Knowledge production for whom? Doing migrations, colonialities and standpoints in non-hegemonic migration research

Abstract

ABSTRACT Building on the representation problem of migration studies, this article identifies current alternative knowledge production strategies in social scientific migration research. After reviewing calls for denaturalization, demigranticization and decolonization, it elaborates on an integrated “umbrella” perspective – the doing-migration approach – for implementing these alternative strategies. First, building on the socioconstructivist and performativist accounts, the article pleads for studying the institutional and non-institutional sayings and doings about “migration” that generate historic-specific and changeable migranticized societal orders. Second, the article synthesizes the doing-migration approach and coloniality/ies-sensitive approaches to explicitly study long-term, large-scale power asymmetries and patterns of inequalities in the context of the postcolonial, postsocialist and neo-colonial dynamics. Finally, in addressing the question “Who has the power of definition within migration studies?”, this article differentiates between the concepts of standpoint and positionality.