What does it really mean to ‘decolonize’ migration studies? Often the term is used as a slogan, without asking whether it genuinely changes research or simply replaces one dominant framework with another.This book explores when decolonial approaches create new openings and when they risk shutting down debate. Drawing on vivid case studies from partnerships between North and South, to fieldwork, reciprocity, and participatory methods, the book offers fresh insights into how ideas of decolonization play out in practice.This is essential reading for anyone rethinking migration research today.
Kudakwashe Vanyoro is Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of the Witwatersrand and a 2024-25 A.G. Leventis Visiting Research Fellow in the Centre of African Studies at the University of Cambridge.
Introduction1. On Colonialism2. Decolonization, Decoloniality and Modernity3. Migration and Colonialism4. Contemporary Migration Governance5. Institutionalizing Migration Studies6. Rethinking Research Partnerships in Migration Studies7. Participatory Methods and Migration Studies8. Migration, (De)Coloniality and the Burden of Looking Forward
‘This book is a delight to read - an invitation to an invigorating and intellectually stimulating conversation on the continued presence of coloniality, its effects on migration governance and research, and the potential ways to begin overcoming it.’ Franzisca Zanker, Arnold Bergstraesser Institute