Methodologies on the Move The Transnational Turn in Empirical Migration Research

This volume establishes a new agenda for approaches to migration research and the corresponding methodologies. A wide range of international contributors focus on the question of how to overcome the so-called 'methodological nationalism' within empirical studies on migration. They address two main challenges: how to contextualize the empirical research field; and how to deal with national and ethnic categorizations within the empirical studies. Methodologies on the Move outlines, first of all, a new epistemological basis for migration research, which is pinpointing the relational concept of space. Second, building on the multi-sited method of ethnography, it provides detailed insights into novel qualitative and quantitative research designs. Third, it presents innovative data collection methods on geographic and virtual mobility, and on cross-border social practices. This volume transcends the early criticisms of 'methodological nationalism' in migration research and suggests both general methodological lines as well as helpful tools for empirical analysis. This book was originally published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.

1. De-naturalizing the national in research methodologies: key concepts of transnational studies in migration Anna Amelina and Thomas Faist 2. A comparativist manifesto for international migration studies David FitzGerald 3. National numbers for transnational relations? Challenges of integrating quantitative methods into research on transnational labour market relations Kenneth Horvath 4. Following the dead beyond the ‘nation’: a map for transnational Alevi funerary routes from Europe to Turkey Besim Can Zirh 5. How to ‘catch’ floating populations? Research and the fixing of migration in space and time Bruno Meeus 6. Moving ethnography online: researching Brazilian migrants’ online togetherness Mieke Schrooten 7. Transnational dynamics in researching migrants: self-reflexivity and boundary-drawing in fieldwork Kyoko Shinozaki

Anna Amelina is a Senior Researcher in the Faculty of Sociology at Bielefeld University, Germany. Her research focuses on social inequality and migration, transnationalization of gender regimes and methodology of cross-border studies. Thomas Faist is Professor of Transnational, Development and Migration Studies in the Faculty of Sociology at Bielefeld University, Germany. His main fields of interest are transnational studies, international migration, social policy and citizenship. Devrimsel D. Nergiz is a Doctoral Fellow in History and Sociology at Bielefeld Graduate School, Germany. Her primary research area is the political participation of migrants under the rubric of migration studies.