In this episode, you’ll hear Kate Dearden speaking with Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot and Herbary Cheung. At IMISOCE’s annual conference in summer 2025, they won the “Best Paper Award” from IMISCOE’s Standing Committee on Gender and Sexuality in Migration Studies (“GenSeM”). Their paper is called: "Temporal contextuality of agentic intersectional positionalities: nuancing power relations in the ethnography of minority migrant women".

Kate speaks with them about what their paper is about and gets an update on her understanding of reflexivity and positionality in the research process. In their paper, they argue that researchers’ power and positionality shift across research phases, relationships, and institutions. We also discuss their collaboration – and how they overcome the fact that it can be hard to collaborate on comparative work as ethnographers.

Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot is a tenured research associate of the Fund for Scientific Research and Senior Lecturer at the Université libre de Bruxelles in Belgium. Her recent research focuses on Belgian-Asian couples and the decision-making process of people called “Asians” aspiring to migrate towards or remigrate within the European Union.

and

Herbary Cheung is a Lecturer in Gender Studies, Monash University Malaysia. His work critically examines the intersections of gender and migration; family, marriage and health; social development and social policy, with a focus on their wider social impacts in Southeast Asia.

The paper for which our guests won a prize is “Temporal contextuality of agentic intersectional positionalities: Nuancing power relations in the ethnography of minority migrant women” https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14687941231179153

In the episode, Dr. Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot mentions work related to these two projects: BelMix (2017-2027: https://belmix.hypotheses.org/) and AspirE (Jan. 2023-Feb. 2026: https://aspire.ulb.be/).

Dr. Fresnoza-Flot is grateful to the study participants who entrusted her their personal stories. She also thanks the two anonymous reviewers for the journal Qualitative Research, whose constructive comments and useful suggestions helped her co-author Herbary Cheung and her improve their article "Temporal contextuality of agentic intersectional positionalities: nuancing power relations in the ethnography of minority migrant women". She is also thankful to the members of the evaluation jury of the IMISCOE's Standing Committee "Gender and Sexuality in Migration Research" for the GenSeM Best Article Award 2024 and would also like to acknowledge the Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS) in Belgium for a three-year postdoctoral fellowship (2012–2015).

Further reading from Dr. Herbary Cheung:

-Cheung, H. (2024). Single Mothers in Thailand: Women, Motherhood, and Going It All Alone. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

-Cheung, H. (2022). Engendering Migration Journey: Identity, Ethnicity and Gender of Thai Migrant Women in Hong Kong. Palgrave Macmillan Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship Book Series. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

-Ng, I., & Cheung, H. (2022). Navigating the ethnic boundary: From “in-between” to plural ethnicities among Thai middle-class migrant women in Hong Kong. Journal of Sociology, 58(1), 59–75.

Dr. Herbary Cheung would like to acknowledge Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot for her collaboration and intellectual partnership in developing the concept of agentic intersectionality, as well as the Thai migrant women who generously shared their time and experiences, without whom this research would not have been possible. He would also like to thank the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong and the Institut de Recherche sur l'Asie du Sud-Est Contemporaine (IRASEC).

When it comes to what influences “migrant integration”, you might think of national-level laws and policies, and maybe look at statistics on how well immigrants are doing in relation to other groups with employment rates, their health, or language acquisition. You might also look at to what extent people have “accepting attitudes” to newcomers or neighbours with different backgrounds than them.

Our interviewees in this episode have compelling research on how schools are sites of “integration” to be taken seriously. After all, schools are the primary public institution where people interact with wider societies. They talk about how people in schools adapt in different ways to intercultural and multi-lingual realities and how they can be key places of civic engagement for not only for students, but also for parents.

You’ll hear Samanwita Paul interview Dr. Irene Landini and Dr. Jacob Garrett.

