Migration, the Affects / Emotions and Decolonial Approaches 3700-MSNS-24-MA-EDA
Though things are changing, migration studies as a discipline continues to be strongly informed by econometric, sociological and anthropological approaches that privilege economic and political analyses of migration. such approaches have been critiqued, among others, for centering the “West” or the global North, for reifying the figure of the migrant, and remaining within the paradigm of what the decolonial scholar, Walter Mignolo, describes as the “global designs of coloniality” (2012[2000]). The intention of this course is to explore alternative practices and perspectives in the study of migration that have the potential to facilitate “moments in which the imaginary of the modern world system cracks” (Mignolo 2012[2000]: 23).
The course begins with an introduction to the key critical lenses we will apply to the study of migration – theories of the affects/emotions and decolonial theory – with the aim of grasping their promise of novelty as well as the epistemological tensions they engender when applied within the frame of/alongside migration studies. Over subsequent sessions in the course, we will explore three clusters of topics and approaches to the study of migration, which attend to:
• sensory and embodied experiences of migratory movements and the affective responses to these movements, with attention to how migration relates to processes such as racialization. (e.g. Nikielska-Sekuła 2023; Probyn 1996, 2005; Stoller 1997; Powrzanovic Frykman 2001).
• migratory movements not only from the global South to the global North (the former colonies to the former colonial powers), and from the European East to the “West,” but also other configurations of movements between states, regions and continents, which decenter the “West” and the global North and challenge predominant, universalizing narratives of migration. (e.g. Gopinath 2010; Lingelbach 2020; Anzaldúa 1987)
• how emotions and affects are harnessed to politicize migration-related issues, thus reinforcing or redrawing borders and boundaries, and preventing or (alternatively) enabling change. (e.g. Ahmed 2004, 2006; Probyn 1996, 2005; Amelina 2022)
What does it mean to feel through migration? How does migration manifest in the body? How can we conceptualize migration as a state of being rather than a process or through the figure of the migrant? What are the implications of such questions for the methods and approaches we use to study migration? These are the overarching concerns that will guide our work together on this course.
Type of course
Prerequisites (description)
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
After completing the course, students will have gained and/or developed the following knowledge, skills and competences:
a. Knowledge:
- Understands the relationships between various dimensions of social change or social experience, especially with regard to migration, modernity and diversity. (K_W02)
- Familiar with advanced methods of analysis and interpretation used in research in the social sciences and the humanities. (K_W08)
- Understands the value of an interdisciplinary approach to analyzing and interpreting social phenomenon and change in the modern world, especially in relation to migration. (K_W03)
- Is aware of concepts and terms used in the humanities and social sciences in order to depict and discuss complex social phenomena, such as migration and social diversity, as well as the debates within and between individual disciplines in the study of these phenomena. (K_W03)
b. Skills:
- Ability to select and make a critical assessment of information drawn from various sources, including from primary and secondary sources. (K_U01)
- Ability to apply a range of methods and theoretical tools in order to analyze complex social and cultural phenomena. (K_U04)
- Ability to prepare clearly structured and convincingly argued oral presentations that account for multiple perspectives on a given topic and a make compelling case for a particular view or approach. (K_U01), (K_U06)
- Ability to interpret and explain complex social processes and phenomena through a range of theoretical frameworks, lenses and perspectives. (K_U04)
c. Competences:
- Respects the principles of equality and non-discrimination, and demonstrates a sensitivity to cultural and other differences in discussions on complex subjects. (K_K05)
- Recognizes the importance of treating colleagues with respect and using factual evidence to support arguments. (K_K05)
- Practices refining presentation, self-reflectivity and discussion skills. (K_K01)
Assessment criteria
Class participation – 20%
Class presentation – 40%
Essay – 40 %
Absences:
Permissible absences (on condition that they are substantiated): 4
5 absences require individual consultation and risk failing to receive credits.
Bibliography
Ahmed, Sara. (2000). Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality. London: Routledge.
___. (2004). The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
___. (2006). Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham: Duke University Press.
Amelina, Anna. (2022) “Knowledge production for whom? Doing migrations, colonialities and standpoints in non-hegemonic migration research,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 45(13), pp. 2393–2415.
Anderson, Bridget. (2017) “Towards a new politics of migration?” Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 40, issue 9, pp. 1527-1537.
