SEI-SCMR seminar 'Migration Studies and Methodological Amnesia'.

Wednesday 2nd of October 2024, 3pm-5pm, Freeman, Moot Room.

Ipek Demir, Professor of Diaspora Studies, University of Leeds

Migration studies has rightly challenged methodological nationalism (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002), but less so what I have called ‘methodological amnesia’ (Demir 2024). Dominant understandings of migration tend to ignore the proper wider context of many migrations we see today. The decolonial/race turn in migration and diaspora studies has begun to challenge this. My talk will examine this conceptually, positing methodological nationalism vis a vis methodological amnesia, but also empirically by taking diasporas from the Middle East as a case study. I will unpack the spatial and temporal boundaries and consequences of methodological amnesia, including via ‘coloniality of migration’.