#6 – The Scholar-Activist

00:00:00: So, they're filling up these dissension centers.

00:00:03: I do believe that will turn them into concentration labor camps and won't only be for migrants but any part of the population is defined as different or a threat to regime.

00:00:16: so we really have soundly alarm Because what we know, the knowledge that we have about whom our goods really are and how they build societies.

00:00:27: And this has always been part of building society... ...has to be an alternative narrative where we make loud as clear as we unite with other people who are under attack.

00:00:42: What if migration isn't something just happens but is made?

00:00:48: Welcome To Production Site the podcast about the societal negotiation of migration.

00:00:55: We explore how migration is produced through policies, institutions and categories And we ask what role does Migration Research itself play in this process?

00:01:10: Welcome to this episode on our Podcast Production site!

00:01:14: Today we want to talk about migration research in current times where we witness rising authoritarianism anti-migrant politics and an increasing extreme right in many parts of the world.

00:01:25: And we want to discuss what this means for us as migration scholars.

00:01:29: My name is Christine Lang, I'm Professor of Social Geography & Reflexive Migration Research at Osnabrog University... ...and i am hosting this episode together with my dear colleague Janine Dahinden, professor of Transnational Studies At The University Of Neuchâtel.

00:01:44: We are joined today by Nina Glick schiller one of the World's leading voices in migration research.

00:01:49: She's Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and was the Director of the Cosmopolitan Cultures Institute at The University Of Manchester.

00:01:58: Her work, for example on the concept of Methodological Nationalism or Transnationalism has left a lasting mark in her field.

00:02:06: She is currently speaking out loudly against rising authoritarianism and the curbing of migrants' rights.

00:02:12: For example she co-author of A Manifesto entitled The End of Migration in which she calls on migration scholars not merely to observe the erosion of migrants' rights, but to actively counter these developments.

00:02:25: She's also among the founders of a network that seeks to unite migration scholars from around the world who speak out against dehumanization of migrants and refugees... ...and work towards more humane and just-world.

00:02:41: So Rina many thanks for joining us today with this conversation!

00:02:47: And our idea for this podcast is really to focus on your recent publication of the manifesto with a title, The End Of Migration.

00:03:06: We read your manifesto of course as many and we'd like to ask you first, it has this provocative title The End Of Migration As We Know It.

00:03:15: Maybe You Can Briefly Elaborate A Bit On What You Mean By This?

00:03:19: First I Like To Say its Not Just My Manifest So Its Was A Joint Production And i Do Think That Scholarship Is Always Collective But We Don't Always Give It Credit Especially When coming from different places and different positionalities when we come together, and see a global trend.

00:03:40: It's a form of scientific verification in a

00:03:43: way.".

00:03:44: So Michael Bass had been working in Singapore And he worked with construction workers and migrant workers In the Gulf States who were building sports arenas.

00:03:57: I have been working at the

00:03:59: U.S.,

00:04:00: Germany & UK And we came together at the Max Planck Institute of Social Anthropology in Halle, and we began to see that we were seeing a similar trend.

00:04:13: Those conversations is where this manifesto came from.

00:04:17: when we begin to write it which was in twenty-twenty two.

00:04:22: It Was Provocative Looking At A Trend Where The Kind Of Migration That Migrations Scholars Had Been Studying Where People lived trans-nationally, built lives in more than one place.

00:04:35: Built communities and were the one place was coming to an end because of the regulation—the migration regime —the government regulation of migration and the corporate entrance into surveillance was changing and growing And this would stop the way we were seeing migrants live their lives in dramatic and important ways world disruptive ways.

00:05:01: So that's why we call it a manifesto, sort of wake-up call.

00:05:06: Migrants are now become the enemy and invaders... ...and migration is ending and migration scholars really must speak

00:05:15: out.".

00:05:16: Thank you for

00:05:17: this

00:05:18: short elaboration!

00:05:21: I would like to push more towards this question but has fundamentally changed.

00:05:29: First, in this manifesto you describe a kind of standard western model of migration regime which you say have importantly shaped migration scholarship.

00:05:39: Migration settlement citizenship.

00:05:42: You put it like the model where also migration research worked upon But I'm not sure that was really the model.

00:05:52: Isn't this rather a US position?

00:05:55: Like we had in Europe, We didn´t have this migration settlement citizenship regime often.

00:06:01: I mean you Solis doesn´t exist in Europe!

00:06:04: We had the so called guest worker regime which has been very precarious In many countries like Germany or Switzerland.

00:06:13: i think we fully agree with You that situation is really currently changed.

00:06:18: but what exactly was it?

00:06:21: I think we're adding a new historical conjuncture, combination of political economic cultural religious social forces that are recombining to legitimate an authoritarian capitalism and illiberal kind of governance.

00:06:39: And migration is the cutting edge.

00:06:50: paradigms that have contrasted the US to Europe.