Anderson, B. (2006). “Becoming and being hopeful: Towards a theory of affect,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 24(5), 733-752.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. (1987). Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Spinsters/ Aunt Lute.
Bascunan-Wiley, Nicholas. (2021) “Migration and the Senses,” Sociology Compass, 15 (3).
Boccagni, Paola. (2015). “Emotions on the move: Mapping the emergent field of emotion and migration,” Emotion, Space and Society, Vol. 16, pp. 73-80.
Burkitt, Ian. (2012). “Emotional Reflexivity: Feeling, Emotion and Imagination in Reflexive Dialogues,” Sociology, 46(3), pp. 458-472.
Clough, Patricia Ticineto, and Jean Halley (eds.). (2007). The Affective Turn: Theorizing the Social. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Cvetkovich, Ann, Ann Reynolds, Janet Staiger (eds.). (2010). Political Emotions: New Agendas in Communication. London, UK: Routledge.
Garelli, Glenda and Martina Tazzioli. (2013) "Challenging the discipline of migration: militant research in migration studies, an introduction," Postcolonial Studies, Vol. 16, issue 3, pp. 245-249.
Gopinath, Gayatri. (2010) “Archive, Affect, and the Everyday: Queer Diasporic Re-Visions.” In Political Emotions New Agendas in Communication, edited by Ann Cvetkovich, Ann Reynolds and Janet Staiger. London, U.K: Routledge: 166-192.
Gregg, Melissa and Gregory J. Siegworth (eds.). (2010). The Affect Theory Reader, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Grosfoguel, Ramón. (2007) “The Epistemic Decolonial Turn.” Cultural Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2-3: 211-223.
Guilmette, Lauren. (2014) “In What We Tend to Feel Is Without History: Foucault, Affect, and the Ethics of Curiosity,” The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 28, No. 3, special issue with the society for phenomenology and existential philosophy, pp. 284-294.
de Haas, Hein, Stephen Castles, Mark J. Miller. (2020). The Age of Migration (6th ed.). Guilford Press.
Kivisto, Peter. (2001) “Theorizing Transnational Immigration: A Critical Review of current Efforts,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 24(4), pp. 549-577.
Lingelbach, Jochen. (2020). On the Edges of Whiteness: Polish Refugees in British Colonial Africa during and after the Second World War.
Lowe, Lisa. (2015). The Intimacies of Four Continents. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Massumi, Brian. (2002). Parables for the virtual: Movement, affect, sensation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Mignolo, Walter. (2012[2000]). Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Ngai, Sianne. (2005). Ugly Feelings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Nikielska-Sekuła, Karolina. (2023) “Embodied Transnational Belonging,” International Migration Review, 0(0), pp. 1-27.
Pawlak, Marek. (2018). Zawstydzona tożsamość: Emocje, ideologie i władza w życiu polskich migrantów w Norwegii. [Shamed Identities: Emotions, Ideologies and Power in the Life of Polish Migrants in Norway]. Kraków, Poland: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
Powrzanovic Frykman, Maja. (2001) “Connecting Places, Enduring Distance. Transnationalism as a Bodily Experience,” Ethnologia Scandinavica, Vol. 31, pp. 45-66.
Probyn, Elspeth. (1996). Outsider Belongings. New York, NY: Routledge.
___. (2005). Blush: Faces of Shame. Minneapolis, MI: University of Minnesota Press.
Stoller, Paul. (1997). Sensuous Scholarship. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Tlostanova, Madina. (2016). “Postsocialist ≠ postcolonial? On post-Soviet imaginary and global coloniality.” In Postcolonial Perspectives on Postcommunism in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Dorota Kołodziejczyk, Cristina Şandru. New York, NY: Routledge.
___. (2022) “Discordant trajectories of the (post-)Soviet (post)colonial aesthetics,” Interventions International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 24(1), pp. 1-16.
___. (2024). “Can Methodologies be Decolonial.” In Pluriversal Conversations on Transnational Feminisms. And Worlds Collide from a Place, edited by Nina Lykke, Redi Koobak, Petra Bakos, Swati Arora, Kharnita Mohmaed. New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 125-138.
Triandafyllidou, Anna. (ed.). (2016). Routledge handbook of immigration and refugee studies. Abingdon: Routledge.
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. (2015). The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: