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De-naturalizing the national in
research methodologies: key
concepts of transnational studies
in migration
Anna Amelina & Thomas Faist
Version of record first published: 05 Mar 2012.
To cite this article: Anna Amelina & Thomas Faist (2012): De-naturalizing the national
in research methodologies: key concepts of transnational studies in migration, Ethnic
and Racial Studies, 35:10, 1707-1724
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De-naturalizing the national in research
methodologies: key concepts of
transnational studies in migration
Anna Amelina and Thomas Faist
(First submission February 2011; First published March 2012)
Abstract
Building on the transnational approach to migration, this introduction
outlines some elements of the programme of an emergent methodological
transnationalism. This effort aims to de-naturalize the concept of the
national within migration studies. First, the analysis identifies methodological
challenges of migration studies, such as contextualization, the
ethnic lens and the essentializing view on ethnicity. Second, it indicates
the relevant conceptual elements which deal with these methodological
challenges, such as the critique of methodological nationalism, cosmopolitanism
and the relational concept of space. Third, it addresses the
relevant methods, such as multi-sited ethnography, the mobile methods
approach, as well as researchers’ positionality and strategies of deethnicization,
all of which correspond to the new epistemology of
migration studies. Finally, it highlights the common characteristics of
the contributions to this special issue, which go beyond the normative
view of cross-border migration.
Keywords: transnational migration; cosmopolitanism; relational space; multisited
ethnography; mobile methods; self-reflexivity; strategies of de-ethnicization.
This special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies addresses the
methodological challenges of empirical studies on cross-border
migration. The set of concepts herein suggests paying more attention
to the forms and mechanisms of unfinished and multi-directional
migration flows. However, it does not define multi-directional
geographic mobility as significant by itself, but as relevant in respect
to the formation of cross-border social entities such as transnational
professional networks, transnational kinship groups, transnational
Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 35 No. 10 October 2012 pp. 1707Á1724
# 2012 Taylor & Francis
ISSN 0141-9870 print/1466-4356 online
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2012.659273
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organizations and diasporas. Consequently, the transnational
approach rejects the nation-state as the sole starting point of empirical
analysis (Basch, Glick Schiller and Szanton Blanc 1994; Faist 2000;
Portes 2000; Vertovec 2007; Pries 2008). Criticizing so-called methodological
nationalism (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2003; Beck and
Grande 2010), the transnational approach calls for a de-naturalization
of categories such ‘nation’ and ‘space’. Yet, although criticisms of
methodological nationalism have been increasingly accepted within
migration studies, we still lack a systematic reflection on how to build an
empirical research programme that goes beyond. Therefore, this special
issue elaborates a methodological programme that aims to enable the
study of transnational mobilities and transnational formations by
avoiding a nation-state-centred methodology. This new research
methodology, which we call methodological transnationalism, encompasses
various research methods that correspond to current epistemological
approaches to the relationship between space, the social and
mobility (Hannerz 1996; Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004; Urry 2007).
One of the basic aspects of such an approach is to consider the
simultaneity of the transnational practices of individuals, organizations
and institutions taking place in multiple localities. This position
focuses on transactions between ‘those who have migrated and those
who have stayed in place’ (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004, p. 1012). An
additional tenet is to make use of so-called mobile methods by
studying transnational, interpersonal and organizational networks
(Bu¨scher, Urry and Witchger 2010). Furthermore, researchers into
transnational migration pay attention to multi-sited (Marcus 1995)
and global ethnography (Burawoy 2000 et al.), as well as to scale
(Glick Schiller and C¸ ag˘lar 2009) and cosmopolitan approaches (Tsing
2005; Beck and Sznaider 2006).
However, no attempts have been made to provide systematic insights
into strategies for research on cross-border migration. Consequently,
the major body of literature on methods of migration research still
refers to the nation-state as the most important framework for
empirical research on international migration (Bonifazi et al. 2008;
Raymer and Willekens 2008). Innovative methods relevant for
migration studies have neither been systematically consolidated nor
have they been reviewed within an integrated frame.