00:06:55: I don't agree with you that Europe was that different, i think in both places people always migrated and from time of if we start world war two or post-war moment.

00:07:11: Europe is rebuilt by migrants.

00:07:14: Most of them stayed, but the fact that they were migrants was forgotten.

00:07:17: So the difference is what's remembered and forgotten in the dominant narrative not The history of migration.

00:07:25: people came to Europe.

00:07:26: there were displaced People from Eastern Europe.

00:07:30: There were refugees who fled though?

00:07:34: They power of this of the Soviet Union.

00:07:37: There were labor migrants from the southern Europe who moved north And they were colonial migrants from both the Caribbean and South Asia.

00:07:49: They all came, most of them actually stayed enough to make it a significant part of their population.

00:07:56: The percentages are just about the same – three or four percent of that whole population!

00:08:03: But

00:08:03: U.S.,

00:08:03: as seen in the nation of immigrants in Germany is not.

00:08:07: That's part of the way in which all the refugees, they're people who fled.

00:08:13: The so-called ethnic Germans fled and then were assimilated actually!

00:08:20: So what you've got is different narratives not different processes.

00:08:24: but whether you had a narrative of assimilation or a narrative disappearance What's changing?

00:08:32: as people are now Not able to move and settle That doesn't mean labor migration will change.

00:08:41: I think there will be labor migration, again part-time rightless migration that drives as part of driving down the labor standards and industrial regulation across the board where at a conjunctural transformation... At the moment of conjunctual transformation The old order changes And the new is not yet born And agency matters a lot, including our agency as migration scholars.

00:09:13: That's what is in the manifest and that's what I'm arguing.

00:09:17: Dispossession which has always gone on as part of capitalism takes different shapes at different modes of realization in different times.

00:09:30: The mode of realization that billionaires have are pushing toward is this right less anti-democratic governance.

00:09:43: But I think the last point, it's very important because this authoritarian moment, these anti-Democratic moments... It's a rule of law which isn't respected anymore

00:09:55: exactly and its not like things haven't happened before.

00:09:59: we're sitting here in Germany taking over of a democracy and the institution of a fascist regime, it certainly happened in the past.

00:10:11: It happened at a time—a different conjuncture in terms where the rest of Europe was —and the

00:10:17: U.S.,

00:10:18: including its manufacturing base.

00:10:21: And...it happened in a moment of crisis…a moment of crises and capitalism, depression all through.

00:10:29: the West.

00:10:33: Germany chose one path and the rest of the world chose another path, not particularly just as friendly but more formally democratic.

00:10:44: It's helpful to see what the different conjunctions are.

00:10:47: so there was conjunction coming off World War II where Europe and North America and part of the Americas embraced a Democratic face and in competition with the Soviet Union.

00:11:05: In that competition, there was a continuing granting of rights—a form of social democracy even in the United States but more thoroughly in Europe where workers' rights were respected to some degree.

00:11:22: it was not perfect I don't want to be nostalgic about it.

00:11:30: rights, human rights all around the world even while there was extreme segregation in the

00:11:35: U.S.,

00:11:35: extreme racial segregation.

00:11:39: so there wasn't a big gap between the narrative and its implementation.

00:11:45: but they were these policies at that Cold War moment.

00:11:51: it was built on industrial capitalism at the end of the sixties, spurred by national liberation and colonialism.

00:12:05: At that moment a new conjuncture starts to develop—a neoliberal one—the ones where most people who are at this university have lived through.

00:12:22: This was a conjunction with different cultural persona of individuality, of selfies.

00:12:29: Of individual rights...of individual freedoms.

00:12:34: Individual right to consume and a different kind of capitalism.

00:12:39: that was more and more privatizations And all the social institutions that were built during the post-World War II Social Democratic moment Were taken apart.

00:12:53: So there was more in some places than others.

00:12:58: More slowly, and Germany even fact that other places.

00:13:02: but the guarantee of secure labor has been taken away as has the industrial base, which was globalized.

00:13:11: And as that's happened more—as I said at a different pace because of thing about a conjunctural analysis it is not a period.

00:13:18: It isn't fixed or uniform and varies across time.

00:13:28: Neo-liberalism in China was different than neo-liberalism.

00:13:32: In Germany, it's different then neo-liberalism and North America.

00:13:36: but everywhere that happened is some form with this cultural dialogue of the individual mobility and the actual fact a movement of wealth to the top growth of precarity for more and more population.

00:13:56: Now that conjecture is coming to an end.

00:13:59: There was such a gap now in wealth between this billionaire class, there's one percent which owns most of the wealth and the rest are people who don't?

00:14:10: That the billionaire classes starting... ...to realize that way on which powers configured China or Russia already can happen around the world.

00:14:22: basically they become government.

00:14:24: As I said, it hasn't been done yet.

00:14:26: But there's a direction for them to directly merge corporations and governance finance of governance AI in governance so that they control more directly.