Dr. Irene Landini is a Postdoc in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. Her research is in political science and sociology and focuses on the policies and practices of inclusion and exclusion of migrants and cultural and linguistic minorities from welfare services and formal educational contexts in European countries. She is the principal investigator of the Project “Digitalization and social inclusion of migrant parents in secondary schools: a challenge or an opportunity?”.

Dr. Jacob Garrett is a Research Professor at the University of Genoa in Italy. He is the Principle investigator of the Project: The Democratic Integration of Migrants. Political theory of council democracy. He also headed the Project: 'Parent Citizens,' Schools of Citizenship: Parent Councils at Public Schools in Italy, Spain, and France. He says that he “draws inspiration from [his] ethnographic encounters with immigrants, parents, and students who practice democracy every day at schools and cities in Italy, France, Spain, and the United States.”

Further reading from Dr. Irene Landini:

1) Landini I. Intercultural education and linguistic and cultural diversity: navigating the tension between policy and grassroots implementation in schools. Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy. Published online 2025:1-19. doi:10.1017/ics.2025.10055

2) Landini, I. (2025). Old And New Diversities In Schools: Exploring Teachers’ Experiences with Migrant Students In South Tyrol's Rigidly Divided School System. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 25(2), 250-272.

3) Landini, I., (2022) ‘Beyond Welfare Chauvinism? Populist Radical Right Parties’ Social Policies and The Exclusion of Migrants from National Welfare in Italy’, Italian Political Science, 16(2).

4) Landini, I. (2024). ‘Encountering Migrant-Driven Diversity in South Tyrolean’ Rigid System of Linguistically Divided Schools: a Bottom-Up Perspective’. In: Elisabeth Alber, Alice Engl and Günther Pallaver (eds) POLITIKA 2021-Südtiroler Jahrbuch für Politik/Annuario di politica dell’Alto Adige.

Dr. Landini would like to acknowledge funding for her work from a YUFE4POSTDOC/MSCA Grant: https://www.yufe.eu/early-career-researchers/yufe4postdocs/

From Dr. Garrett:

1) Garrett, Jacob. 2025. "When Parents Govern: Participatory Decision Making and the Engineered Public Spirit." Polity 57 (4): 694-723. Garrett, Jacob and Valeria Ottonelli. 2025. “Democratic Prudence: The Philosophical and Empirical Grounding of Citizen Competence.” The Journal of Politics 87 (2): 424-436.

2) Projects: 'Parent Citizens,' Schools of Citizenship: Parent Councils at Public Schools in Italy, Spain, and France. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 101024883

3) The Democratic Integration of Migrants. This project has received funding from the Italian PNRR program, "Finanziamento di Progetti Presentati Da Giovani Ricercatori" grant agreement NO. D3325000510001

This is a guest episode from the third season of the Borders and Belonging Podcast, which is produced by the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration (or “CERC”) at Toronto Metropolitan University. They just launched a new season, called “in conversation”, in which leading voices dive into urgent migration issues shaping Canada and the world. You can find it on all major streaming services. And of course, please stay tuned for the next episode of the Migration Podcast!

“The rise in false narratives surrounding immigrants and refugees is often amplified by social media and manipulated for political gain. In this episode, host Maggie Perzyna unpacks the dangerous intersection between digital disinformation and immigration. Experts emphasize this critical area of study as social media networks increasingly shape public opinion and policy decisions, while false narratives about migration spread faster than ever.

Guests: Katie Paul, Director, Tech Transparency Project; Anatoliy Gruzd, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Privacy Preserving Digital Technologies, Toronto Metropolitan University; and Mattias Ekman, Associate Professor, Stockholm University.”

More about the Projects mentioned in this episode:

- The hybridization of political communication: Politicized news formats and the boundaries of journal. Riksbankens Jubileumsfond Foundation (RJ). https://www.su.se/english/research/research-projects/the-hybridization-of-political-communication-politicized-news-formats-and-the-boundaries-of-journal

- Migrant Integration in the Mid-21st Century: Bridging Divides. Canada First Research Excellence Fund. https://www.torontomu.ca/bridging-divides/

- Social Media Lab. https://socialmedialab.ca/about/

Donate or Get Involved!

