Influenced by the prevailing interpretation of the 1951 Convention as conferring individual status, forced migrants have generally been conceptualized as individuals, even when the right to family unity has been recognized. Within sociology, attempts to link micro-level occurrences to macro-level social transformation have received increasing attention (e.g.
Castles 2003), as have the workings of the relationship between structure and agency (Bakewell 2010). At the micro- level, sociology understands migration as being influenced by and structured around social relations, in particular those relations pertaining to community, family, and gender (on the latter, see Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, this volume). Within each relational category, the main distinguishing or difference-producing factors have been analysed within the contexts of class, ethnicity, and generation, often ‘embodied in hierarchies of power and social status, in positions in home and host
communities, and in work and domestic relationships’ (Van Hear 2010: 1531).
(p. 92) Sociologists interested in micro-level theory have pointed to family and gender relations as crucial to the refugee experience, in particular in regard to family separation during conflict, flight, or prolonged periods of family reunification arrangements (Jastram and Newland 2003). When conflicts break out, only few are able to flee as a family. Some family members may have died and remaining family members may be forced to take different routes. When societal institutions break down, the family may assume greater than usual importance. Family functions around physical care, protection, and emotional support are difficult to maintain during dispersal. From both a sociological and a feminist standpoint, the tendency to see women, men, or children in relation to idealized notions of ‘family’ has been criticized, as has the use of the family or household unit without regarding the gender and generational struggles taking place within it as well as the differentiated effects forced migration has on individual family members. In a special issue of Forced Migration Review in 1999, El-Bushra reiterated that forced migration impacts differently on women and men, that women’s specific needs and aspirations have generally been ignored, but also that giving preference to women in assistance programmes may contribute to eroding men’s traditional roles as protectors, providers, and decision makers. An example of conflicting
‘traditional’ versus ‘changed’ gender relations during flight among Guatemalan refugees in Mexico was highlighted by Pessar (2001). Here female Guatemalan refugees, under the tutelage of international NGOs, became exposed to human rights and women’s rights discourses and through them came to see themselves and their citizenship claims beyond traditional gender norms. Upon return to Guatemala, however, their transnational rights discourses were thwarted by an entrenched and state-enforced patriarchy that sought to reinstall traditional gender hierarchy (Pessar 2001). Furthermore, Sørensen and Stepputat (2001) found that migration and refugee experiences impact differently on women and men of different generations precisely because local communities and states bestow authority on moving subjects according to gender.
Concerning class, Bauman (1998: 9), from a meso-sociological perspective, has argued that ‘mobility has become the most powerful and coveted stratifying factor’ in late modernity, connecting social hierarchies to movement and restriction on movement. Furthermore, as the costs of migration have multiplied with the increasingly restrictive international migration regime, migrants’ and asylum seekers’ socio-economic background has become ever more important in shaping the forms, patterns, and impacts of their movement. The better-off can reach more resourceful and secure destinations while the poorer become relegated to less secure forms of migration to less attractive destinations. While class to some extent explains the timing of exits in particular cases of forced migration—the better-off leaving first—it does not determine the outcome. Rather, class contributes explanations for the routes, forms, means, and destinations of particular movements.
Ethnicity, on the other hand, has remained somewhat of a ‘hot potato’ within sociology. Although one of the first to bring the term ‘ethnic group’ into social studies was the German sociologist Max Weber, generally sociologists have left the study of ethnicity to anthropologists. Weber (1978) defined ethnic groups as those who entertain (p. 93) a subjective belief in common descent because of similarities in phenotype, customs, historical memories of colonization or migration, or any combination of these. It is the effectiveness of social action and above all the political aspect of group action that inspires belief in common ethnicity and transforms group membership into a political culture (Malesevic 1988). Zolberg (1988) was among the first to point out how the spread of the nation state as a universal model for organizing political communities concomitantly produced refugees who did not fit national definitions of membership. The unprecedented scale of forced migration due to ethnicity during the twentieth century formation of nation states in former multi-ethic or colonial territories appears to confirm Zolberg’s theory.