This special issue aims to close this gap. Collecting various elements
of methodological transnationalism, it aims to stimulate research
procedures which produce new and unexpected data and thus
contribute to theorizing cross-border relations in migration research.
Additionally, the application of new research strategies also points
towards possible limits of a transnational epistemology, which sometimes
falls into the trap of naı¨ve normativity by portraying transnational
phenomena in an excessively positive light.
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The six articles collected in this issue address methodological tools
rooted in an epistemology which seeks to de-naturalize the national.
The contributions emerge from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives
including sociology, social anthropology, social geography and
gender studies. Jointly they provide detailed insights into the relationship
between the new epistemology of migration and the relevant
methodological innovations. Building on a multi-sited ethnography
approach (Coleman and von Hellermann 2009; Falzon 2009), the
authors explore ways in which multi-sited methods can be used,
employing, for example, in the context of quantitative and qualitative
studies, online and offline research, as well as mobile and stationary
research on transnational migration. Moreover, the articles discuss a
multi-sited methodology which is characterized by a self-reflexive turn
(Clifford and Marcus 1986). Such an approach revises researchers’
positionality as well as the application of ethnic categories within
migration studies. Hence, the contributions explore the facets of multisited
methodology by presenting the results from ongoing empirical
studies.
To meet the goals of the special issue we first highlight the relevance
of methodological problems in contemporary migration studies.
Second, we provide an overview of methodologies and methods that
already have been used in empirical research on transnational
migration, pinpointing their benefits and limitations. Third, we sketch
the specific strengths of the collected issue and introduce the particular
contributions.
The call for new research strategies: which problems do new
methodological strategies address?
Without being exhaustive, this special issue identifies three methodological
problems of contemporary migration studies in general and of
transnational research in particular. First, migration researchers too
often presume the nation-state as the central relevant context for
empirical studies on international migration. Second, some migration
scholars select ethnicity as the dominant category relevant for research
organization. Third, a great many of empirical studies are characterized
by concepts naturalizing ethnic belonging.
First, the problem of contextualization is rooted in the nation-statecentred
epistemology of migration studies, which presupposes the
natural congruence of society, the institutional arrangements of the
nation-state and the related territorial framework (Martins 1974;
Smith 1979); in other words, of the people, state authority and
territory (Faist 2004, pp. 331Á2). This naturalizing position assumes
that nation-state institutions are the main social context within which
migration occurs and for which migration is relevant. Consequently, it
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limits the organization of empirical research to the territorial ‘container’
of a nation-state, usually an immigration one. We find this
‘container’ thinking not only in older assimilation theories (Gordon
1964), but also in theories of multiculturalism (Taylor 1992; Kymlicka
1995).
In sum, this double gap Á the nation-state as the main social context
of migration as well as the territorial framework of empirical
migration studies Á determines strategies of research design as well
as methods of data collection and analysis (see, for example, Bonifazi
et al. 2008; Raymer and Willekens 2008). Of course, for specific
purposes, a focus on the nexus between state authority and territory is
helpful, for example, in understanding immigration control. Over the
past decades many immigration states have stepped up the efficiency of
migration control and thus control over migrants (Faist and Ette
2007). Yet emphasis only on this congruence is not adequate if
researchers want to focus on the study of cross-border migration.
Second, migration scholars too often use an ethnic and national lens
to conceptualize migration and settlement processes (Wimmer 2007).
We find such assumptions in non-essentialist theories of assimilation
as well as in incorporation approaches (Portes and Zhou 1993; Bean
and Stevens 2003; Morawska 2004). To be more precise, the starting
point of this type of research is not geographic mobility, social
networks or decision-making as such, but the particular ‘ethnic’ or
‘national’ group. Consequently, the sampling schemes of national
surveys re-inscribe ethnic and national categories into the procedures
of data collection. In a similar way, qualitative studies select interview
partners according to their ‘ethnicity’ or ‘national belonging’. This is
why empirical studies usually consider the social interaction between
migrants and non-migrants only insofar as they belong to the same
ethnic or national ‘group’. In short, methods of data analysis or data
interpretation are characterized by an ethnic lens because ethnic and
national categories are used as the main variables to explore research
outcomes.