- Campaign for Accountability. https://campaignforaccountability.org/

- Integrity Institute. https://integrityinstitute.org/

- NewseumED. https://newseumed.org/

- News Literacy Project. https://newslit.org/

- Reboot. https://reboot-foundation.org/

Media & Blogs

- Caulfield, T. (18 Sept 2024). Welcome to the Poilievre conspiracy theory vortex: Adopting absurd narratives has become a staple of right-wing politicking. The Walrus.

- Cadwalladr, C. (3 Aug 2024). ‘A polarisation engine’: how social media has created a ‘perfect storm’ for UK’s far-right riots. The Guardian.

- Isaac, M. & Schleifer, T. (7 January 2025). Meta Says It Will End Its Fact-Checking Program on Social Media Posts. New York Times.

- Etc.

Reports and Policy

- Chadwick, J. (3 June 2024). It’s time to restore some sanity to the Internet: Why we need a 180 on Section 230. Mother Jones.

- For Sale on Facebook: Accounts That Can Run U.S. Election Ads. (18 September 2024). Tech Transparency Project.

- Lu, S. (3 Jan 2025). Tech law in 2025: A look ahead at AI, privacy and social media regulation under the new Trump administration. The Conversation.

- Etc.

Books & Book Chapters

- Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Verso.

- Ekman, M. (2018). Online Islamophobia and the politics of fear: Manufacturing the green scare. In Muslims, Migration and Citizenship (pp. 149-165). Routledge.

-Etc.

Scholarly Articles

- Ekman, M. (2022). The great replacement: Strategic mainstreaming of far-right conspiracy claims. Convergence, 28(4), 1127-1143.

- Ekman, M., & Krzyżanowski, M. (2021). A populist turn?: News editorials and the recent discursive shift on immigration in Sweden. Nordicom Review, 42(s1), 67-87.

- Gruzd, A., Mai, P., & Taleb, O. (2024). Digital battleground: An examination of anti-refugee discourse on Twitter against Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. First Monday.

- Gruzd, A., Paulin, D., & Haythornthwaite, C. (2016). Analyzing social media and learning through content and social network analysis: A faceted methodological approach. Journal of Learning Analytics, 3(3), 46-71.

- Etc.

Whether on billboards, films or other medium, messages from “do not come” to “it is dangerous” are a consistent part of European states’ to discourage irregularised migration from Africa. Yet, evaluations have reported time and time again that such campaigns are not “effective” – if that is even the right question. Why do states keep investing in anti-immigration information campaigns?

In this episode, Silindile Mlilo speaks with Cecilia Schenetti and Rossella Marino to unpack some of the power relations behind the design and implementation of these campaigns, including how migrants themselves are engaged, framed, or co-opted in them.

We learn that with the many different actors and conflicting motivations involved in these campaigns, migrant information campaigns are full of contradictions and our guests argue that they are central to how border regimes are produced, navigated, and contested.

Cecilia Schenetti is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of Maastricht University and part of the research group Globalisation, Transnationalism and Development. Cecilia’s PhD research project investigates the production, implementation and reception of migration information campaigns between the Netherlands and Senegal. Before starting her PhD, she worked for an NGO in Senegal in the development and cooperation sector.

and

Rossella Marino has a PhD in Social Work and Social Pedagogy from Ghent University. Her research has revolved around European migration governance in The Gambia, where she has done extended field work. She currently teaches Social Work and Social Pedagogical literature and Comparative Social Work at Ghent university.

Further reading provided by the interviewees:

From Rossella Marino:

1. Marino, R., Schapendonk, J., & Lietaert, I. (2022). Translating EUrope’s Return Migration

Regime to The Gambia: The Incorporation of Local CSOs. Geopolitics, 28(3), 1033–1056.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2022.2050700

2. Marino, R., Schapendonk, J., & Lietaert, I. (2023). The moral economy of voice within

IOM’s awareness-raising industry: Gambian returnees and Migrants as Messengers.

