Revisiting the ‘dual imperative’ of forced-migration studies – commentary to Refstie
URN:NBN:fi:tsv-oa123036
DOI: 10.11143/fennia.123036
Reflections
Revisiting the ‘dual imperative’ of forced-migration studies –
commentary to Refstie
EVELIINA LYYTINEN
Lyytinen, E. (2022) Revisiting the ‘dual imperative’ of forced-
migration studies – commentary to Refstie. Fennia 200(1) 74–77.
https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.123036
From the perspective of forced-migration studies, the reflections article
elaborates on the question Hilde Refstie posed in her keynote speech at
Geography Days in 2021 – “what doing our part means in a progressive
world of fast policymaking”. Discussing the nature of forced-migration
studies as a both policy-relevant and policy-critical field, then deliberating
the issue of what ‘action’ may look like in action-oriented refugee
research, this presentation of self-critical reflection on these issues is
grounded in the Academy-of-Finland-funded research project Action-
oriented Research on Asylum Seekers’ Deportability (ARADE, 2018–2022).
The author concludes that, while research should be conducted in
solidarity with refugees and those collaborating with them, such as
activists, scholars must maintain reflexive criticism considering which
actions and approaches are suitable and desired in particular contexts.
There are no simple solutions for designing and implementing action-
oriented research for and with refugees.
Keywords: policy relevance, action research, self-reflection, forced
migration, asylum seekers, deportation
Eveliina Lyytinen (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6592-6280), Migration Institute of
Finland, Turku, Finland. E-mail: eveliina.lyytinen@migrationinstitute.fi
In this reflections article, I elaborate on the concise but quite difficult question that Hilde Refstie (2022)
posed in her keynote speech at 2021’s Geography Days: ”what doing our part means in a progressive
world of fast policymaking”. I reflect on this from the perspective of forced-migration studies, the field
of research in which I and Dr Refstie are engaged.
My argument is structured around two main points. Firstly, the study of forced migration is by
nature both policy-relevant and policy-critical field. The second point emerges from my deliberation
of the issue of what ‘action’ might look like in forced-migration research. Here, I aim to present self-
critical reflection on these issues against the backdrop of experiences from my recently completed
Academy-of-Finland-funded research project with the Migration Institute of Finland, titled ‘Action-
oriented Research on Asylum Seekers’ Deportability’ (ARADE, 2018–2022).
© 2022 by the author. This open access article is licensed under
a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.123036
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6592-6280
FENNIA 200(1) (2022) 75Eveliina Lyytinen
The twofold nature of forced-migration studies
Let me begin with a few words about the nature of forced-migration studies as a simultaneously
policy-relevant and policy-critical field.
Ever since the emergence of the academic field of refugee studies – or forced-migration studies
(I use the two terms interchangeably in this piece despite acknowledging differences that are
important in other contexts) – there has been on-going discussion of the need for its research to be,
as Jacobsen and Landau (2003, 185) put it in their seminal paper on the ‘dual imperative’, at the same
time “both academically sound and policy relevant”. However, I would like to suggest that we need to
discern another ‘dual imperative’, that of forced-migration research having to be simultaneously
policy-relevant and, perhaps even more importantly, policy-critical. This proposition is very much in
line with the argument in Bakewell’s (2008, 432) ground-breaking article on the need to push refugee
research ”beyond the categories” and highlighting ”the importance of policy irrelevant research
into forced migration”.
With this short reflective piece, then, I would like to turn my attention to this dual imperative in
conjunction with openly exploring the kinds of challenges I have faced whilst aiming to conduct
refugee research that is at the same time relevant for policy and policy critical.
It is crucial that, even though we collaborate with policy- and law-makers, we do not necessarily
take their concepts and categories for granted (in the context of deportations, see Pirkkalainen et al.
forthcoming). This is exactly the vital point that Bakewell (2008, 432) made many years ago already:
[T]he search for policy relevance has encouraged researchers to take the categories, concepts and
priorities of policy makers and practitioners as their initial frame of reference for identifying their
areas of study and formulating research questions. This privileges the worldview of the policy
makers in constructing the research, constraining the questions asked, the objects of study and
the methodologies and analysis adopted. In particular, it leaves large groups of forced migrants
invisible in both research and policy.