Third, the use of an ethnic lens within the organization of empirical
research is sometimes accompanied by naturalizing views on ethnicity
(Brubaker 2002). By defining ‘ethnicity’ and ‘nation’ as naturally given
entities resulting from common cultural scripts, researchers consider
neither the constructionist quality of ‘group formation’ nor the
processes by which ethnic and national categories are socially
developed, distributed and applied. This is why migration scholars
who study the mobile trajectories of particular ‘ethnic’ groups should
acknowledge the complexity of self- and outside ethnicization and the
whole problematic of ethnic belonging generally.
In which way are these methodological deficits addressed by
transnational studies (Khagram and Levitt 2008)? First, to deal with
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the problem of contextualization, transnational scholars propose to
identify the nation-state as one of many possible social frameworks in
which to situate empirical studies. For alternative social contexts to the
nation-state, transnational social spaces (Faist 2000), postcolonial
contexts (Spivak 1988; Dhawan 2007) or the global cosmopolitan
arena (Beck and Grande 2010) are available conceptual tools.
Moreover, transnational scholars are initiating a reflection on
spatial concepts which are often implicitly applied during empirical
analyses. To be more precise, methodologically nationalist scholars
assume the interpenetration of the social context, namely the
institutional nation-state setting, with the container of the nationstate
territory. In contrast, transnational researchers assign to the
respective social context a relationally organized spatial framework.
For example, in his article Besim Zirh analyses the religious activities
of Alevis by studying them in dispersed urban localities, such as
London, Berlin and Drammen.
Second, addressing the problem of the ethnic lens, transnational
scholars insist on avoiding the non-reflexive use of ethnic categories
when defining the unit of analysis (Glick Schiller, C¸ ag˘lar and
Guldbrandsen 2006; Telles and Ortiz 2008). Categories such as
‘migrant’ or ‘non-migrant’, ‘Mexican’ or ‘American’, ‘labour migrant’
or ‘refugee’ are too often used as central criteria in research designs
with no regard to either the ways in which these categories are formed
by scientific and non-scientific discourses or the conditions under
which they are relevant for the social practices of mobile and nonmobile
people. This is why researchers benefit from strategies
reflecting upon the dichotomization and ethnic labelling of research
designs, methods of data collection and data interpretation. This
careful reflection prevents an unintended conjunction among conceptual
tools such as ethnicity, nation and culture. Several contributions
in this issue (David Fitzgerald, Bruno Meeus, Mieke Schrooten
and Kyoko Shinozaki) include procedures of self-reflection in the
design of the empirical study.
Third, in designing their empirical field transnational scholars are
increasingly addressing the problem of the naturalizing view of
ethnicity by including self-reflection on the researcher’s positionality
(Bockert et al. 2006; Ko¨ttig et al. 2009). For instance, in her
contribution Mieke Schrooten pinpoints the relevance of ethical issues
in this regard. She addresses the general vulnerability of migrants’
(online) lifeworlds, which are targeted during the research process. In
addition, Kyoko Shinozaki reflects on ethicized power hierarchies
between the researched and researchers, which heretofore have rarely
been considered. Such hierarchies emerge in situations in which the
two parties define their interactions by using ethnic terms and assign
more or less powerful social positions to each other.
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The contributions explicitly reflect on these challenges, yet address
them in different ways. Building on a multi-sited ethnography
approach they not only display a new epistemology of migration,
but also show how to implement it in quantitative and qualitative
research strategies as well as in mobile, immobile, online and offline
research on cross-border migration. At the same time, they disclose the
methodological and empirical limitations of non-national epistemology.
Finally, they consider the self-reflective approach (Ganga and
Scott 2006; De Tona 2006; Sheridan and Storch 2009), as an important
tool for empirically researching transnational phenomena.