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 50(6), 1355–1370.

https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2023.2206001

3. Rossella Marino, Arla Mannersuo, Inês Francisco, Ine Lietaert, At the Crossroads

between Care and Control: A Cross-Country Comparison of Assisted Return, Journal of

Refugee Studies, Volume 36, Issue 3, September 2023, Pages 337–358,

https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feac059

4. Marino, Rossella, and Ine Lietaert. "12. The legitimisation of the policy objective of

sustainable reintegration." Handbook of return migration (2022): 167.

Rossella Marino would like to thank all the returnees who have shared their stories with her and her supervisors, Ine Lietaert and Joris Schapendonk.

From Cecilia Schenetti

1. Schenetti, C., Mazzucato, V., Wyatt, S., & Schans, D. (2025). Navigating contradictions:

justifications and imaginaries of the initiators of European migration information

campaigns. International Migration, 63(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.13366

2. Schenetti, C., & Mazzucato, V. (2024). Doing and contesting borderwork in Senegal:

local implementers of migration information campaigns. Journal of Ethnic and Migration

Studies, 50(12), 2803–2821. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2024.2323670

3. Schenetti, C. (in press). The affective registers of migration information campaigns:

Emotional violence and responses from Senegalese youth. Journal of Ethnic and Racial

Studies.

Cecilia Schenetti would like to thank her PhD Supervisors: Prof. Valentina Mazzucato, Prof. Sally Wyatt, Dr. Djamila Schans.

Today you’ll hear Liberty Chee speak with two scholars whose research focuses on musicians who have been displaced from their homelands.

Rose Campion looks at what the music industry can teach us about migration policy. Her ethnographic research explores how forced migrants from all over the world build their careers as professional musicians in Germany. She talks about how they try to ‘make it’, and how these experiences complicate the perception that “music is a universal language that brings everyone together”.

We also have Louis Brehony, who, starting as a musician and fan, found his way to Palestinian music and the people who make this art both in the MENA region and around the world. He has now researched the topic academically for over a decade. He speaks about how concepts from Palestinian culture translate into music – and how “traditional” sounds and newer evolutions of style are marked by place and migration.

Rose Campion is a PhD student at the University of Oxford's Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (“COMPAS”) in the UK. She studies the creative and social impacts of music-making by forced migrants.

And

Louis Brehony is an activist, musician, educator, and independent scholar who is an expert on Palestinian music. He received his PhD from Kings College London and his book "Palestinian Music in Exile: Voices of resistance" is based on 10 years of fieldwork and focuses on Palestinians dispersed in the MENA region. He is also a member of the Gazelleband.

The music at the end of the episode is the track “Salla Fina al-Lahz”, from the Gazelleband’s EP “Rihla #2”. It was composed by Sayyid Dawish and performed by Gazelleband: https://gazelleband.com/home

Further reading provided by the interviewees:

1. Campion, Rose and Sheyda Ghavami. (2024). Kurdische Musikerinnen in Deutschland: Ein Song-und Storybook. Landesmusikrat NRW.

2. Louis Brehony, Palestinian Music in Exile: Voices of Resistance, AUC Press, 2023.

3. Ghassan Kanafani, Selected Political Writings, Pluto Press, 2024.

4. Louis Brehony, “Music and the Gaza Genocide,” Journal of Performance Studies, Summer2025.

5. Louis Brehony, “Exile Songwriters of the Palestinian Revolution (and the Problem with Sugar Man),” Arab Studies Quarterly, Winter 2023.

Louis would like to thank Reem Anbar (oud player with Gazelleband) and Tahrir Hamdi (Co-editor of Ghassan Kanafani: Selected Political Writings) for their contributions to the work he speaks about in this episode.

