well as social cohesion. The book highlights the variety of ways in which integration and disintegration are related to, and often depend on each other. By analysing how (dis)integration works within a wide range of legal and institutional settings, this book contributes to the literature on integration by considering (dis)integration as a highly stratified process. The book features a fertile combination of comparative policy analyses and ethnographic research based on original material from six European and two non-European countries.
Constructing Roma Migrants: European Narratives and Local Governance
Tina Magazzini and Stefano Piemontese, 2019
This open access book presents a cross-disciplinary insight and policy analysis into the effects of European legal and political frameworks on the life of ‘Roma migrants’ in Europe. It outlines the creation and implementation of Roma policies at the European level, provides a systematic understanding of identity-based exclusion and explores concrete case studies that reveal how integration and immigration policies work in practice. The book also shows how the Roma example might be employed in tackling the governance implications of our increasingly complex societies and assesses its potential and limitations for integration policies of vulnerable groups such as refugees and other discriminated minorities.
Challenging the Political Across Borders: Migrants’ and Solidarity Struggles
Tegiye Birey, Céline Cantat, Ewa Maczynska and Eda Sevinin, 2019
While recent years have seen the reassertion of exclusionary, anti-migrant politics and discourses, migrant-led and solidarity struggles contesting migration and border regimes have also risen and gained in visibility. How new are those struggles? What do they mean for our understanding and practice of politics and the political? What possibilities for change do they open up, and what limitations may they face? Based on contribution by a range of academics and activists engaged in border and migration struggles, this open access book examines the practices, structures, and meanings of solidarity with and by migrants and refugees in Europe and beyond. Bringing together empirical, conceptual and historical insights, the volume interrogates struggles unfolding on the ground and situates them within a critical analysis of historical and current mobility regimes, and how these have been resisted.