What have researchers already done to develop new methods? Innovative
methodological tools
We have already stressed that the contributions to this issue build on
new epistemological notions about the relationship between space, the
social and mobility. However, we did not provide a deeper insight into
its core elements. Therefore, this section starts by exploring the pivotal
conceptual notions. To begin with it addresses the critique of
methodological nationalism, the cosmopolitan approach and the
relational understanding of space. Subsequently, the section outlines
research programmes such as multi-sited ethnography, the mobile
methods approach, as well as the self-reflexive approach, including
researchers’ self-reflection on power hierarchies and strategies of
de-ethnicization in designing research.
Defining contexts of research and units of analysis from a transnational
perspective: epistemological foundations
The special attention to the contextualization of empirical migration
research was stimulated by an article by Andreas Wimmer and Nina
Glick Schiller (2003), which outlined the negative consequences of
‘methodological nationalism’ in migration studies. In particular, the
authors differentiate between three types of methodological nationalism.
First, they argue that many migration studies do not pay
attention to nationalism and its effects on nation-building processes
in current societies. According to the authors, sociology defines ‘the
limits of society as coterminous with the nation-state, rarely questioning
the nationalist ideology embedded in such founding assumption’
(2003, p. 579). Second, they criticize any approach whereby nationstates
are understood as natural entities. This analytical limitation is
conditioned particularly by the relationship between nation-state
authorities and social science. Funding programmes of social science
are generally governmental and thus the research agenda tends to
focus on nation-state-related topics. Also, teaching programmes at
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universities remain state-dependent because universities generally
cooperate with the government’s education authorities. Third,
Wimmer and Glick Schiller (2003) argue that empirical social research
is unduly circumscribed by the territorial boundaries of nation-states.
The ‘territorial limitation’ of power relations is a historically new
phenomenon that emerged in the process of nation-state establishment,
whereby the latter was itself determined by cross-border power
dynamics and activities (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2003, p. 581; see
also Levine, Grant and Trentmann 2007; Tyrell 2007). These criticisms
are highly relevant for transnational studies on migration, because
they point not only to the need to formulate new research questions,
but also to the need to contextualize them in an alternative manner.
Although an increasing number of migration scholars have
responded to the criticisms of methodological nationalism, they rarely
use it to transform their research strategies. In general social theory,
the research programme of methodological cosmopolitanism strives to
go beyond mere critique (Beck and Sznaider 2006; Beck and Grande
2010). It is relevant for both the definition of units of analysis and the
contextualization of research questions.
The ambivalence of multiple identities is the starting point for a
cosmopolitan methodology (Vertovec and Cohen 2002; Beck and
Sznaider 2006). It acknowledges that under global conditions individuals
hold several memberships in different social spheres to which
they affiliate themselves. To be more precise, individuals are able to
hold multiple ethnic, national or religious belongings simultaneously.
This methodological tool recommends considering the ‘both/and’
logic of multiple memberships to define the units of analysis. In this
view, researchers broaden empirical procedures by refusing the oldfashioned
‘either/or’ logic of methodological nationalism, which
mirrors only a nation-bounded perception of a social world.
The advocates of a cosmopolitan approach (Darieva, Glick Schiller
and Gruner-Domic 2011) argue that methodological cosmopolitanism
may help to contextualize research questions in transnational studies.
One of the main analytical problems of current studies on globalization
and transnationalization is a clear analytical differentiation
between the global/local and national/international spatial levels.
This problem is rooted in the conventional nation-state-bounded
research perspective that expects researchers to think in ‘clearly
differentiated oppositions’ (Beck and Sznaider 2006, p. 18).
In contrast, the ‘both/and’ logic of methodological cosmopolitanism
facilitates the contextualization of research questions in a
double ‘multi-perspective’ way. First, it proposes to focus on ‘multiperspective’-oriented
strategies of actors, which may simultaneously
correspond to relationally defined local, national, transnational or
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global spatial contexts. Second, this strategy suggests considering the
multiple scaled ways of scientific observation of these contexts.
