Methodological Nationalism 2.0: The Reproduction at Scientific Meetings

Methodological nationalism has been omnipresent in migration theory and research since the publication of a famous article by Wimmer and Glick Schiller in 2002. However, with respect to scientific conferences and gatherings in which scholars debate these issues, this type of interrogation has been absent. In what follows, I will argue that those events are an expression of methodological nationalism, a critique that I base on observations I made at international and Swiss conferences in 2018.

At these conferences, I observed several ways in which individuals belonging to the (legal) categories of migrants, researchers usually talked about in their work, were present or absent. In the following, I propose a reflection on why and how these observed “presences” or “absences” of migrants are an expression of methodological nationalism.

Physical Absence: Object not Subject

For instance, individuals from so-called Southern countries are remarkably underrepresented at scientific and practitioners’ meetings. While they are indirectly present as objects of discussions and research, this contrasts with the physical absence of scholars originating from Southern (often emigration) countries.

Beyond that, it seems to have become a custom to include round tables in the conference programs with the aim of bringing together researchers and practitioners to address migration-related questions from different perspectives. Neither at the International Conference of the Association for the Anthropology of Social Change and Development (APAD) at Roskilde University (DK) in spring 2018 nor at the Asylum Symposium, organized by the Swiss Refugee Council and UNHCR Switzerland in winter 2018 in Berne, were researchers from Southern countries or persons affected by the discussed migration policies included in the panels. On the contrary and paradoxically, while trying to connect scientific results with reality and practice, the “national order of things” (Malkki 1995) was reproduced by researchers and politicians from Northern countries as they were talking about ways to “manage migrants” and about findings from research on “them”.

Physical Presence: “Supervised” or “Creative”

There are nevertheless attempts to give members of such under-represented groups of migrants space for intervention. However, the following examples show a potentially unintentional yet pervasive effect of such efforts. I observed the reproduction of two specific images of the “refugee” which both reinforce the dichotomy between “them” as manageable and thus nonpolitical actors and “us” who speak and try to find solutions for “them”.

The “Translated” and “Supervised” Refugee

The International Conference of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM), taking place in summer 2018 at Macedonia University in Thessaloniki (GR), included a “Roundtable with Refugees by Sabrina Amirat, UNHCR Protection”. The title of this program item alone struck me as suspicious: while the name of the UNHCR representative was explicitly mentioned, the other persons participating in the roundtable were merely referred to as “refugees”. They were thus not presented as individuals with their own opinions and agency but rather as anonymous representatives of a category.

The roundtable was introduced by the UNHCR representative who explained the role and activities of UNHCR. She then told the public how she had met the “refugees” present at the round table by briefly introducing them and their stories. Finally, the “refugees” had the opportunity to present and tell their own stories. Here, two aspects attracted my attention: First, the UNHCR representative did not take a seat and did not join the three “refugees” at the round table. She thus distanced herself and took a different posture from them. Second, she translated for the “refugees”, who did not speak English, and while she translated for the public, she added explanations to their narrations.

She thus reproduced the image of the “refugee” as a “speechless emissary” (Scheel and Ratfisch 2014; Malkki 1996), a person whose presence had to be supervised and whose experiences had to be explained and “put in context” by experts. The physical presence of “refugees” supervised this way counterbalances the original idea of giving individuals space to express themselves as agents. What remains is the image of UNHCR speaking for “refugees” and thus reproducing fundamental power relations that critical migration research actually aims to challenge.

The “Creative” Refugee

Another form of presence of “refugees” I have observed at conferences is the performance as an artist, as a person dealing with his or her story in a creative way. The above-mentioned Asylum Symposium closed with a round table bringing together different representatives of state authorities and NGOs. The moderator began her introduction by noting that throughout the event, migrants did not have the opportunity to express themselves. Therefore, she had chosen to give the floor to a musician who was a recognized refugee and a human rights activist from South Soudan. Her song was a testimony of violence and suffering. It also included a clear and strong political claim against the exportation of arms in conflict regions and denunciated the European countries’ responsibility for fueling armed conflicts. After her performance, however, she was neither invited to join the round table nor was her song further discussed. It rather served as the starting point for the discussion of how Switzerland could better deal with refugees like “her” and “her” story of trauma.

Again, the intention behind this performance was probably to let “refugees” speak up for themselves. However, in the end, it was representatives from different governmental and non-governmental institutions who “made sense” of what the “refugee” had said. Her creativity as a musician allowed her to voice claims and to be listened to for some moments. At the same time, while her “creative” presence was appreciated, she did not participate in discussions on the migration system, and was not treated as an actor in this system. This discrepancy between physical presence as a “creative” and thus exceptional character on the one hand and her non-recognition as a political actor whose experiences and claims are taken seriously is a recurrent pattern of methodological nationalism. It reinforces again the role of the nation-state with its authorities and administrations (and maybe civil society) as the omnipotent unit of reference that manages and finds solutions for “them”.

A Plea for De-Nationalizing Scientific Meetings

Concepts like transnationalism have been developed to overcome the “national container” and to “de-migranticize” research on migration and integration (cf. Dahinden 2016). Critical approaches towards migration and asylum policy, drawing e.g. on Foucault’s concept of governmentality, question states’ practices of categorization, classification and management of persons depending on their nationality. Scholars like Scheel (2019) propose to overcome the image of the omnipotent state by describing migrants’ practices and practices of migration governance as entangled and interdependent.

However, against the background of the above described examples of practices of methodological nationalism at Swiss and international conferences, there clearly is a need for further critical discussion and reflection not only on epistemological and methodological approaches in migration research. There also is a need of critical reflection on how such research is presented and what place is given to the actors themselves who are in the center of migration researchers’ and practitioners’ interest.

Irina Sille is a PhD student and teaching assistant at the Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies at the University of Neuchâtel. Her PhD research focuses on professionalized refugee advocacy NGOs and their engagement in asylum policy.

References:

– Dahinden, Janine (2016). A Plea for the ‘De-migranticization’ of Research on Migration and Integration, Ethnic and Racial Studies 39(13), 2207-2225.
– Malkki, Liisa H. (1996). Speechless Emissaries: Refugees, Humanitarianism, and Dehistoricization, Cultural Anthropology 11(3), 377-404.
– Malkki, Liisa H. (1995). Refugees and Exile: From „Refugee Studies“ to the National Order of Things, Annual Review of Anthropology 24, 495-523.
– Scheel, Stephan (2019). Autonomy of Migration? Appropriating Mobility within Biometric Border Regimes, London: Routledge.
– Scheel, Stephan and Ratfisch, Philipp (2014). Refugee Protection Meets Migration Management: UNHCR as a Global Police of Populations, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 40(6), 924-941.
– Wimmer, Andreas and Glick-Schiller, Nina (2002). Methodological Nationalism and Beyond: Nation-State Building, Migration and the Social Sciences, Global Networks 2(4), 301–334.