Investigation as Archive

Abstract

Considers etic evidence: the investigative methodologies of the observer attempting to engage with, interpret, and report on the lives of migrants from ‘outside’. This chapter outlines the parallels and connections between British and American journalistic and ethnographic methodologies. The history of social observation techniques and concepts is also discussed: early interview methodologies, shifting conceptualizations of the stranger, participant observation as well as journalistic, sociological and ethnographic practice. More recent investigative approaches, including interdisciplinary, museum and digital representations of the migrant subject, are further explored in relation to Chapters 7-10. Rather than a systematic or comprehensive survey, this selective approach considers key moments and interpretive strategies. The idea of investigative ‘distance’ from the migrant subject emerges as critical to any analytic framework of the purposes and effects of migrant observation.