00:14:38: And That means taking away the kind rights developed during social democracy The alteration and restructuring culture Of social institutions and political institutions as well, the economy.

00:14:55: And here we are!

00:14:56: Thank you so much for this because it's not in a manifesto that I think is very important to make your talk about these.

00:15:05: Maybe also add perspective on rights?

00:15:09: You mentioned social right but what can be observed has changed in human rights regime which has been established in a certain historical moment and has had its historical conjuncture, but now related to this rise of nationalist populist right-wing policies that the whole idea... There is something like an international human rights regime seems to erode.

00:15:35: I wonder how you connect these also because in your manifesto it's very clear we have to get away from traditional categorizations in migration research, labor migrants refugees.

00:15:48: But we have to see how there's very similar situations that they face and whether this right perspective is actually.

00:15:55: what connects these situations?

00:15:57: That we have an erosion of the social rights that has been established at a certain times but also an erosion off human rights that go beyond social rights of workers the displaced person, refugee.

00:16:12: The understanding that there's something like asylum.

00:16:16: so whether you see a connection on this rights perspective?

00:16:20: Yes I've been tracing it and writing this paper which tries to put all of these together.

00:16:25: And human right is very interesting because after World War II And with building on the four freedoms that FDR Franklin Delano Roosevelt had put out as a goal in terms of justification for World War II to rally public support, and it built on the freedom of speech and the freedom belief.

00:17:00: It gets taken into declaration of human rights.

00:17:04: but at the beginning right after WWII they really were only talking about Europe.

00:17:11: They only applied refugee rights to people fleeing the Soviet Union and to displaced people, this was a rights regime that applied to

00:17:21: Europe.".

00:17:22: And it's exactly as The Conjuncture changes to neoliberalism That we get the right regime applied globally and the rights of asylum really get institutes, procedures got instituted so people can come from Africa or Latin America and claim asylum elsewhere.

00:17:44: And that's a very interesting connection because at the moment when economy is privatizing public things it also creating this... At same time culture we have creation in international right regime.

00:18:00: why at the moment of taking rights, in fact.

00:18:05: Of people what's called The West or Western Democracy?

00:18:10: Why on that very time do we have this right regime promulgated around the

00:18:16: world?".

00:18:17: I think there is a connection between human rights humanitarian work and security work and the construction of a national security state.

00:18:33: We see this happening dramatically after nine-eleven, so it's process but really comes from very idea that you have to have whole structure or UN structure government structure decide who is really refugee who's just a labor migrant and therefore doesn't have a right to come into the free world anymore, because they're just a labour-migrant.

00:19:04: This categorization which migration scholars contributed to legitimated part got funded to do created whole fields journals about refugee studies here transnational migration there.

00:19:21: This kind of distinctions becomes the basis then for developing an increasing rejection Of asylum seekers on a basis that they're not really asylum seekers and Then a criminalization of people who migrate.

00:19:37: so we can see the progression.

00:19:39: And how it happens starts to develop during the neoliberal conjuncture as People's actual social rights in a sense or social good gets taken away, and public programs are defunded.

00:19:55: And money is moved into integration programs for

00:20:00: refugees.".

00:20:02: That's why the Public in so many places got so angry because their programs...they're decent schools they're decent hospitals.

00:20:13: there affordable housing gets taken away just as the money is put into supporting asylum seekers.

00:20:22: There's another aspect which I found quite interesting that this when it comes also to social science, there was a long tradition of these critical humanitarian studies Right?

00:20:35: I mean, like, this whole humanitarianism is actually.

00:20:42: it's a moral economy based on compassion and taking away rights.

00:20:47: So these would basically nicely fit with what you have been saying.

00:20:51: This will be the second juncture we've been talking about but now as scholars again We are here because there is no money anymore for humanitarian aid.

00:21:02: So we have been critically analyzing something which was a critical movement or process, but what are we doing now?

00:21:10: We can't even criticize this any more because all I mean most countries on the planet... Now they throw their money to other countries that wait for humanitarian Aid.

00:21:22: and I'm living next to Geneva.

00:21:25: Geneva is empty!

00:21:26: You know, I mean these international organizations in.

00:21:29: Geneva is a humanitarian organization.

00:21:30: They don't have money anymore.

00:21:32: so again it's we criticize.

00:21:35: as scholars We clearly saw the.

00:21:37: we made this critical analysis but what are we doing now?

00:21:41: That's why i say we have to be activists!

00:21:44: We always should've been activists...we wouldn't of ended up in this position.

00:21:48: maybe Yes In The United States when Trump came into power the second time he issued a list of words that you could no longer say.

00:21:59: One of them is immigration, The United States which has been a country built on emigration.

00:22:05: suddenly we can't talk about migration.

00:22:08: We can't talked about racial injustice.

00:22:12: We cannot talk about women as another word.