Methodologies
Castles defines the specific sociological focus as on the one hand ‘connecting forced migration with social relations, ideas, institutions and structures at various levels (global, regional, national and local),’ and on the other hand ‘processes of loss of identity and of rebuilding community’. Whereas the field invites multidisciplinarity, ‘the specific character of sociology lies in its theoretical and methodological approaches’ (Castles 2003: 22–3). In general, research into forced migration has given more attention to those affected by it than to the processes causing the movements. However, one distinguishing factor of the sociology of forced migration is that it has developed in tandem with studies of
voluntary/economic migration and focused attention on the social dynamics of the migratory process and processes of global social transformation in both areas of origin and destination. Thus attention to multi-locality is one distinguishing methodological aspect.
Sociology and Forced Migration
Over the years, forced migration research has been criticized for lacking sound methodological principles. Before 1988 data collection was often induced by the humanitarian, international agencies and their needs for improving logistics (Harrell-Bond 1988) and only few researchers applied participatory methods as a way of comprehending refugees’
perspectives (Mazur 1988). Studies disproportionally emphasized camps and settlements over research into self-settled or spontaneously settled people (Bakewell 2008).
Reviewing the complete 2002 volume of Journal of Refugee Studies, Jacobsen and Landau (2003) found that the research published used a wide range of quantitative and (in particular) qualitative research designs and techniques.
However, key methodological components often remained unrevealed, partly due to a tendency towards ‘advocacy’ with the explicit objective of alleviating the suffering of the people involved, partly due to security issues, both that of the people and communities involved (‘do no harm’) and that of the researchers (when risk does not justify adherence to principles). The review pointed to problems in data collection methods too often relying on snowballing or access through a particular NGO, church, or camp, and rarely on large-scale (p. 94) survey data sets. Furthermore, the lack of control groups made it ‘difficult to assess the extent to which refugee-related variables cause the particular problem being discussed or whether other social, political or economic factors common to everyone living in the research area account for the variance’ (Jacobsen and Landau 2003: 194). Finally, they found very little forced migration research to be replicable and comparable. Studies based on small samples or on stakeholder interviews, typically selected on the basis of accessibility, rarely yield a material that allows for testing of competing hypotheses and causal relationships, nor do they allow comparisons across different groups in a single location, or across time and space.
The inclination of forced migration research to have an impact on the problems of those affected and be able to influence policy has led to cooperation with related areas such as development and disaster studies. This relationship is also reflected in methodology, of which the livelihood approach probably has had the largest impact. Livelihood thinking dates back to the work of Robert Chambers in the mid-1980s, who developed the idea of ‘sustainable livelihoods’ with the intention to enhance the efficiency of development cooperation. The approach focuses on ‘the capabilities and resources people possess (natural physical, human socio-political and financial assets) and how these are mobilized, and mediated by the wider structural environment (of policies, institutions and processes), to provide a means of living’
(Lindley 2010: 28). In forced migration research, the approach has been adapted to account for changing distributions of power and wealth, societal change due to conflict, and people’s capacity to adapt livelihood strategies for survival, coping in conflict-affected situations and locations. The sociological concept of ‘mobile livelihoods’ (Sørensen and Olwig 2002) furthermore emphasizes the ways in which making a living links up with wider patterns of mobility, the range and variation in mobility that population movements involve, the social institutions and networks facilitating, sustaining, or hindering mobile livelihoods, and the social and spatial practices of mobile populations.
Methodologically speaking, a mobile livelihood approach requires attention to mobility prior to, during, and after conflict.
