This book investigates the methodological and ethical dilemmas involved when working with digital technologies and large-scale datasets in relation to ethnographic studies of digital migration practices and trajectories. Digital technologies reshape not only every phase of the migration process itself (by providing new ways to access, to share and preserve relevant information) but also the activities of other actors, from solidarity networks to border control agencies. In doing so, digital technologies create a whole new set of ethical and methodological challenges for migration studies: from data access to data interpretation, privacy protection, and research ethics more generally. Of specific concern are the aspects of digital migration researchers accessing digital platforms used by migrants, who are subject to precarious and insecure life circumstances, lack recognised papers and are in danger of being rejected and deported. Thus, the authors call for new modes of caring for (big) data when researching migrants’ digital practices in the configuration of migration and borders. Besides taking proper care of research participants’ privacy, autonomy, and security, this also spans carefully establishing analytically sustainable environments for the respective data sets. In doing so, the book argues that it is essential to carefully reflect on researchers’ own positioning as being part of the challenge they seek to address.
Author(s): Marie Sandberg, Luca Rossi, Vasilis Galis, Martin Bak Jørgensen
Series: Approaches To Social Inequality And Difference
Edition: 1
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF
Pages: 269
Tags: Migration; Social Media; Digital/New Media; Digital Humanities; Big Data
Acknowledgments
Praise for Research Methodologies and Ethical Challenges in Digital Migration Studies
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
1 Caring for (Big) Data: An Introduction to Research Methodologies and Ethical Challenges in Digital Migration Studies
Introduction—The Scope of This Book
Ethical and Methodology Challenges in Migration Studies
Digital Migration Research—Past and Future Methodological Challenges in an Emerging Field
It Is Big Data—Who Cares?
Outline of the Book
Conclusion
Bibliography
Part I Digital and Qualitative Data Dynamics
2 Migrant Digital Space: Building an Incomplete Map to Navigate Public Online Migration
Introduction
Migrants’ Digital Traces
Configuring Migrant Digital Space
The Practice of Mapping MDS
Migrants’ Everyday Digital Places
The Evolution of Everyday Life Throughout the Journey
Everyday Vulnerability
Non-institutional Is More Trustworthy?
Temporal Evolution of MDS
Conclusions
Bibliography
3 Contrapuntal Connectedness: Analysing Relations Between Social Media Data and Ethnography in Digital Migration Studies
Introduction
One World Anthropology
Life as Experienced, Traced Life
On Non-Scalability
Digital Migration Studies: An Emerging Field
Stitching, Complementing, Remixing…
Methodological Design and Ethical Considerations
On the Ethics of Digital Data for Migration Studies
Creating a Data Environment Relevant for Contrapuntal Analysis
Border Enactments
Example #1: The Border as an Event
Example #2: The Instability of the Border
Contrapuntal Moves: Conclusion
Bibliography
4 Migration Trail: Exploring the Interplay Between Data visualisation, Cartography and Fiction
Introduction
Migration Data Visualisations, Cartographies and Fiction
Research Objectives of the Analysis
Denotative Investigation of Migration Trail: An Overview of the Website
The Main Cartographical View
The Fictional Chat Box
Spatial Data Visualisations
The Ethical, Political and Methodological Concerns of Migration Trail’s Fictional Account
Challenging Traditional Media Portrayals?
Conclusion
Bibliography
5 Migration Multiple? Big Data, Knowledge Practices and the Governability of Migration
Introduction
The Big Data and Migration Apparatus
Enacting Migration: Knowledge Practices and Migration Multiple
Enactments of Migration in Big-Data-Based Research Papers
Multiple Enactments of Migration: Data-Driven Definitions
Work of Coordination: Enacting Migration as a Singular Object by Reference to Migration Narratives
Conclusion
Bibliography
Part II Ethical Challenges in Digital Migration Research and Beyond
6 Impossible Research? Ethical Challenges in the (Digital) Study of Deportable Populations Within the European Border Regime
Introduction
Migration Research Ethics
From “Do No Harm” to “Do a Lot of Harm”—Towards Politics of Critical Ethics
Militant Research as an Ethical Research Strategy
Autonomy of Migration and Research Ethics
How to Study Deportable Populations—Impossible Research or Political Research
Bibliography
7 The Redundant Researcher: Fieldwork, Solidarity, and Migration
Introduction
Arriving on the Islands: From Emotions of Scepticism to Holistic Shame
Fieldwork or Minefield? Reluctant Trust, Vulnerabilisation, and Political Solidarity
Lesvos: “Hell on Earth”
Back to Athens: Towards an Emancipatory Migration Research Paradigm?
Conclusion?
Bibliography
8 Emotional Introspection: The Politics and Challenges of Contemporary Migration Research
Introduction
A Note on Methodology
Conducting Migration Research at the Present Moment
Field-Related Exposure, Institutional Drivers, and Emotional Vulnerability
Insecure Places and Hopeless Situations
Emotional Rewards
Conducive Institutional Cultures?
Contagious Field Sites, Empathy and Emotions
The Process of Writing
Digital Availability
Conclusion and Ways Ahead
Bibliography
Part III Comments
9 On Data and Care in Migration Contexts
Data
Caring for (Big) Data
Conclusions
Bibliography
10 Caring as Critical Proximity: A Call for Toolmaking in Digital Migration Studies
Caring for Digital Traces and Relational Spaces
Implications for Digital Migration Studies
Bibliography
11 What Should We Do as Intellectual Activists? A Comment on the Ethico-political in Knowledge Production
What to Do?
Epistemic Injustice
Hope
Intellectual Activism
Bibliography
Index
