Geography, Environment & Migration
Excellence in Scholarship and Learning
Excellence in Scholarship and Learning
The Ethics of Migration Research Methodology
Dealing with Vulnerable Immigrants
Ilse van Liempt is a Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sussex. She completed her PhD in 2007 at the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies (IMES) in Amsterdam and has extensive experience in conducting qualitative research.
Veronika Bilger is a Researcher at the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD). She has conducted various projects involving migrants in precarious situations.
The recent increased attention given to qualitative research, and
especially research involving vulnerable persons, has not yet been
adequately translated into corresponding research on the methodological
and ethical challenges researchers face. The relative scarcity of
such scholarship reflects the dilemma of the multidisciplinary nature
of the study of migration.
The aim of this book is to present
the difficulties that researchers working with migrants in precarious
situations have to contend with, and to contribute to the development
of methodological and ethical discussions relevant to the topic
of migration as an interdisciplinary field of research. The contributors
to the volume do this through a threefold approach: Discussion of
methods and ethics in institutional settings; a rethinking of basic
research methods; and defining the role of the researcher.
Earlier research – focusing on
document analysis (police files and court cases), expert interviews
and narrative interviews with smuggled migrants – indicated that
there is a strong need for a deepened debate on methodology when
researching human smuggling, trafficking and other forms of irregularity.
Subsequent workshops (in Geneva and Toronto) on the topic of interviewing
vulnerable migrants confirmed the necessity of finding solutions
for the methodological challenges encountered. This book is essential
reading for all persons and organizations dealing with vulnerable
migrants
| Hardback ISBN: | 978-1-84519-331-7 |
| Hardback Price: | £47.50 / $74.95 |
| Release Date: | September 2009 |
| Page Extent / Format: | 224 pp. / 229 x 152 mm |
| Illustrated: | No |
Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction
Veronika Bilger and Ilse van Liempt
Part One Methods and Ethics in Institutional Settings
1 Methodological issues for the study of
migrant incarceration in an era of discretion in law in the
southern USA
Robert F. Barsky
2 Multi-perspective research on foreigners in prisons
in Switzerland.
Christin Achermann
Part Two Rethinking Basic Research Methods
3 Different methods to research irregular
migration
Richard Staring
4 Challenges and strategies in empirical
fieldwork with asylum seekers and migrant sex workers
Janine Dahinden and Denise Efionayi-Mäder
5 Methodological and ethical dilemmas in
research among smuggled migrants
Veronika Bilger and Ilse van Liempt
Part Three The Role of the Researcher
6 The ‘insider’ position: ethical
dilemmas and methodological concerns in researching undocumented
migrants with the same ethnic background
Eugenia Markova
7 The fieldworker as social worker: dilemmas
in research with Moroccan unaccompanied minors
Nuria Empez
Index
It is refreshing
how this book avoids the pretence of many approaches to methodology
and instead opens up the difficult questions around research construction
and the role of the researcher in work with vulnerable migrants.
Apart from opening up the space for honest debate, it also refuses
to recommend one ethic of migration research. Full of detailed deconstruction
of the emotional and political aspects of this type of research,
the book skillfully invites critical thinking and rasies awareness
of why it is often so hard to stand for integrity as researchers
in a context of injustice. A very welcome high-level contribution
to a much-need debate.
Dr. Christien van den Anker, Reader
at University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol
Migration studies increasingly deal with “vulnerable
populations”, defined as those who lack the ability to make
personal life choices, personal decisions, or maintain independence
and self-determination. Inmates in prisons, subjects of human or
sexual trafficking, and migrants displaced by war are considered
vulnerable populations. Dealing with migration that is so akin to
human suffering raises methodological and ethical considerations
for field population researchers. This book identifies and grapples
with these issues, raising concerns worthy of exploration and debate.
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