00:22:15: That's on our lists.

00:22:17: what?

00:22:17: We've got now in fact this migration industries detaining and deporting migrants.

00:22:25: So part of the cutting edge is an attack on migrants, The economic part that it's very profitable.

00:22:34: Billionaires profit from criminalizing migrants and borders And these detention centers.

00:22:43: there are forty five billion dollars being put into detention center in US and there's already about seventy thousand people in detention centers.

00:22:57: With the justification that they're rounding up criminals when most of the people, that seventy percent have absolutely no record And if others do it is a traffic violation like a headlight.

00:23:09: These are not big criminals.

00:23:11: So They're filling out these detention centers I believe will turn them into concentration labor camps for migrants, but for any part of the population that's defined as different or a threat to the regime.

00:23:28: So we really have to sound the alarm and we as migration scholars because what we know-the knowledge we have about who migrants really are make loud and clear as we unite with other people who are under attack.

00:24:06: I

00:24:18: mean, we were part of creating this narrative that legitimates these attacks.

00:24:25: I do think so.

00:24:26: I don't think most people meant to do that.

00:24:29: I've met migration scholars from all over the world who are mostly a very caring sort—humanitarians in fact!

00:24:38: But...we did make migrants into others.

00:24:44: We really legitimated that they needed to be integrated in some way.

00:24:50: And this is a form of methodological nationalism, the major dividing line of identity and interests and culture between migrants or non-migrants.

00:25:03: when people have multiple identities People identify in terms of age gender region profession, tastes in music, tastes and food that don't have anything to do with the boundaries of a nation state.

00:25:23: And so...and that's why when migrants show up someplace they start to become social fabric their parents, their workers They relate what is going on and build social ties.

00:25:36: And that's really coming out now in the United States.

00:25:40: because when they start rounding up people, then the people who were saying oh yes get rid of the criminal gangs you know sure take them away.

00:25:49: Start to say wait a minute.

00:25:51: those are my neighbors My friends The children and my child class co-workers Our local political representatives our local university faculty doctors.

00:26:06: And suddenly they begin to see, first of all we see two things right at this moment.

00:26:11: How migrants have become part of the society.

00:26:15: and it's not just in

00:26:16: U.S.,

00:26:16: you go into any German city You see small businesses, health care professionals, people from different backgrounds working together Parts as a workforce has a migrant background.

00:26:34: That's what you see, even in the East.

00:26:37: And those small businesses very often revitalize this city become hold down property became part of keeping any kind of commerce in a small City or a small town.

00:26:51: they're vital.

00:26:52: so when you start rounding them up You really destroy the local economy.

00:26:57: that's What happened in Minneapolis?

00:26:59: They destroyed their local economy When they started rounding out migrants.

00:27:03: So Our research didn't make that clear.

00:27:07: Our research by just looking at the most newly arrived in the migrants wasn't processual, didn't have a sense of time and change.

00:27:16: We were paid to look at migrants as social problems.

00:27:19: so we treated them with a social problem rather than a social solution which is what they are.

00:27:25: To many small cities and towns And two countries need more population.

00:27:31: The major problem, real one of the contradictions is that in U.S and Canada there's a population problems.

00:27:41: There are not enough people who aren't reproducing.

00:27:45: I'm saying all this because only when we cut through those categories can see how to organize.

00:27:52: How do you really build unity?

00:27:56: For migration scholars, it means stop talking just to migration scholars.

00:28:01: talk to everybody else Your neighbors the people you know.

00:28:06: whoever however.

00:28:08: You relate within your city or town.

00:28:12: That's who you should be talking to your friends.

00:28:15: because only when we have this larger conversation about what's happening in the world, and the nature of the conjecture.

00:28:23: And how an attack on Margaret is at a tack on all of us... All of us!

00:28:28: The fabric of our society and the right to have rights.

00:28:34: can we start to build this movement?

00:28:37: It's urgent because the crisis is

00:28:40: now.".

00:28:41: Well I think we all agree with your analysis but i think there are situations even more complicated because this V of migration scholar you're talking about has been put into question since fifteen years at least.

00:28:56: I mean there are so many social scientists, migration scholars who criticize among other me but also others exactly these kind of categorization that within research we reproducing a migrant-sized worldview and they have been border studies, they've been activists doing participatory research.

00:29:18: And what you basically say we need to do?

00:29:20: I feel like it became a movement much larger the last ten years than was ever before such that... What i would call mainstream migration research is not really mainstream anymore nowadays.

00:29:33: You can observe this for instance in IMISCOE.

00:29:36: At this huge conference, we changed the conversations within the IMISCOE changed these last ten or fifteen years.

00:29:43: But still in this situation that you described so well in this manifesto it is a critical juncture and yes... We can't talk to others but they don't listen us!

00:29:54: The moment now different I mean there have been migrants rights demonstrations before.

00:30:01: Now everyone's on streets together Millions.

