New publication: Decolonising This, Decolonising That: Beyond Rhetorical Decolonisation in Migration Studies

Book cover from Reflexivities and Knowledge Production in Migration Studies

We're really pleased to announce OpenSpace members, Parvati Raghuram and Gunjan Sondhi, have a brilliant new chapter out entitled "Decolonising This, Decolonising That: Beyond Rhetorical Decolonisation in Migration Studies".

It's part of a new IMISCOE Research Series book edited by Janine Dahinden and Andreas Pott, "Reflexivities and Knowledge Production in Migration Studies" published by Springer.

You can read the chapter here: https://oro.open.ac.uk/106985/1/978-3-032-03337-6_6.pdf

Abstract 
Decolonisation in the academy is a political project and continual process but has become the equivalent of clickbait without any real transfer of power to those who still do not have academic authority or power. In principle, the field of migration studies is ideally situated to engage in questions and processes of decolonisation, with its focuas on border, diaspora and mobility and core concepts of nation and migrant. And due to this seeming default alignment with the vocabulary of decolonisation and decolonisation studies, migration studies scholars have jumped straight into writing about decolonisation in migration studies. However, there has been a limited reflection on who is doing the decolonisation and from where is the problem of colonisation addressed. The absence of this discussion of by whom, from where and how to decolonise migration studies cannot continue if the aim is to move beyond rhetorical decolonisation. This paper points to how decolonisation in migration studies has come to be at risk of being colonised within the Western academy and offers pointers to what form decolonisation might actually take.