The main advantage of this strategy for transnational studies in
migration is the focus on the multiplicity of perspectives, which allows
us to define the unit of analysis in a new manner. For instance, there
may be a multiplicity of belongings Á religious, political, social Á that
guide the respective activities of migrants and non-migrants (see Glick
Schiller et al. 2005). Moreover, it also helps to contextualize research
questions without falling into the trap of juxtaposing the global/local
or national/transnational spatial frameworks. For example, research
on multiple citizenship indicates that the dynamics of its factual
expansion can fruitfully be analysed on multiple scales (Faist 2010).
Cosmopolitan methodology seems to be gaining importance in
transnational studies. So far, however, it underrates the ‘spatial turn’ in
the social sciences. Social geographers (e.g. Brenner 2004; Massey
2008), followed by migration scholars (Faist 2004; Pries 2008), pay
attention precisely to this topic, drawing upon the analytical differentiation
between the essentialist and the relational understanding of
spatiality.
The essentialist concept of spatiality presupposes an empty container
of space, which can be filled in with different social content. For
example, researchers who implicitly build on this ahistoric notion
select ‘national society’ as a starting point of analysis and assign to
this social unit its respective territorial container. However, the
relational perspective to space rejects the defining of spaces without
their social content. To give an example, researchers analysing
formation of diasporas identify ways by which actors relate to multiple
localities to organize transnational activities (Baubo¨ck and Faist
2010). Therefore, social relations and the social positions of actors
are constitutive of a relationally defined space. This viewpoint
considers space as a contingent and historically changeable nexus
between material artefacts and social actions, which is created,
represented and appropriated by social actors (Brenner 2004; Massey
2008).
The relational view on spatiality suggests one of the ways of
overcoming so-called container thinking in empirical migration
studies. According to it, researchers profit if they do not pre-define
the existing territorial container, but study actors’ strategies of space
formation and space appropriation. For example, Besim Zirh (in this
issue) explores how the relation between several urban localities
creates a specific socio-spatial context for Alevi identity building.
This flexible strategy allows an alternative way to contextualize a
particular empirical study. By situating units of analysis such as
transnational networks, kinship groups, organizations and diasporas
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in this manner, researchers do not impose, but disclose ways in which
spatial frameworks and boundaries are formed by actors.
Field construction and the organization of research from a transnational
perspective: methods and techniques
We argue that transnational scholars need to address the methodological
challenges of contextualization, the ethnic lens and a naturalizing
view on ethnicity not only by specifying contexts of research and units
of analysis, but also by identifying the actual empirical field. Hence,
multi-sited ethnography is currently one of the most popular
methodological tools for de-nationalizing the construction of the
empirical field. To be more precise, it enables the reorganization of
research designs, methods of data collection and data interpretation
because it corresponds with a non-national way of research contextualization
(Amelina 2010). Transnational scholars make increasing
use of multi-sited ethnography, not only because it justifies simultaneous
research in different geographic localities and social sites, but
also because it provides insights into the complexity of transnational
phenomena (Marcus 1995; Mazzucato 2008).
The high relevance of multi-sited ethnography for migration
research results from its capability to define ‘sites’ of an empirical
field both as territorial and social or cultural entities (Falzon 2009).
On the one hand transnational researchers receive a chance to identify
the empirical field as de-territorialized by, for instance, studying
migrants’ online communities (see Mieke Schrooten in this issue). On
the other hand these scholars may also construct the empirical field by
indicating various geographic localities (see David Fitzgerald, Ken
Horvath, Bruno Meeus and Besim Zirh in this issue). Furthermore,
multi-sited ethnography provides an adequate tool to justify researchers’
geographic and virtual mobility in the course of the research
process, which heeds Marcus’s suggestion to ‘follow’ the movement of
actors, objects, cultural scripts, and artefacts.
As the next section shows in detail, the articles collected in this issue
extend multi-sited ethnography in different ways. David Fitzgerald
carefully compares the advantages and disadvantages of different
kinds of multi-sited migration studies. Kenneth Horvath explores how
to include this method in quantitative studies on transnational labour
markets. Mieke Schrooten identifies steps for multi-sited ethnography
of virtual migrant communities, while Besim Zirh and Bruno Meeus
combine it with the mobile methods approach.
