Website: http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/migration/newsevents/e_methods.html

Organised by FASS Migration Cluster, National University of Singapore

Contemporary scholarship on the processes, institutions, practices and experiences of international migration draws on a wide range of research methodologies, reflecting the multi-disciplinary character of the field, the multiple sites and subjects of migration, and the varied concepts and theories that underpin this area of study. Indeed, while the core of a more traditional study of migration may be centered on policy-relevant quantitative analysis of international population flows, many scholars now also incorporate a diverse range of qualitative techniques, while others also seek to work through the often overlapping zones of quantitative and qualitative approaches through mixed methodologies.

Academic debates about international migration have been enlivened by increasingly sophisticated understandings of population movement and circulation; migrant stories and experiences have been captured through in-depth and narrative interviews; the workings of institutions and civil society groups are understood through detailed ethnographies; and notions of home, community and diaspora elicited through methods that incorporate the visual and the material. Moreover, the conceptual palimpsest of migration scholarship would be noticeably weaker without these methodologies: understandings of ‘transnationalism’, ‘diaspora’, ‘(im)mobility’, ‘return migration’, ‘integration’, and ‘assimilation’ have all been enhanced or interrogated anew through findings from a diverse range of methodological approaches. In spite of all this methodological development, innovation and cross-fertilisation, however, there is very little discussion within the field of migration studies about the relative value of different research methods, the challenges of designing, executing or analyzing different methodological approaches, or much reflection on the ethical and conceptual implications of these choices, as reflected in the limited coverage of such issues in recent publications on migration research.

In this context this conference seeks to address a significant gap in the development of a more integrated approach to the study of migration. We aim to bring together scholars from a range of disciplines working on migration issues to discuss the role of methodology in the making of migration research, the ethical and practical challenges of different methodological stances, and the always fraught relationship between research practice, analysis and conceptualization.

We welcome papers that reflect on the disciplinary influences on migration methodologies, interrogate the choices that are made in different research projects, and to challenge existing understandings of what is or should be the orthodox approaches to migration. The emphasis of the conference will be on migratory flows into and out of the Asia region, broadly defined, and will incorporate a wide range of methodological positions within the following panels:

Quantitative methods in measuring and categorizing contemporary migration research
Examinations of migrants’ everyday experiences
Methodologies focusing on migrant/mobile children
Positionality and the voices of researcher and researched
Ethical issues faced by migration researchers
Internet, media and textual research on migration
Global and multi-sited ethnographies
Innovative, emergent and experimental methodologies
It is anticipated that papers presented at the conference will contribute to at least one special issue focusing on migration and methodologies in an internationally peer-reviewed journal, and thus we would like to request that prior to the conference, the submitted paper should not have been submitted for consideration for publication elsewhere.

SUBMISSION DETAILS

Paper proposals should include a title and a 500-word abstract, as well as a short biography to be submitted on the attached form by 15 January 2010.

Download form here

Please submit and address all applications and enquiries to Ms Sharon Wok (fasswe@nus.edu.sg). Successful applicants will be notified before the end of January 2010 and will be required to send in a completed paper (5000-6000 words) by 28 February 2010.

CONTACT DETAILS

Organizers:
A/P Shirlena Huang
Dr Mika Toyota
Dr Choo Hyekyung
Dr Francis Collins
Dr Pattana Kitiarsa

Secretariat:
Sharon Wok fasswe@nus.edu.sg