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The German version of this article was edited by Stephanie Kappacher. It was first published on the Soziopolis-Website soziopolis.de and was later translated into English by Vera Hanewinkel.
Inquiry at the Collaborative Research Centre "Production of Migration" (SFB 1604)
Five questions for the SFB spokesperson Andreas Pott
For many years, the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (IMIS) at Osnabrück University has been conducting interdisciplinary research on numerous issues relating to migration. It has now successfully set up a “Sonderforschungsbereich” (Collaborative Research Centre funded by the German Research Foundation) to research and analyse the "production of migration". What does this mean in concrete terms?
It may come as a surprise given the global social relevance of migration and the omnipresence of migration-related debates, but the new Sonderforschungsbereich (SFB) in Osnabrück is the first to be dedicated to migration, or more precisely: the social negotiation of migration and its consequences. The SFB 1604 will provide new impetus for research into the link between migration and social change.
Unlike in large parts of the academia, but also in politics, the media and other areas of the society, we at the SFB do not assume that it is clear what migration actually is. We do not take for granted migration and migration-related concepts and references – such as "freedom of movement", "country of origin", "integration", "majority society" – as objects of research, but reflect on them and examine their social genesis. Why is the Swedish woman living in Germany not labelled as a migrant, but the children and grandchildren of Turkish immigrants born in Germany are? What is the difference between migration and mobility or between migration and displacement? Who makes the distinction here, how and with what consequences?
The new SFB is dedicated to such fundamental questions. We are investigating how and with what meanings migration is produced. Who is involved, in what way and with what interests? What resources, instruments and practices play a role? How and why is the social perception of and the social dealing with migration changing? And what does this mean for processes of social change?
The SFB understands migration as the product of a social production process that in turn changes societies. Using concrete empirical constellations, we analyse how individual, collective and institutional actors practice, process and charge migration with meaning at different times and in different contexts. We understand this ‘production of migration’ as a dynamic negotiation: In a contested process characterised by power asymmetries, migration is thematised or de-thematised, problematized or de-problematized and linked to other social, political or economic developments. In this way, the production of migration not only enables, stabilises or changes the physical movement of people, but also social orders and bodies of knowledge.
By analysing how migration is socially observed and charged with meaning, the SFB conducts migration research as social research. Of course, science is also involved in this production process and is therefore also a subject of our research. The long-term goal of the SFB is to develop a reflexive theory of the social production of migration that takes appropriate account of this interwovenness of research with its object.
The University of Osnabrück is the ideal location for this endeavour. The SFB can build on many years of preliminary work at the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (IMIS). In addition to a strategic appointment policy, two research training groups in the subject area – a junior research group on the production of knowledge about migration and the university-wide profile line "Migration Societies" – have created the necessary conceptual, structural and personnel foundations. The SFB also benefits from the national and international networks of IMIS, for example the International Migration Research Network IMISCOE.
The basic question is: What theoretical and/or methodological hypotheses are you and your colleagues working with? How can the SFB be located in the existing research landscape on the topic? And to what extent does the planned work stand out from existing research?
We start with two guiding research assumptions. I have already mentioned the first one: migration is the product of a changing social production and negotiation process. The concept of production emphasizes that this process is to a certain extent characterised by labour: migration and the meanings, perspectives or decisions associated with it are 'produced' in different 'production sites' with varying degrees of effort. They are created, shaped, practically implemented, enforced, managed and changed under specific situational, material and organisational conditions in shorter or longer processes. As with the creation and implementation of certain interpretations, reinterpretation sometimes requires persistent work. It requires corresponding activities so that people or collectives are labelled and interpreted as "natives", "minorities", "Muslims", "illegals", "people in need of protection", "those refusing integration" or "immigration societies". Such practices take place, for example, at the micro level of individual or interactive behaviour. However, public discourses and organisations can also ‘do migration’ by establishing certain discursive and normative frameworks.
In the complex and generally open process of negotiating migration, figures, infrastructures and spaces have a structuring function. Our second guiding research assumption is therefore that migration and its meaning(s) are mediated by three central media: figures, infrastructures and spaces. It is specific figures, infrastructures and spaces that enable, influence and at the same time restrict the negotiation of migration-related products and meanings.
Based on this model, the SFB comprises three project areas, each focusing on one of the three media of the production of migration: One project area is dedicated to the figures of migration, i.e. social figures that bundle categorisations of people, groups and modes of action and influence processes of negotiation. The emergence, reproduction and impact of these figures will be analysed – both on an individual and societal level. A second project area examines the infrastructures required for the production of migration, specifically the social, legal-normative, technical and linguistic infrastructures that create or restrict options for mobility and belonging. The third project area looks at the spaces and concepts of space that the production of migration creates and utilises.
We empirically analyse the functions of these three media and their interlinkages in 15 selected projects assigned to the three media of migration production. For example, we analyse how the visa has developed historically as a border infrastructure and mobility filter, how the figuration of school students 'with a migration background' has emerged and becomes effective, or how and with what consequences municipalities and science spatialize migration in cities. Other projects are dedicated to the labour market, religion and healthcare. Research is being conducted in Germany, France, Serbia, Moldova, Senegal, India and Nepal, among others.