This episode features a conversation recorded live at the IMISCOE annual conference that was hosted in Paris-Auberville in early July.

Submit proposals for the IMISCOE’s Spring Conference in Liège next March, as well as the next annual conference – which will take place in Girona. Check below for more information!

In this episode, you’ll hear Asya Pisarevskaya speak with Andrea Pettrachin and Karolina Łukasiewicz about how cities (and specifically city governments) across Europe respond to migration.

Andrea talks mostly from the research on small and medium-sized towns and rural areas in Europe, and Karoline brings her experience from cities in Central and Eastern Europe.

This broad view shows how cities vary greatly when it comes to their approach to migration – besides some being more “progressive”, and others being “conservative”, some cities take proactive steps on their own, going above and beyond (or sometimes contrary to) what national governments dictate. While others refuse to implement measures they are legally required do, all together.

Our guests also touch on the differences between the discourse that cities use about migration (i.e. being a very “open” vs. being a more hostile), and how that is not always aligned with what happens in practice.

For me, it was also interesting to hear how cities have shifted from a more practical approach to migration to a more political one, for better or worse.

Finally, Karoline and Andrea also share recommended actions that cities can take if they want to have inclusive and effective responses to migration.

Andrea Pettrachin is an Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of Padua. He worked on the Horizon 2020 project “WHOLE-COMM: Exploring the Integration of Post-2014 Migrants in Small and Medium-Sized Towns and Rural Areas from a Whole of Community Perspective”

Karolina Łukasiewicz is an Assistant Professor at the Centre of Migration Research (CMR), which is an interdisciplinary inter-faculty research unit of the University of Warsaw. She worked on the projects: “LOCMIG” - Local welfare system response to migrant poverty. Between innovations and inequality and “MigIntegrEast” - Migrant integration governance in CEE cities post 2015

I hope you enjoy…!

Info on IMISCOE’s Spring Conference in Liège, and the next annual conference:

IMISCOE Spring Conference in Liège, Belgium (Submission deadline: September 5, 2025):

https://www.imiscoe.org/events/imiscoe-events/2393-2026-imiscoe-spring-conference

IMISCOE Annual Conference in Girona, Spain/Online (Submission deadline: September 25, 2025)

https://www.imiscoe.org/events/imiscoe-events/2418-23rd-imiscoe-annual-conference-2026

For more information on Karoline's and Andrea's work, see below;

From Karoline:

LOCMIG Project: https://www.migracje.uw.edu.pl/projects/local-welfare-system-response-to-migrant-poverty-between-innovations-and-inequality/

MigIntegrEast: https://www.migracje.uw.edu.pl/projects/9569/

1. Łukasiewicz K., Pachocka M. Nowosielski M. Eds. (forthcoming) Migration Governance In Central And Eastern European Cities Post-2015, IMISCOE Springer book Series.

2. Łukasiewicz, Karolina, Ewa Cichocka, Kamil Matuszczyk, 2024, A missed opportunity: Local welfare systems' responses to marginalized migration in the COVID-19 context, Cities. The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2024.104880

From Andrea:

WHOLE COMM Project: https://whole-comm.eu/

1. Pettrachin, Andrea (2024) ‘The Multi-Layered Governance of Migration in Italy. Policy Actors, Networks, and the Shaping of the Refugee 'Crisis’’. Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN: 978-3-031-57831

2. Caponio, Tiziana and Andrea Pettrachin (2023). ‘Neither Multilevel Governance Nor Battleground. Understanding the Politics of Immigrant Integration Governance in Small European Localities’. Governance, 1-24, doi: 10.1111/gove.12833. ISSN: 1468-0491

Is migrating a risk factor for one’s mental health? Well, sometimes yes, and sometimes no – it depends on the context and perspective. (Of course, “context and perspective” is the simple way of putting it. You’ll hear about some of the complexity behind this, in this episode!)

You’ll hear Itzel Eguiluz interview Ietza Bojorquez and Sylvia Dantas about their work with migrants in Mexico and Brazil.