Hence, the essential task of critical scholarship examining (forced) migration is to precisely question
and problematise these policy categories and modes of governing. Yet our funding bodies or
collaborators may not agree on this point, and then it becomes also an ethics issue related to the terms
on which we are conducting our research, and for whom. In one of our seminars, our excellent keynote
speaker Anna Lundberg reminded of this with the ethics checklist that she had developed in the context
of refugee research, upon which we expanded in a blog piece on research ethics (Leinonen et al. 2020).
In that entry, we argued that it is important to reflect on the following issues, among others:
Who defined your research problem? What motivated you to conduct this research? For whom is
your study worthy and relevant, and who says so? How do you plan your project so that it promotes
the maximum benefits for the participants?
Furthermore, in that piece on research ethics in forced-migration studies, we posed the question of
accountability: to whom do we answer? I would argue that, as refugees and other forced migrants
often live in precarious situations and may be vulnerable, it is essential that we not just conduct
research about them but also aim to make sure our findings can contribute to more humane policy
approaches in order to enhance refugees’ protection. Therefore, I strongly align myself with the key
principle of not conducting academic research on refugees unless it is inherently for and, when they
desire this, also with refugees. That said, participatory approaches involving refugees are not suited
to all research contexts or topics, so their use should always include caution and critical self-reflection.
I return to this point at the end of the article.
What action can look like: examples from a research project on asylum seekers’
deportability
Moving on, I would like to ponder what ‘action’ in an action-oriented research approach may look like
– another issue Dr Refstie reflected on in her excellently critical keynote address. I will briefly look at
three examples of challenges and possible solutions that I faced in my recently completed research
project: 1) the attempt to collaborate with authorities, 2) the challenge of trying to pursue participatory
76 FENNIA 200(1) (2022)Reflections
research in the midst of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, and 3) considerations related to how I have been
rethinking research impact. I frame this critical self-reflection thus: I find that, if one is to learn and
develop as a researcher, these are precisely the moments and issues we ought to discuss more openly.
Firstly, one attempt to collaborate with authorities during this project had to do with our institute
organising a public lecture series on voluntary return migration to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia
jointly with the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) and the Finnish unit of the International
Organization for Migration (IOM). While I was in charge of chairing the seminar on return to
Afghanistan, the authorities told me, in essence, not to speak about forced deportations, only about
voluntary return – a phenomenon that was not and still is not taking place from Finland. Rather, in
autumn 2019, Finland was continuing to send people back to Afghanistan, mostly via charter flights. I
ended up ignoring the authorities’ instructions, for precisely that reason: in 2019, we had only forced
removals from Finland to Afghanistan; no one was returning to a conflict-stricken state on a voluntary
basis. I, my colleagues and our international keynote speakers, and the Afghan and Finnish activists
in the audience strongly agreed that we must be able to address the issue of forced deportation. We
attempted to negotiate this approach several times, from the very beginning of these events’ planning
and the choosing of international keynote speakers. We based our arguments on both research
findings and the actual on-going situation in Afghanistan.
All in all, whereas this collaboration allowed me to engage with the authorities in the attempt to
address policy-relevant issues, it was also an absurd experience. This was particularly striking when
the audience asked the authorities several questions regarding forced deportations and not one of
them, except the IOM representative, were ready to answer. Instead the audience, both in the lecture
hall and online, were advised to email their questions to Migri after the event. It became clear that we
did not share similar understandings of what the focus of this event should have been and what
terminology should have been used for discussing return to Afghanistan from Finland. To my surprise,
on the very next day after the streamed event, I received a phone call from a politically active Afghan
man living in Finland, previously unknown to me, who wanted to thank me for speaking about the
situation with the right terms – a reassurance that I very much appreciated. I should conclude my
related reflections, however, by recognising my stand-out collaboration with Migri in other situations.
Earlier in 2019, I had the absolute pleasure of the former head of the organisation acting as a
commentator in a book launch, and she showed exemplary willingness to answer a keen audience’s
questions. Moreover, I engaged with Migri with regard to my data collection, and I am truly thankful
for their time and willingness to explain to me how they run detention centres in Finland.
The second example is illustrated by the participatory art and creative-writing workshops that I
was supposed to organise in spring 2020 as part of my research project with poet-journalist Ahmed
Zaidan and photographer Rewan Kakil, excellent collaborators both originally from Iraq. As we were
planning these workshops, which would have engaged both people with a forced-migration
background and activists, the pandemic hit Finland. For me, cancelling them was first and foremost
an ethics decision related to the ‘do no harm’ principle: I did not want to risk participants’ (or our
teams’) health for the sake of obtaining interesting data and pursuing the original research plan. Early
in the pandemic’s spread especially, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants had straightforward
access to neither health care related to the pandemic nor preventive equipment, and the power
imbalance connected with access to health care influenced my decision not to hold these workshops.