00:30:05: It's not enough, but it is an indication of the possible.

00:30:10: The right soul at that moment sold the anger and people really continued the facade of liberal democracy and said well just vote in everything will be fine without speaking to this growth or billionaire class.

00:30:29: So, and migration scholars whatever you say we didn't speak to these larger class issues.

00:30:35: We did not speak.

00:30:36: the nature of capitalism Now it's in this streets I mean.

00:30:41: And there is mass movement on anger right now.

00:30:45: There are possibility.

00:30:46: build a mass movements To builds more just society.

00:30:52: I won't even say out left A movement.

00:30:54: understand the rage that built Right.

00:30:59: We need to seize this moment now is what I'm saying.

00:31:04: On the other hand, does it need a Trump?

00:31:07: And some years of Trump until we get there?

00:31:10: because if look at developments in European countries and Germany but also Switzerland... ...we are not yet at these states that were in US.

00:31:19: But we don't see thousands people on street demonstrating for migrant rights or against somethings going on.

00:31:26: My impression rather It's still, at least from the German perspective.

00:31:30: At the moment it works quite well to scapegoat certain people or to say eighty percent of Syrians should go back to Syria now that there is a new regime going there and seems not much rise against that.

00:31:44: so we see the AfD vote increasing.

00:31:47: So do need get up.

00:31:49: for example in Germany

00:31:52: It's about to happen.

00:31:53: National

00:31:54: elections?

00:31:56: We just need the more preparation, the better.

00:31:59: if they're saying eighty percent of people from Syria can go back to Syria and start rounding them up what are we going do?

00:32:08: these will be neighbors businesses community members.

00:32:14: These children have become Part of Germany.

00:32:19: there, you know they have not been just sitting their collecting benefits.

00:32:23: Although they say this They've actually Been working in the worst jobs.

00:32:30: when they round them up it sends ripples through The economy and we we have to learn.

00:32:35: that's why?

00:32:36: We had migration scholars network Had a program learned from Minneapolis.

00:32:42: This is a global program And we had five scholar activists from Minneapolis, who we didn't name because they're under direct threat and they have migrant background.

00:32:56: And they described how people are mobilizing basically forming small groups, signal groups to protect their neighbors block by block.

00:33:10: So, because they start to see people just disappearing and this is what it means.

00:33:17: To say that the Syrians can go home And this was-what It Means when The EU Just Said That They Can Deport People Externalize Deportation And Create Concentration Camps In Eastern Africa?

00:33:32: And People Have To Decide Whether They Want Their Neighbors A Local Businessmen in a Local Vietnamese Restaurant or whatever, suddenly who might well have an undocumented person chopping vegetables?

00:33:47: whether they want to see that business close and their local restaurant take it away.

00:33:52: As I said conjunctures don't happen in the same place-same way at a time but they do are interconnected.

00:34:01: and its clearly people been learning from Trump.

00:34:06: the EU has been learning from Trump, and they don't just passively learn.

00:34:11: Steve Bannon come and organize this people.

00:34:14: Steve Bannon goes to Latin America and organizes these... They're developing a global movement.

00:34:19: we have too!

00:34:20: And migration scholars have a role to play.

00:34:25: Maybe that last part of its conversation could be turn around your this network.

00:34:32: you created, some of these migration scholars global solidarity and resistance networks.

00:34:38: So what does the network do?

00:34:41: What did you do concretely And are somehow connected to other initiatives in this field?

00:34:47: Yes I don't want to overblow it.

00:34:49: It's just one effort among many.

00:34:51: One problem with migration scholars is we tend Because we get funded within our nation state around national policies, we can be very nation-state oriented.

00:35:03: Even if that's not our own political orientation That tends to be our knowledge base and where we pay attention the most.

00:35:11: So a handful of us, initially Bella Feldman Bianco and I She is a migration scholar in Brazil And an old friend and even older than I am.

00:35:26: We kept saying to each other, somebody has to do

00:35:29: something."

00:35:30: And we finally last spring said well nobody's doing anything so here it'll have to be us!

00:35:44: wrote a manifesto.

00:35:46: We wrote this statement saying now is the time to organize and speak globally because we're facing global situation, so that migration scholars will continue to see migration as social good.

00:36:06: and we had some prominent migration scholars from different parts of the world sign it as initiators.

00:36:21: Now, we have four hundred fifty or more people who've said they want to be active members... ...of this network that just signed something.

00:36:31: I'm sure all of us are signing things all the time but actually participate in actions.

00:36:36: And then the question was what kind of actions can we take?

00:36:41: decided to learn from the teachings of the nineteen sixties, but also make them teach outs because those were very university oriented and we felt that they needed to speak out and speak publicly.

00:36:54: And find public forums and unite with other people.

00:36:58: We want talk eachother Because one thing happens is when people look at news.

