Intersectional Discrimination: Definition, Scope, and Migration Research from the perspective of Intersectionality

Along with the widespread rise in immigration and the increase in the number of immigrants, academic interest in migration research has also grown. Although there are many studies conducted in various fields, the number of studies who approached migration from an intersectional perspective is rather small. The number of studies approaching migration and the social psychological processes of migrants from the perspective of intersectionality is even smaller in Turkey. Considering the large number of immigrants in Turkey, it is obviously essential to understand and study intersectionality in these particular contexts. Therefore, this article is written to explicate the concept of intersectionality and review migration studies adopting an intersectional approach. The basis of the concept of intersectionality, historical background that led to the birth of it, its subtypes as well as the importance of race, class and gender in intersectionality are among the issues discussed in this article. Moreover, with respect to migration studies from the perspective of intersectionality, studies conducted in various culturally diverse countries are outlined. The last but not the least, the prominence of conducting research on intersectionality in the Turkish context is also emphasized. In this review, we aim to present the literature to students and academics in the field as well as to provide direction for future research. Keywords: Migration, intersectionality, intersectional discrimination

Components of Context: Respecifying the Role of Context in Migration Research

For a century, scholars have studied immigrant integration in a range of destinations. Yet, the precise role of context in shaping integration outcomes remains poorly understood. Drawing from an analysis of an original database of articles and books in migration studies, I argue that this knowledge gap may be due to two closely related tendencies in the scholarship. First, case selection has relied on criteria such as the immigrant population's size and growth rate that are not clearly connected to integration outcomes. Second, most scholars have studied either heavily urban contexts (with large immigrant populations) or very rural contexts (where the immigrant population is growing rapidly), while much less attention has been given to destinations in-between. To improve the understandings of the role of context in immigrant integration, migration scholars should endeavor to move past population criteria when selecting study sites and to study the full range of contexts where immigrants are settling. To contribute to these efforts, I propose a framework that does not rely on population or newness as criteria for case selection and that focuses, instead, on the components of context that existing research has shown matters for intergenerational mobility. I also introduce a typology of contexts based on possible combinations of four of these components and offer some initial hypotheses of how these context types might affect immigrant integration. The arguments presented here recenter the role of local context in migration studies and contribute to debates about where and how scholars should study context moving forward.

Uncertainty and Complexity: Towards Model-Based Demography

This chapter focuses on the broad methodological and philosophical underpinnings of the Bayesian model-based approach to studying migration. Starting from reflections on the uncertainty and complexity in demography and, in particular, migration studies, the focus moves to the shifting role of formal modelling, from merely describing, to predicting and explaining population processes. Of particular importance are the gaps in understanding asylum migration flows, which are some of the least predictable while at the same time most consequential forms of human mobility. The well-recognised theoretical void of demography as a discipline does not help, especially given the lack of empirical micro-foundations in formal modelling. Here, we analyse possible solutions to theoretical shortcomings of demography and migration studies from the point of view of the philosophy of science, looking at the inductive, deductive and abductive approaches to scientific reasoning. In that spirit, the final section introduces and extends a research programme of model-based demography.

Organisations and the production of migration and in/exclusion

The introductory article of this Special Issue explores the potential of an organisational perspective in comparative migration studies and for migration studies more broadly. Although organisations shape migration processes and the in/exclusion of migrants and their descendants in multiple ways, their role has long received surprisingly little attention in migration studies. Taking stock of the research engaging with organisations, we outline the main contours of the literature and suggest several conceptual perspectives that migration scholarship may benefit from. Based on the contributions included in this Special Issue, which focus on different types of organisations in diverse empirical contexts, we discuss three main patterns of organisational practices influencing migration and migrants’ trajectories. These pertain to (1) decision-making about in/exclusion and underlying categorisations, (2) the (re-)production of ‘migrant figures’, and (3) rationalities and structures shaping organisational practices.

Contrapuntal Connectedness: Analysing Relations Between Social Media Data and Ethnography in Digital Migration Studies

This chapter presents a rethinking of the relationship between ethnography and so-called big social data as being comparable to those between a sum and its parts (Strathern 1991/2004). Taking cue from Tim Ingold’s one world anthropology (2018) the chapter argues that relations between ethnography and social media data can be established as contrapuntal. That is, the types of material are understood as different, yet fundamentally interconnected. The chapter explores and qualifies this affinity with the aim of identifying potentials and further questions for digital migration research. The chapter is based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out with Syrian refugees and solidarians in the Danish–Swedish borderlands in 2018–2019 as well as data collected for 2011–2018 from 200 public Facebook pages run by solidarity organisations, NGOs, and informal refugee welcome and solidarity groups.

Caring for (Big) Data: An Introduction to Research Methodologies and Ethical Challenges in Digital Migration Studies

Digital technologies present new methodological and ethical challenges for migration studies: from ensuring data access in ethically viable ways to privacy protection, ensuring autonomy, and security of research participants. This Introductory chapter argues that the growing field of digital migration research requires new modes of caring for (big) data. Besides from methodological and ethical reflexivity such care work implies the establishing of analytically sustainable and viable environments for the respective data sets—from large-scale data sets (“big data”) to ethnographic materials. Further, it is argued that approaching migrants’ digital data “with care” means pursuing a critical approach to the use of big data in migration research where the data is not an unquestionable proxy for social activity but rather a complex construct of which the underlying social practices (and vulnerabilities) need to be fully understood. Finally, it is presented how the contributions of this book offer an in-depth analysis of the most crucial methodological and ethical challenges in digital migration studies and reflect on ways to move this field forward.