It is truly disappointing that we did not manage to arrange them, but we were able to conduct a
smaller project, and Ahmed’s deportation-related poems and Rewan’s photographs are going to
feature in an anthology that my colleagues and I have edited (Pirkkalainen et al. forthcoming).
Lastly, what ‘action’ has meant for me in this action-oriented project has been the freedom to
engage in assisting asylum seekers and undocumented migrants in their legal struggles to gain
residence permits. I have been able to assist some of them in finding reliable lawyers, aid in the
preparation of their new asylum applications, and support a few of them in their asylum interviews.
As my actions have focused primarily on a handful of people, not on larger political campaigns, it is
necessary that we also reconsider what impact means with regard to this kind of research. I had the
pleasure of taking part in a meeting called in 2019 by my funding body, the Academy of Finland, where
we discussed the research’s relevance and impact. During this meeting, I ultimately argued that in
FENNIA 200(1) (2022) 77Eveliina Lyytinen
action research into asylum seekers’ deportability, we should rethink societal impact and revisit
whether in this context it may also include issues such as these: did we manage to put legal force
behind someone’s right to stay in Finland? Did we enable stopping an illegal deportation? Have we
fought for access to services that people might otherwise not have received? The funding body’s
representative responded well to this proposition of rethinking societal impact, and I hope to continue
the discussions to push the boundaries between academia and activism, which need not always be
clearly separated. After all, they cannot and perhaps even should not be (Marucco 2021).
Conclusions
As I conclude this reflection, I wish to reiterate my main message here: refugee research should be
conducted in solidarity with refugees and people who collaborate with them (activists and others),
but as scholars, or scholar-activists, we need to be self-critical, looking at which actions and approaches
are suitable and desired in particular contexts. Accordingly, there are no simple solutions in designing
and implementing action-oriented research for and with refugees. As Dr Refstie warned in her
insightful address, our self-critical approach must extend to how we conduct action or participatory
research. I would like to finish, therefore, with a rather thought-provoking quote from a peer-group
interview among activists that I conducted as part of my project. One activist with a forced-migration
background raised a critical point in mentioning how some activists or volunteers engaged in politics
– and this could be equally true in the research domain – have misused collaboration with refugees
for their own agendas and purposes. I quote this activist:
We have been speaking about how some lawyers have been using this [refugee] situation for their
own benefit. But I have seen also that there are others. In their title there may be the word
‘volunteer’. It can be with a good purpose, but then they may use the immigration agenda in a
selfish way for their own purposes. They will say what they’ve done to help immigrants, and they
bring this to [campaigning for] elections. Some just use the term ‘immigrant’ for their own purposes.
I have seen people who use volunteering for their own agenda. Of course, it is good that you can
use your expertise for others’ good, but those who have experience of forced migration and the
processes should be involved too and speak for themselves. (‘Heimo’ in a peer-group interview on
16.10.2019, translation by the author)
With my ARADE project having now come to an end, it is time to reflect self-critically on what has
worked well and what has not. This is essential for researcher-activists like me, who strive to improve
their ways of conducting collaborative research in line with ethically sound methods and to critically
engage with policy-makers for better, more human asylum policies.
References
Bakewell, O. (2008) Research beyond the categories: the importance of policy irrelevant research into
forced migration. Journal of Refugee Studies 21(4) 432–453. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/fen042
Jacobsen, K. & Landau, L. (2003) The dual imperative in refugee research: some methodological and
ethical considerations in social science research on forced migration. Disasters 27(3) 185–206.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-7717.00228
Leinonen, J., Lyytinen, E., Tiilikainen, M. & Kmak, M. (2020) Ethics of studying forced migration: critical
questions to consider. Liikkeessä Yli Rajojen 21.12.2020. 15.11.2022.
Marucco, C. (2021) Tutkijuus ja yhteiskunnallinen vaikuttavuus vaativat tilaa ihmisyydelle. Versus
16.12.2021 15.11.2022.
Pirkkalainen, P., Lyytinen, E. & Pellander, S. (forthcoming) Johdanto. In Pirkkalainen, P., Lyytinen, E.
& Pellander, S. (eds.) Suomesta poistetut – Näkökulmia karkotuksiin ja käännytyksiin, 7–26.
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