00:37:06: well, I don't really like it but everybody else seems to be going along just as they say.

00:37:11: Well all these people want to deport the Syrians...I don't think that actually do But there hasn't been a way of Actually There's only right mobilizing and they haven't had chance.

00:37:26: sit with other People saying Do you think thats Right?

00:37:28: Not Really!

00:37:29: I Don't Think Thats Right either.

00:37:30: That is The Kind Of Thing We Wanted To Do.

00:37:33: We have this website that links together various migration initiatives and publishes them, promotes them.

00:37:41: There's a detention center group documents the number of detention centers all over the world.

00:37:45: there is all kinds activity.

00:37:48: I had another question on this network because when you describe these whole conjunctures changes You made very strong point.

00:37:57: they are broader societal developments where the way that migration and migrants are dealt with is just part of, but actually all populations or people affected by this.

00:38:09: And you also described we need a larger conversation saying an attack on migrants because it concerns so many fundamentals about how to understand and want society

00:38:21: working

00:38:23: in this network.

00:38:24: there's ideas for other initiatives Very fundamental changes on, for example questions of labor and work.

00:38:34: How this is organized or how cities are structured our question of internal displacements homelessness all housing markets whatever.

00:38:42: we can think about so many aspects where these developments play out.

00:38:46: So it's just network somehow also connected to other initiatives?

00:38:49: Or do you start from the migration lens?

00:38:52: well

00:38:53: We've taken on the task of helping organize all these migration scholars that have developed all over the world.

00:38:59: When I started studying migrations, there weren't any migration scholars basically definitely not an anthropology and really they did demography if they were in sociology and neoliberalism produced migration studies, migration journals, migration institutes doctorates in migration.

00:39:23: So we thought, We would mobilize those.

00:39:27: but certainly our members are also active and many other ways.

00:39:31: I have to point out that Elyse said Trisha the ones who've been doing the website And everyone at this moment is particularly In The US.

00:39:40: it's very overstressed because bad things happen every day.

00:39:45: sometimes It feels like Every minute.

00:39:48: Thank you so much!

00:39:49: That was really interesting And thanks for giving us the time to reflect with us on these issues.

00:39:58: Actually, I'm really pleased to hear an optimistic voice because you are a kind of an optimistic and they're rare currently.

00:40:07: You all feel a bit overwhelmed and helpless.

00:40:10: that's also when this kind of networks come into play.

00:40:16: They can unite people and bring us together.

00:40:18: So, so many thanks for this as

00:40:20: well.

00:40:21: Can I just say?

00:40:22: It's the people of Minneapolis and small towns that are making me optimistic because when you see... When they see danger and they see armed mass men instead of running away they run toward it to protect their neighbors with a whistle.

00:40:42: And you know its not just happening there It's happening in small towns.

00:40:45: When small towns say, get together and we don't want a concentration camp in our city no way!

00:40:52: Small Republican towns...in the South are doing this then you see that it is possible but can sit back and be pessimistic.

00:41:05: Jeanine We just heard Nina call upon us as migration scholars or citizens to not simply sit back and give into pessimism, but do act and actively counter current trends of eroding migrants in human rights.

00:41:18: So let's take this as a starting point to reflect on our role as migration researchers in these current times and how we can and should speak up what we cannot take away from our conversation with Nina And I would suggest actually taking out three points related.

00:41:39: go a bit further on these.

00:41:41: One point is the positionality of research and the impossibility of doing unpositioned research, And second one this idea.

00:41:51: what actually activism?

00:41:52: speaking out loud how we can understand it then do that?

00:41:57: The third would be responsibility for migration scholars in usage categories.

00:42:02: so what you think?

00:42:03: Oh, that's great.

00:42:04: Thanks a lot for suggesting these three points and I really think in Nina's talk or the podcast we can go back to what she said by discussing this three point.

00:42:18: would you like start introducing first point?

00:42:22: Yes!

00:42:23: So yeah question of positionality.

00:42:25: so course will work alot on our reflexive approaches.

00:42:29: migration research can agree that there is nothing like a neutral, objective migration research.

00:42:36: That it's not political somehow or not situated in social and political environments and debates.

00:42:41: so actually also being affirmative for simply uncritical regarding the political context

00:42:50: Well, I mean...I think it's always very bizarre isn't that if you're not making visible your position or the perspective.

00:42:57: The position you are talking from?

00:43:00: It is kind of interpreted as being a neutral position and i think this really bizarre.

00:43:06: so every time to clearly make transparent for where we were talking You are considered to be an objective And I think there's a twist here, which doesn't work because... ...I mean i'm also coming from gender studies and feminist scholars.

00:43:22: since a long time actually they thought about this issue.

00:43:26: And Harding for instance she argues that objectivity gets even stronger when you really make transparent from which position your talking.. ..and I think she has a point in this!

00:43:38: That is very important.