In their short conversation, they get to the heart of why treating mental health in multicultural contexts can be so challenging. We hear about the importance of reflexivity – and specifically how the position and cultural backgrounds of practitioners as well as migrants facing mental health difficulties should be taken into consideration.

It turns out, that in their work trying to improve mental health support for migrants, both Ietza and Sylvia are working to provide better access to the health care for migrants in general, and they talk about why this is a necessary foundational step. 

Ietza Bojorquez is a professor-researcher at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Tijuana, Mexico. She is also working on the Observatorio de Salud y Movilidad en México, and has a background in epidemiology. She works on the topics of migrant mental health, including migrants' access to healthcare and addressing mental health issues among migrants. These days her research mainly focuses on migrants in transit through Mexico and Mexican migrants deported from the United States.

Sylvia Dantas is a Professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at São Paulo Federal University. She is also the vice-coordinator of the research group “Intercultural Dialogues” at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the same university. Sylvia has a PhD in social psychology, and she focuses on intercultural psychology, psychoanalysis and guidance for organizations and individuals, especially when it comes to migration, prejudice, and ethnic and cultural identities.

Thank you for tuning in!

For more information on Ietza's and Sylvia's work, see below;

From Ietza Bojorquez:

Project name and website: https://observatorios.colef.mx/osymm/

1. Bojorquez-Chapela, Ietza, Leyva-Flores, René, Gomez-López, Diana, Vázquez, Esther K, Cortés-Alcalá, Ricardo (2023). Forced migration and psychological distress among migrants in transit through Mexico. Salud Pública de México. Publicado en línea 15 de diciembre 2023. https://doi.org/10.21149/14829

2. Bojorquez Ietza, Sepúlveda Jaime, Lee Deandra, Strathdee Steffanie (2022). Interrupted transit and common mental disorders among migrants in Tijuana, Mexico. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 68(5):1018-1025. doi:10.1177/00207640221099419.

3. Bojorquez, Ietza, Odgers-Ortiz, Olga, Olivas-Hernández, Olga (2021). Psychosocial and mental health during the COVID-19 lockdown: A rapid qualitative study in migrant shelters at the Mexico-United States border. Salud Mental, 44(4):167-175. DOI: 10.17711/SM.0185-3325.2021.022

4. Bojorquez, I., Aguilera, R. M., Ramírez, J., Cerecero, D. & Mejía, S. (2015) Common Mental Disorders at the Time of Deportation: A Survey at the Mexico–United States Border. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 17(6):1732-1738. Publicado en línea 14 de agosto de 2014, DOI: 10.1007/s10903-014-0083-y

From Sylvia Dantas

Her new book:

Resignifying Migration and Minorities’ Cultural Contact in Brazil (May 2025), Springer:

Launch event (in Portuguese): June 9, 2025. More information here:

https://www.iea.usp.br/eventos/lancamento-resignifying-migration?fbclid=IwY2xjawKi3DVleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETF4S3JORkZPQXl3cmtWSWtMAR6QZ_r94cli9D_gY0Zr7Ac2TG4jIutnszLaICgSdR3VGlCciMTRw6Tjs6uvkg_aem_ZsVhM7tTDLj4MvKsoDdiJQ

In this episode I talk with two researchers about the lives of migrants from Central Asia in Russia, both before, and since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is probably no surprise that this conflict is affecting migrants in Russia, and you’ll hear all about this from the guests in this episode.

You’ll also hear a bit about the people behind the numbers, when we talk about the millions of migrants from central Asia in Russia, as well as how their lives are shaped by the formal and informal legal constraints in Russian society. Finally, we touch on some intriguing areas of research emerging as a result of the limited access to data in Russia today and that focus on new trends in Central Asian migration.

To discuss all of this, I’m joined by Rustam Urinboyev and Nodira Kholmatova.