Furthermore, multi-sited ethnography has inspired the mobile
methods approach (Bu¨scher, Urry and Witchger 2010), which offers
insights ‘into a multitude of mobile, material, embodied practices
of making distinctions, relations and places’ (Bu¨scher and Urry 2009,
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p. 105). This strategy recommends collecting data by ‘observing
people’s mobility’, ‘walking with’, ‘stalking’ or ‘lurking’ around others
(Bu¨scher, Urry and Witchger 2010). It is exactly these strategies which
Besim Zirh, Bruno Meeus and Mieke Schrooten apply in their
empirical studies. They state that transnationally oriented scholars
could profit from a mobile ethnography approach not only because
this method enables them to define geographic and virtual mobility as
an empirical field, but also because it acknowledges a dialectical
relationship between mobility and immobility, offering a chance to
analyse even practices of immobility from a transnational perspective.
According to this position, transnational scholars would need to go
beyond state responses to mobility and also look at practices of
(potential) migrants which may result in both mobility and immobility
(see contribution of Kyoko Shinozaki in this issue).
In addition to multi-sited and mobile ethnography, the self-reflexive
approach offers transnational scholars an additional chance to go
‘beyond’ methodological nationalism, while defining the empirical
field and research organization. Inspired by the ‘writing culture’
debate in social anthropology (Clifford and Marcus 1986; Smith 1989)
and accepted in qualitative migration studies (Ganga and Scott 2006;
Sheridan and Storch 2009; De Tona, Frisian and Ganga 2010), this
post-empiricist position questions the neutral researcher’s role in the
production of scientific knowledge. It defines scientific outcomes not
as objective knowledge, but as ‘invented’ scientific narratives, which
are produced not only by researchers but also by researched objects,
subjects or institutions (Geertz 1973; Lyotard 1984).
In particular, the contributions by David Fitzgerald, Bruno Meeus,
Mieke Schrooten and Kyoko Shinozaki address self-reflexivity as
being highly important. Because it makes researchers aware of their
own limitations, it becomes instrumental in setting up the research
process. On the one hand self-reflexivity discloses a situational power
hierarchy between the researcher and the researched. On the other,
it promises transnational studies additional research perspectives
by shedding light on strategies of de-ethnicization in research
organization.
Addressing the subject of potential power hierarchies, the contributions
by Mieke Schrooten and Kyoko Shinozaki focus on who holds
the power of definitions during the research process. In contrast to
ethnic minority studies (Fisher and Ragsdale 2006; Henry 2003) which
argue that researchers mainly have the power of definitions over the
researched because they have the power to select empirical observations,
questions and results, the authors in this issue define the power
relationship within the research process as relational and changeable
(see also Jensen and Lauritsen 2005). Thus, these contributors address
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questions that can reorganize research in an ethically sensitive way,
such as:
. How to represent lifeworlds and experiences of researched
subjects without generalizing the social practices of transnational
migrants?
. How to interpret research results without using stereotypical
representations of categories of mobile persons?
. How to give researched subjects a chance to represent their
relevant experiences?
Furthermore, this self-reflexive turn stimulates strategies for empirical
studies, such as de-ethnicization (Rosenthal and Ko¨ttig 2009;
Malesˇevicˇ 2010; Fenton 2011), which build on constructionist and
process understandings of ethnicity (Barth 1969; Wimmer 2008). The
reflection on the ethnic lens gives researchers a chance to discover
empirically explorative factors alternative to ethnic belonging. In
conducting empirical study on a particular ‘ethnic group’ of migrants,
researchers can transcend the ethnic focus by not prematurely assigning
common cultural traits and other commonalities to the category of
migrants in question.
Those contributions to this issue that use ethnic categorizations do
so with great care. Kenneth Horvath, for instance, offers a strategy to
de-nationalize items of quantitative surveys, while Kyoko Shinozaki
suggests paying more attention to the gender, class and marital status
of interview partners while doing qualitative research instead of
focusing exclusively on migrants’ ethnic belongings. In sum, in deethnicizing
empirical research transnational scholars receive a tool
that helps to de-essentialize ethnic differences and, consequently, to
overcome methodological nationalism in setting up the research
organization.