00:43:40: In my eyes, we need to be careful with terms like activist because I think activists is not really able to grasp all the positions when they speak out as migration scholars.

00:43:58: Yeah definitely so.

00:44:00: i also think the term activism was very negatively connotated and that adds Start from the idea of from our understanding that there is nothing like an unpositioned research.

00:44:13: so Being like labeling those who make this transparent as activist and does not being actually objective That's it.

00:44:20: Actually, I see just said its just.

00:44:22: It's the opposite.

00:44:23: So kind of better research?

00:44:25: I don't know how to call it.

00:44:27: absolutely agree with you that the term activism doesn't grasp all The activities that are related to this or that we can put under the idea Of speaking out loud.

00:44:35: so which already starts with teaching.

00:44:38: So I think one of my most important everyday way of speaking out is teaching all the bachelor

00:44:44: students,

00:44:44: which do not study migration research

00:44:47: but other topics.

00:44:48: But kind of creating a political understanding of the world and appoint them to some developments... ...and doing this in the role as teacher… …and relating it with analytical concepts that aim at making them understand better social realities.. ..which always involves critical viewpoint!

00:45:08: So, and I you're also very much involved in other kinds of activities which are not obviously labeled as activism but take up this role of speaking out loud.

00:45:21: that Nina, she used this term to speak out loud.

00:45:25: And I think actually using these terms we can kind of disentangle everything we do and every role in different roles as migration scholars.

00:45:38: you talked about one teacher When I give interviews to in media, i'm an expert which is a different role.

00:45:56: that I'm an activist when i talk to journalists but this is also a way of speaking out.

00:46:04: We are social scientists, we have critically analyzed societies and that's one of the fundamental issues for social science as well as migration scholars.

00:46:16: This comes with different audiences.

00:46:20: We speak out loud differently towards different audiences.

00:46:23: It is important to have this plurality of approaches and

00:46:25: voices,

00:46:34: Based research based knowledge to further audiences and connect this to current social and political developments.

00:46:41: Yeah, I fully agree with these.

00:46:43: and because we often hear that people are not listening to us And i think maybe this is right?

00:46:48: Maybe it's not right but its correct or not correct But what does?

00:46:53: Definitely sure.

00:46:54: I think what is really important, as you say to speak out different forms of audiences and having different roles And it's not about making a hierarchy between these different roles and positions that go together.

00:47:12: So activists are less objective than our migration scholars doing consultancy with politicians, for instance.

00:47:25: I think these are different ways of feeling this role of speaking out?

00:47:31: Yeah but what we can take or personally from our conversation with Nina is to be much more aware about the role and maybe reflect on how we do it in different settings towards a different audience as being self-confident that's part and use these settings to combine our research-based perspectives with critical analysis of current social environments.

00:48:02: And also help others, help audiences better see certain developments that maybe they have not so much reflected upon them.

00:48:10: I think this really helps us speak out loud as a part scholars and teachers, but also citizens in a kind of situation where some fundamentals for liberal democracy become eroded.

00:48:26: I fully agree.

00:48:27: It's even more important than ever to speak out also, contribute to democratic debates and bring in arguments... ...and make it clear that opinions are not the same as argument.

00:48:42: We have a crucial role here at the current times which are highly problematic as Nina addressed very nicely.

00:48:52: And I think it's also important what they started, this collective started with doing a network to be much more connected on this and also exchange with others

00:49:02: about our

00:49:03: different

00:49:04: approaches.

00:49:07: This scholar network that Nina has initiated

00:49:18: is doing,

00:49:18: but also other forms.

00:49:19: So we see this much more as a collective task and exchange on these.

00:49:23: I think thats very important point you said here.

00:49:26: i think the idea of collective solidarity And also of exchange I feel like this in current times, is really necessary.

00:49:37: And again for these we need different audiences and roles etc.

00:49:44: It's also our responsibility as migration scholars clearly.

00:49:52: use our role which is maybe somehow more stable, still more stable than those of other people working in the field and as practitioners who often face kind also currently Germany for example cut down on budgets or civil society associations.

00:50:11: kind of, for example research to address some points and maybe have support in voicing their perspective.

00:50:20: So I think it's also when we think about solidarity and creating connections one thing is among scholars but going beyond that seeing us as all responsibility connecting with other people who might need this support even more.

00:50:38: so currently

00:50:39: I fully agree and that the role of activists, so-called activists to go back this

00:50:45: quite

00:50:46: narrow term is still very important.

00:50:49: So maybe let's move further an important point that also Nina has addressed in a conversation we had with her actually responsibility as migration scholars on how we use categories.

00:51:02: So as Nina has said, all migration scholars have also contributed to make migrants into others.

00:51:07: We are part of this whole process that we're now criticizing.

00:51:10: what do you think?

00:51:12: Yeah, definitely.

00:51:13: And I mean there are a lot of scholars criticising this meanwhile.