Rustam Urinboyev is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology of Law at Lund University in Sweden. His research is on socio-legal approaches to Migration, corruption and informality (among other topics.) He is also the principal investigator of the EU-funded project “MARS: Non-Western Migration Regimes in a Global Perspective”.

Nodira Kholmatova, who works as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Political Science and the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research at the University of Amsterdam. She is a sociologist and migration researcher who studies social and gender inequalities in return migration and deportation regimes as well as the impact of migration policies on migrants and their families. Her geographic focus is Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and more recently Western Balkans and Southeast Asia.

Let’s get into it!

Info for episode description:

Rushtam: https://www.soclaw.lu.se/en/rustamjon-urinboyev

1. Urinboyev, R. (2020) Migration and Hybrid Political Regimes: Navigating the Legal Landscape in Russia. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Available at: https://www.luminosoa.org/site/books/m/10.1525/luminos.96/.

2. Urinboyev, R. and Eraliev, S. (2022) The Political Economy of Non-Western Migration Regimes: Central Asian Migrant Workers in Russia and Turkey. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan (International Political Economy Series). Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99256-9 (Accessed: 20 May 2022).

3. Urinboyev, R. and Pallot, J. (2024) ‘Ethnic and religious identities in Russian penal institutions: A case study of Uzbek Transnational Muslim prisoners’, Open Research Europe, 3(122), pp. 1–35. Available at: https://doi.org/10.12688/openreseurope.16142.2.

4. Eraliev, S. and Urinboyev, R. (2024) ‘“What have you done, brother Putin?”: Everyday geopolitics and Central Asian labour migration to Russia’, Central Asian Survey, 43(2), pp. 215–234. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2023.2266519.

Nodira: https://www.uva.nl/en/profile/k/h/n.kholmatova/n.kholmatova.html

Project webpage: https://reintegrateerc.com/nodira-kholmatova/

1.Kholmatova, N. (2022). Gender. Introduction: critical appraisal. In R. Isaacs (Ed.), A Critical Reader in Central Asian Studies : 40 Years of Central Asian Survey (pp. 139-143). (Central Asian Studies; Vol. 42). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003200338-8

2. Kholmatova, N. (2021). The precarity of transnational migration and the COVID-19 pandemic: addressing female return migration in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. (Policy Brief of the Migration Governance and Agricultural and Rural Change (AGRUMIG) Project]. London, UK: SOAS University of London. 8p. (AGRUMIG Policy Brief Series 3)). European Union Horizon2020 work programme. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/131900

3. Kholmatova, N. (2021). Navigating contradictions : female return migration and social change in Tajikistan, Florence : European University Institute, 2021, EUI, SPS, PhD Thesis - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/72723

It’s an exciting time for qualitative research methods these days. Migration scholars are pushing the boundaries of traditional interview techniques, with the aim to amplify the voices of marginalized groups as well as to influence policy and reach wider audiences. In this episode you’ll hear Silindile Mlilo interview two researchers who are using creative and non-traditional research methods.

Isabel Rose Soloaga will talk about the use of participatory research and film through her forthcoming documentary, Growing Up in America: Life After the Taliban. The film is a personal story following two young girls and their family, who were forced to evacuate Kabul after the Taliban rose to power in 2021. Isabel told us: “Everyone has a camera and a platform today through social media, so I think debates on how to use these tools in an ethical way, while inviting people to reach out to their new neighbors -- the key message of my film.”

Ntokozo Yingwana will discuss her use of digital story telling – which I learned is, the growing practice of everyday people using digital tools to tell their stories. In her PhD research project “Queering Sex Work and Mobility in South Africa: How does Migration and mobility Influence Genderded Sexualities in Sex Work? Duh-kozo conducted data collection through a digital storytelling workshop and WhatsApp. She also worked with two of people from her research participant group, who are sex workers, as research assistants.