This resonates well with Lubkemann’s suggestion to conduct empirical investigation of ‘what may in fact be a much more complex, varied and ambiguous array of experiences that stem from wartime migration’ (Lubkemann 2008: 456). While loss and disempowerment can be the effect of forced migration, displacement may equally produce an ambiguous mix of both loss and economic, social, and political empowerment. The relationship between migration and its social meaning or effects must therefore always be considered an empirical question, to be studied by including a baseline of the role that mobility already played in the life strategies and social organization of populations prior to displacement.
We end this short and partial review of methodological discussions in the sociology of forced migration by agreeing with Lubkemann (2008) and Castles’ (2010) observations that ambiguity, complexity, diversity, context, and historical developments should be the building blocks in any middle range methodology. Sociologists would generally be well equipped to carry out such analysis from both a qualitative and quantitative angle.
(p. 95) Looking Back and Ahead
Looking back at the sociological contributions to the field of forced migration studies over the past quarter of a century, a number of continuities stand out. First, the problem of making clear distinctions between voluntary and forced migration has been a recurrent issue in sociological contributions which have pointed to new areas and processes, in which the distinction is hard to draw or where it makes little analytical sense to uphold. Second, it is striking that all of the
considerable number of theoretical contributions have stated that the field lacks theoretical reflection and sophistication.
Third, and also paradoxically, many have mentioned, yet challenged, the tendency of forced migration studies to be
restricted by policy-defined labels and questions. Thus, in a way, these problems and paradoxes define the field and provide drivers of sociological analysis in terms of the continuous engagement with traditional themes such as structure/agency, integration as relation, and the political dynamics of labelling.
Yet there are also considerable changes which characterize the field, partly relating to the process of globalization and partly to the associated theoretical and methodological developments, such as transnationalism, the notion of diaspora, and multi-sited fieldwork. As Castles (2003) argued, forced migration may be seen as one of the defining characteristics of the current phase of globalization, and together with the more general issue of migration it has moved to the top of the political agenda, and increasingly so beyond the global North as well. The migration regime itself produces new forms of forced migration and indeed of ‘involuntary immobility’, including trafficking, encampment, and deportations which have disruptive effects on families, communities, and even nations. Furthermore, with the renewed scramble for resources, including for land, forced displacement is likely to take on even more importance, both in rural and urban areas. Indeed the sociology of evictions should be an expanding issue within studies of forced migration, moving on from the ‘development induced’ displacement paradigm.
As mentioned, the state has come to occupy an important position in the sociology of forced migration. However, there are several indications that studies should move beyond states and examine the role of private, non-state actors and the ways they relate to forced migration. The tendency towards outsourcing, privatization, and the concomitant creation of legal as well as illicit ‘migration industries’ (Sørensen and Gammeltoft-Hansen 2013) is one important field. Another is the role of non-state actors in displacing people from their homes (or restricting their mobility), be they corporations, communities, criminal organizations, or other entities that use force in the name of the community, development, security, or other forms of justification. Indeed, a central theoretical concern in future studies should be the use, legitimization, and effects of force that break the links between people and places or hinders the mobility necessary for upholding livelihoods.
In this regard, forced migration studies as a field where disciplines meet, overlap, and (ex)change has much to offer sociology. Good examples are ideas of ‘mobile livelihoods’ (p. 96) and other challenges to the ‘sedentarist’ thinking and
‘container-images’ of society that characterized forced migration studies some time before the emergence of the ‘new’
or ‘critical mobilities’ paradigm within sociology (Urry 2007).
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Sociology and Forced Migration
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Finn Stepputat
Finn Stepputat is Senior Researcher, research unit on Migration, Danish Institute for Internationa Studies.
Ninna Nyberg Sørensen
Ninna Nyberg Sørensen is Senior Researcher and the Head of the research unit on Migration, Danish Institute for Internationa Studies.
Sociology and Forced Migration
Print Pub ication Date: Jun 2014 Subject: Po itica Science, Internationa Re ations, Comparative Po itics
On ine Pub ication Date: Aug 2014
DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199652433.013.0018