00:51:16: and well... ...I think the important thing is we all need categories!

00:51:20: We agree about these.

00:51:21: This is a psychological issue.

00:51:23: You cannot give sense to the world or be in it without categorisation.

00:51:29: but how do you address these migration-related categories in a reflexive way?

00:51:36: Like for instance this distinction between migrants and nonmigrants.

00:51:41: And we need really to address this distinction, deconstruct it and reconstruct.

00:51:47: I think there are a lot of scholars who the last ten or fifteen years came up with many suggestions.

00:51:54: how can deal differently in these categories be by demigrantisation how and when, where and through which technologies people become migranticized in the first place.

00:52:11: And others not.

00:52:12: so I think there is a lot going on here that you should stop doing this.

00:52:18: We shouldn't stop.

00:52:19: it's also process every day research work.

00:52:25: It isn't an easy task to always keep thinking about categories we use especially because have to use some categories in the field when we are doing empirical research.

00:52:37: We cannot come with our abstract theories, of course... ...we need to speak in a language of people that we talk to.

00:52:44: but then this constant reflection or not conflating the categories we meet there and also kind-of used in everyday languages and with the categories of analysis once you look at processes to reflect on this in all stages now of our research process.

00:53:00: I think, as you say it's a process both in own research but then off course an ongoing process and the discussion how we best deal with is what can make with us?

00:53:12: Yeah!

00:53:12: And i thank you for raising important point... Of course when i talk to politicians.. ...I can't talk about migrant-designed people or just simply speak about migrants.

00:53:23: But internally Distance that I know, I say migrants because it's a strategy to connect with people who discuss something.

00:53:33: To bring them at the end of day... ...to think about something i want to think differently maybe or for once.. ..to open up their horizon.

00:53:41: so its not abut using the cat categories, but it's about not reproducing them in order to reproduce very fundamental hegemonic power relations and forms of violence.

00:53:54: I think that is important!

00:53:55: This topic always comes up with students who are really afraid now at times using these categories – they're afraid making mistakes or reproducing hegemonic power relations… And i think its good.

00:54:10: But we still can use it because already have this small moment of distance, analytical distance and used these categories in a strategic way.

00:54:20: In order to make people think about other things... ...in order also to make alliances and solidarities etc.

00:54:29: I'm

00:54:29: not sure if its good be afraid that there is something with language but to be afraid to speak them, say something and also bears the possibility of speaking about something.

00:54:45: So I prefer students who maybe uncritically start just saying what they think.

00:54:50: then we can slowly first talk up with content or language than having students that don't dare to speak out anything because where do you encounter another problem?

00:55:01: This kind of wokeism negative connotation for all it has been doing being aware That this is then also something that brings people apart than together.

00:55:13: Of course, I agree with you but the thing what i wanted to say being afraid of it means they feel oh!

00:55:20: Something's going on here.

00:55:22: so now let's tackle it.

00:55:23: everyone has a right and make mistakes to be able to be reflexive.

00:55:33: I think we basically agree, which is phrased in a bit differently!

00:55:37: Yeah and i can also nicely relate this actually to what we're currently doing in our Collaborative Research Centre production of migration where the idea of reflexivity and reflecting off our categories.

00:55:48: it's very important... And even if we think that we have actually somehow reflected on our objects of study in the categories we use.

00:55:57: We have fellow colleagues who come with maybe different also disciplinary perspective and make us reflect again about how this is still very much situated, a narrow understanding of what you're actually doing here.

00:56:10: so I think that reflexive process needs a lot collaboration to always have others point as to their own biases or blind spots on thinking.

00:56:23: Well, reflexivity is never done.

00:56:25: I would say something which has to be established and re-established and changes... It's a never ending task but it should also not be our only tasks!

00:56:35: Again let us go back this idea of speaking out.

00:56:39: Reflexivity and speaking out shouldn't get into competition.

00:56:44: I think that we have to do it in parallel.

00:56:47: basically

00:56:48: That's true.

00:56:51: final sentence for our podcast too, and I would like to close this in thanking Nina again.

00:56:58: For the opportunity you have this inspiring conversation with her.

00:57:02: it's so impressive to see how she is still so much active and involved In scholarship and in creating these networks in activism And speaking out loud against current rising authoritarian movements and anti-migrant politics.

00:57:19: I think we both wish, that we could be so active after a long career as Nina Glick Schiller

00:57:25: is.".

00:57:27: Thank you for listening to Production Sight the podcast about the societal negotiation of migration.

00:57:34: If this episode made you think subscribe and spread the word.

00:57:39: You can find all credits sources in further links in the show notes and at producingmigration.org.

00:57:46: Production site is produced by the Collaborative Research Centre production of migration, at Osnabrück University funded by The German Research Foundation In collaboration with Podcastfabrik Bielefeld.

00:58:00: New episodes are available wherever you get your podcasts Until next time And until then What's being produced right now?