Multi-locality, mobility and self-reflexivity: methodological
transnationalism as a strategy of de-naturalization
This special issue follows an epistemology which de-naturalizes the
national, as proposed by the pioneers of transnational studies.
Moreover, our perspective connects the criticism of methodological
nationalism with the self-reflective turn in the social sciences. This is
why the collected contributions build on the three core conceptual
elements already mentioned: first, they follow the logic of multisitedness,
applying a relational approach to spatiality in order to
research, for example, both offline and online practices of migrants.
Second, they make use of mobile methods that address the
co-constitution of mobility and immobility in a dialectical manner.
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Third, they relate to the self-reflexive approach, which sheds light on
both the application of ethnic categories and the transformation of the
power of definition over the course of a particular study.
The present special issue starts with a theoretically oriented
and empirically grounded contribution by David Fitzgerald. First,
Fitzgerald systematically compares benefits of various kinds of multisited
ethnography in studies of international migration. Second, he
questions the research programme of assimilation studies that
generally concentrates on the destination context of migration.
Criticizing the one-sided focus of these studies, he introduces a
‘homeland dissimilation’ perspective proposing the inclusion of both
the context of departure and of destination in the research design.
Third, building on the research on migrant home-town associations,
Fitzgerald revises existing transnational approaches which do not
sufficiently compare international with internal migration flows. In
sum, he pleads for multi-sited studies to include both the ‘international’
and ‘domestic’ migration flows in the analysis. In conclusion he
insists that researchers have to be careful in ‘extrapolating from the
local to national patterns’ (see Fitzgerald in this issue).
While David Fitzgerald’s contribution addresses methodological
problems emerging in the context of multi-sited studies of cross-border
migration, the article by Kenneth Horvath identifies practical
challenges to organizing a multi-sited mixed-methods survey. An
ethno-survey is one way to organize a mixed-method survey. Ethnosurveys
conducted by Douglas Massey (1987) combine the logic of
ethnographic studies with that of quantitative surveys. In general,
mixed-method surveys can be characterized by different balances of
qualitative and quantitative methods within the research design.
Increasing the generalizability of results, they provide insights in cases
that might be missed when only a single method is used (Bloch 2004,
2007).
Using the example of migrants’ incorporation into transnational
informal labour markets in Central Europe, Horvath explores ways to
combine quantitative research methods with multi-sited ethnography
within an ethno-survey (Massey 1987). First, the author indicates
explicit weaknesses of most quantitative research designs in this field,
which tend to presume the sedentary nature of the researched
population. Second, Horvath illustrates in detailed steps how to
design a transnational sampling and transnational questionnaire.
In essence, the contribution outlines how the continuous multidirectional
mobility of labour migrants between states and regions
can be studied by approaches that contextualize migration within a
pluri-local spatial framework.
Focusing on the Alevi revival in Turkey in relation to the social and
political mobilization of Alevis in Europe, the following contribution
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by Besim Zirh identifies the steps for a qualitative multi-sited research
design. Including transnational Alevi associations in London, Berlin
and Drammen as well as multi-sited family histories in the research
design, Zirh shows how to avoid a generalizing view of ethnic
communities. Using the example of mortuary practices, which imply
the geographical mobility of the deceased from the immigration to the
emigration localities, the author shows the ways in which the different
institutional and geographical sites in his empirical field are connected
by specific rituals. In sum, his research indicates how the geographic
mobility of the deceased contributes to the transnational reproduction
of a distinct religious network.
The next article by Bruno Meeus critically revises themigration
studies approach that aims to fix migration in time and space. Building
on his own study of transnational migration between Romania and
Belgium, the author explores steps to combine multi-sited ethnography
with a mobile methods approach. First, he problematizes the
selection of field sites in the country of emigration, which sometimes
leads to so-called methodological ruralism, an assumption that it is
mostly rural populations who migrate and that in order to study them
migration scholars need to focus on peripheral, rural localities in the
country of departure. In addition, Meeus identifies practical problems
in combining multi-sited ethnography with a questionnaire-based
quantitative survey and focus group method. Finally, focusing on
the mobile-methods approach, he shows how to make the mobility
patterns of the researchers and the researched persons interact.