Isabel Rose Soloaga is a Research Fellow at the University of Sussex School of Law, Politics and Sociology in the UK and an Independent Documentary Filmmaker

Ntokozo Yingwana is a Doctoral researcher at the African Centre for Migration and Society at Wits University in South Africa.

Are you interested in reading more?

Yingwana, N. (2024). Sex Work in Africa. The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Sexuality Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95352-2_83-1.

Yingwana, N. (2022). Queering Sex Work and Mobility. Anti-Trafficking Review, 19, 66–86. https://doi.org/10.14197/atr.201222195.

Vidima, N., Tenga, R., & Yingwana, N. (2022). Reflections on the use of FPAR as a research methodology for sex worker (and key populations) research. Global Public Health, 17(10), 2604–2616. https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2022.2110915.

Life After the Taliban:

Kabul to California: A Cinematic Exploration of New Beginnings by The Reel Truth https://videoconsortium.org/mag/thereeltruth05

Watch our short film:

https://vimeo.com/801454823?share=copy

After narrowly escaping from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in August

2021, 21 year old Ali and his family begin a new life in Northern California.

Growing up in America: Life After the Taliban, is an intimate documentary

short following one family's journey of building home after war.

Directed by Isabel Soloaga (https://www.isabelsoloaga.com)

Co-Directed by Najaf Ali Mohammady

○ Website: https://www.lifeaftertalibandoc.com

○ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lifeaftertalibdoc

○ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeaftertalib_doc/

○ You can support Isabel's upcoming feature film by donating at

https://bit.ly/LifeAfterTalib_Doc

Welcome back! You’re listening to the first episode of the 5th season of IMISCOE’s Migration Podcast.

If you’re listening for the first time: IMISCOE is the largest European network of scholars in the area of migration and integration, with 69 member institutes and over 1400 scholars from all over the world. And this is the network’s podcast, where we hear migration researchers talk about their latest research and why it matters.

As in the past seasons, we have an amazing team of interviewers who are migration scholars themselves. And this season, you’ll hear more episodes with them talking to 2 or more researchers who are working on similar themes, together.

The conversation you'll hear is about concepts in migration governance that are often taken for granted – but when you dig a bit deeper, or wider, like the researchers in this episode have done, it’s clear that not everyone has the same idea of what they really mean or their implications in practice.

You’ll hear Liberty Chee speaking to Eleonora Milazzo, who has been working on what exactly “solidarity” means between European Union Member States when it comes to the asylum system. We may have a sense that so far, it’s been “failing”, but what does solidarity really mean in practice?

Ulrike Bialas also joins the conversation, to talk about her research on how age classification determines the lives of young asylum seekers in Germany. How do they experience this legal focus on age, especially when many do not actually have documents that can prove their dates of birth and may not know them, anyways.

I also found the practical challenges of conducting their research, that both Elenora and Ulrike talk about, particularly interesting. Just a last note: both of them talk about research to do with migration governance in Europe, and both mention “the Dublin System”. In case you need a refresher: the Dublin System is made up of several procedures that determine responsibility for assessing asylum claims in EU Member States.

Further readings:

Bialas, Ulrike. 2023. Forever 17: Coming of Age in the German Asylum System. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Bialas, Ulrike. 2023. "Ambiguous Ages, Ambivalent Youths: How Asylum Seekers in Germany Navigate Age Categorization." Migration Politics 2, no. 1: 003.

Bialas, Ulrike. 2024. "Who is a minor? Age assessments of refugees in Germany and the classificatory multiplicity of the state." Ethnic and Racial Studies: 1-23.

Bialas, Ulrike, Johanna M. Lukate, and Steven Vertovec. 2024. "Contested categories in the context of international migration: introduction to the special issue." Ethnic and Racial Studies: 1-23.

Milazzo, E. (2024). Refugee Protection and Solidarity. The Duties of EU Member States. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/refugee-protection-and-solidarity-9780192885715?cc=be&lang=en&#

Also have a look at the Migration Research to Policy Co-Lab https://migrationresearchtopolicy.eu/