A whole range of qualitative and quantitative methods are used in the empirical projects; however, qualitative and exploratory methods dominate in the first funding period. What methodologically connects the projects is the reflexive perspective of the SFB, which is shared across all projects. It is based on the observational dependency of migration-related knowledge production. The SFB therefore adopts the perspective of second-order observation: The projects empirically analyse how different observers perceive, interpret, process and thus produce migration – including science. At the same time, we reflect on the fact that our own research practice is involved in the social negotiation of migration-related meanings – through the chosen research subjects, the project designs, the naming practice, the production of empirical data and the planned communication and transfer formats. With this double reflexivity of the production perspective, we connect to a more recent strand of discussion, so-called reflexive migration research, and at the same time go beyond it: we do not stop at self-reflection, but develop an empirically based theory of the social production of migration, which is based on the innovative idea of analysing the interaction of figures, spaces and infrastructures.
The number of disciplines collaborating in the CRC is considerable and the degree of interdisciplinarity is high. Which disciplines are represented and how is their actual collaboration ensured in practice? How does the so-called reflexivity laboratory work in this context?
The SFB assembles expertise from the fields of geography, history, sociology, psychology, social anthropology, political science, law, education, religion and linguistics. This broad disciplinary spectrum is by no means a matter of course in migration research. However, it is necessary and offers numerous advantages in order to be able to meet the demands of social analysis.
Practical cross-disciplinary collaboration in the SFB is made possible at different levels and through various work formats: in addition to interdisciplinary co-leadership of projects, targeted cross-project and cross-disciplinary analyses of the dynamics, mechanisms, functions and conditions of the production of migration are carried out in the context of the different project areas. In the project area on figures of migration, for example, social psychological, historical and sociological perspectives on the genesis and functioning of discriminatory categorizations and figures are being brought together for the first time.
However, the central instrument of interdisciplinary research in the SFB is the reflexivity laboratory. It consists of five workshops that structure the lab's annual work program. This is where the systematic conceptual work on the production media and their interaction takes place. Great importance is also attached to the development of a post-disciplinary reflexive methodology. Two of these workshops are directly involved in developing the envisaged reflexive production theory. We also expect innovative impetus and additional opportunities for analysis from the more experimentally oriented Open Lab Space and from the transfer-oriented dialogues with civil society actors, cultural institutions, media and politics.
Deportations, refugee flows, skills shortages, integration, social benefits – all these buzzwords are perennial topics in political debates on migration across the entire party spectrum. In terms of public sociology, what role does political counselling play in the future work of the SFB?
Our central task is fundamental research. However, the dual reflexivity of the production perspective – i.e. the observation of other actors and the observation of our own research practice – is not only useful for analysis, but it will also make it possible to expand social capacities for interpretation, problem-solving and intervention. From a more precise understanding of the production of migration and the effectiveness of migration-related distinctions, perspectives for action can be derived and made open to discussion. We will therefore seek dialogue with various social actors and in this way continue what we have been practicing at IMIS for some time. In doing so, we will also talk to political actors, but by no means only with them. Through dialogue and critical monitoring, we want to make the premises, the contingency and, with it, the alternatives of specific modes of observation and action visible – and in doing so, generate new data that will be incorporated into further analyses.
We are preparing ourselves for the fact that we too are being observed. The social debate about migration is currently once again becoming very heated. In contrast to quantum physics, almost everyone is engaging in discussions about migration. Conducting research in such an environment and intervening in public debates in the sense of public sociology is a major challenge. Since we, as social scientists, are involved in producing the meaning(s) of migration, our knowledge production in this way becomes a direct part of the social debates surrounding migration.
From the very beginning, we deliberately run a transfer project in the SFB, which aims at disseminating our findings beyond science. In the framework of this project, in the first funding phase, we are testing new narratives of the migration society with the help of virtual reality tools. In dialogue with society, science and museum practice, we are participating in the development of the House of the Immigration Society (Haus der Einwanderungsgesellschaft), which is to become the central German migration museum.
As climate change progresses, weather extremes are also on the rise, with droughts and floods becoming more frequent and more severe. There have long been voices pointing to the ‘climate-induced displacement’ of the population living in affected areas, mostly in the Global South, and predicting that this could become the ‘main root cause of displacement’ [1] in the future. To what extent does the SFB take this development into account?
The SFB is responding to this by setting up a geographical-sociological project. As far as we know, the accelerated pace of climate change is likely to result in the loss of human areas of use and settlement areas in particular. This is currently forcing the negotiation of complex adaptation strategies and absorption programs. Against this background, the project analyses ‘climate mobility’ as a recent production with an open outcome. We ask: How does the production of migration, which is being driven by various parties – island states, NGOs, UN institutions, researchers and others – and might appear unavoidable in light of climate science forecasts, take place?
In view of the threat of a ‘Great Migration’ [2], the production methods of migration that have been utilized to date appear to be challenged, even overwhelmed: It is not yet foreseeable whether there will be a recognized and enforced form of migration known as ‘climate migration’. The political, legal and administrative negotiations are only just beginning and are still undecided. Legal precedents such as the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights in April 2024 which, for the first time, recognized protection against climate change as a human right provide important material in this respect.
In its openness, climate mobility is a revealing case for research into the production of migration. It is not yet foreseeable whether and in what form climate mobility will be recognized, how it ties in with or transforms established forms of migration or – in the theoretical language of the SFB – established formations and couplings of the migration media space/figure/infrastructure. We might observe the failure of a specific form of production, the insurmountably of structural contradictions or practical discrepancies. The struggle for ‘socialization’ of climate mobility is highly interesting because it includes migration research itself.
[1] UNO-Flüchtlingshilfe 2024, in: https://www.uno-fluechtlingshilfe.de/hilfe-weltweit/themen/fluchtursachen/klimawandel, 14.05.2024.
[2] Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Die Große Wanderung. Dreiunddreißig Markierungen. Mit einer Fußnote „Über einige Besonderheiten bei der Menschenjagd“, Frankfurt am Main 1992.
