Refugees and other migrants continue to arrive in new places all across the world. Their reception, long-term prospects and lives in their new homes remains one of the most pressing socio-political issues of our times. What about the migrant in all of this? How do they see their life, role and political agency? Migration research has thus far under-conceptualised and under-researched political migrant agency, especially from a Global South perspective and in interaction with states and non-state actors. The ERC-funded project PolMig aims to redress this gap and combine it with a commitment to tackle global inequalities in knowledge production.
Focusing on Africa, PolMig considers how migrants define political agency, enabled or disabled by politicisation processes of belonging in postcolonial state contexts. Drawing on this research, PolMig advances an Afrocentric understanding of political migrant agency with global relevance. The research will consider the effects of different migrant trajectories (refugee or other migrant; transregional or intraregional; in country of destination, transit or return to origin) on the self-defined understanding of political agency, along intersectional principles of gender, class and race. PolMig uses pioneering research methods to do so including migrant agency diaries and theatre workshops.
The PolMig team will carry out the research on the different migrant trajectories in Ghana, Kenya, Liberia and Malawi.
We are hiring: The project will employ two post-doctoral researchers and one PhD-student to become part of the team. See here for more details on the call for applications.
See also Press Release.
