Much is in a Name

Mahar, Usman (2022): Much is in a Name. Categorisations in Migration Policy and Management. EASA2022: Transformation, Hope and the Commons, Belfast, 26. - 29. July 2022. 17th EASA Biennial Belfast: European Association of Social Anthropology.

Abstract

Despite the extensive analysis of different forms of mobility as interconnected and knotty, migration management and policy largely remain within the voluntary-forced framework along with other dichotomous models. Challenging and transforming these binary migration paradigms is no easy feat. Addressing the distinctions and similarities between the different normative, discursive, legal or administrative categorisations of migrants is fraught with dilemmas and requires critical discussions rather than broad-brush solutions. Discussions, for instance, that involve morally and politically charged questions of how the lived realities and experiences of "forced" migrants overlap and intersect with or differ from "voluntary" migrants: Some scholars point to the undermining of the international refugee framework by conflating "forced" and "voluntary" migration and the ensuing practical challenges. Others argue that the distinction between the two is at best crude and leads to a Sisyphean analytical differentiation between undeserving "economic" migrants and "real" asylum-seekers. Though not easily overcome, such impasses are addressed in scholarly reflections through the ethnographic descriptions of the complex lives of migrants at odds with the binary categorisations they are subject to. However, the practical stickiness of such dichotomous models is also a top-down phenomenon influenced by policymakers and legal practitioners. In that vein, migration scholars are invited to submit critical reflections and discussions on categorisations within migration policy and management approaches. Proposed papers should be based on ethnographic research and seek to further theoretical and methodological understanding of abstractions and categorisations of im/mobile people.

• Dokumententyp: Konferenzbeitrag (Anderer)
• Fakultät: Kulturwissenschaften > Department für Kulturwissenschaften und Altertumskunde > Ethnologie
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 300 Sozialwissenschaft, Soziologie
• Ort: Belfast
• Bemerkung: Discussants: Roger Norum (University of Oulu) Melanie Griffiths (University of Birmingham) Martin Sökefeld (LMU Munich)
• Sprache: Englisch