While the contributions so far have drawn attention to offline research
methods, the article by Mieke Schrooten reflects on the methodological
challenges of online ethnography, which is increasingly becoming
popular in studies of migrants’ online mobility. Building on her
empirical research into the social network site Orkut, the author
identifies steps to study the digitalization of the transnational ties of
Brazilian citizens, migrants and non-migrants alike. Taking both the
relational concept of space as well as the mobility turn as points of
departure, she indicates the central challenges of online ethnography,
such as access to the field, dealing with these kinds of data and ethical
questions. She explicitly addresses the issue of the researcher’s positionality
during online ethnography and thus is able to reflect upon power
hierarchies between the researcher and the research participants.
The article by Kyoko Shinozaki also reflects on the researcher’s
positionality by using the intersectional approach (Crenshaw 1989).
Building on her empirical research on the irregular employment of
Philippine care workers in a German city, she identifies the challenges
of empirical field construction and research organization resulting
from the power asymmetries between the researcher and the research
participants. Shinozaki defines these dynamics as a situational
De-naturalizing the national in research methodologies 1719
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‘boundary drawing’ and ‘boundary re-drawing’. In using an intersectional
approach she is able to pay attention not only to ethnicized
boundaries between the scientists and their counterparts, but also to
national belonging, gender, class and the stage of the life cycle.
Shinozaki calls upon researchers to acknowledge the multiple
positionalities emerging in the research process in order to question
and overcome ethnic and national lenses.
Outlook
The contributions share a common orientation although they address
relevant methodological problems in different ways: they carefully
reflect on the methodological and normative notions of both methodological
nationalism and what could be called methodological
transnationalism, albeit that the ending ‘-ism’ connotes an ideological
bent not intended. To be more precise, approaches to overcome
methodological nationalism also risk falling into the trap of unreflective
normativity and essentialism by defining transnational and cosmopolitan
social worlds in a teleological manner, as linear trajectories from
the local via the national to the global, or as fateful orientations which
unavoidably replace national categories and contexts.
Following these considerations we return to the mobile-method
approach (Bu¨scher and Urry 2011), which points towards a dialectical
co-constitution of mobile and immobile phenomena. In the future we
need to pay more attention to both the various forms of mobility and
to the constitution of immobility. The latter term needs to become a
category not only in accounting for migration and non-migration
(Hammar et al. 1997), but also in looking at the dynamics unfolding in
transnational social formations, such as transnational networks,
kinship groups, organizations and diasporas. Therein lies a considerable
challenge for future research.
The various combinations of mixed methods and methods based on
multi-sited research are not simply meant to unearth patterns of
mobility. Such methodologies and methods are equally intended to
reflect and dissect the processes of border and boundary creations that
produce immobility, and find their expression in, for example, walls,
camps, detention centres. Equally important is the attention to
transnational social formations which are usually populated by both
mobile and relatively immobile agents. To think in these ways about
the mutual constitution of mobility and immobility beyond the
confines of an exclusively nation state-centred prism also implies a
consideration of various scales of analysis. Hence we call for
approaches that enable us to take a multi-perspective view when
conducting research based on national and transnational, local and
cosmopolitan categories.
1720 Anna Amelina and Thomas Faist
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ANNA AMELINA is Researcher and Lecturer in the Department
of Sociology at Bielefeld University.
ADDRESS: Department of Sociology, Bielefeld University, PO Box
100131, D-33501 Bielefeld, Germany.
Email: anna.amelina@uni-bielefeld.de
THOMAS FAIST is Professor of the Sociology of Transnationalization,
Development and Migration in the Department of Sociology at
Bielefeld University. He is a Director of the Center on Migration,
Citizenship and Development (COMCAD) at Bielefeld University.
ADDRESS: Department of Sociology, Bielefeld University, PO Box
100131, D-33501 Bielefeld, Germany.
Email: thomas.faist@uni-bielefeld.de
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