Discourse, Method and Ethics In Migration Studies: Is a Feminist Methodology Possible?

International migration studies have been a gradually politicized research field that is affected by national and international migration policy discourses. Given its financially co-dependent relation to state-centered policies, migration studies can be instrumentalized in the efforts of nation-states to “prevent” migration by legitimizing the “migration management” discourse. The politicized structure of migration studies affects the whole research design methodologically and ethically from the theoretical approach to data collection methods. While the number of research focusing on migrant
women has increased enormously, due to the inadequately explained methods they can have serious problems both in terms of the production of scientific knowledge and ethics. In this respect, criticizing the mainstream research methodologies and problematizing the perspective of unequal power relations in the research processes, feminist methodology can provide vital grounds for questioning in migration studies.