Studying Migration through Visibility? Method, Invisibility, and the Politics of Digital Migration Research A Review of Doing Digital Migration Studies: Theories and Practices of the Everyday
Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing 526061, Guangdong, China
Abstract
This critical book review examines Doing Digital Migration Studies: Theories and Practices of the Everyday (Leurs & Ponzanesi, eds., 2024), a landmark edited volume that explores how migration is increasingly mediated, studied, and governed through digital technologies. The review contends that the book makes a significant contribution by reframing digital media not as neutral research tools but as ontological conditions that shape migrant experiences, while simultaneously emphasizing everyday practices and methodological reflexivity.
Drawing on a diverse range of empirical cases—from digital kinning among migrant families to platform-based negotiations of identity—this volume presents migrants as active agents within digitally mediated social worlds. Simultaneously, the review advances three critical interventions. First, it questions the methodological accessibility of digital migration research, highlighting how undocumented migrants and digitally disconnected individuals risk being rendered invisible due to survival-driven practices of digital silence. Second, it interrogates whether reflexivity alone can dismantle entrenched power asymmetries between researchers and subjects, particularly within Global North–Global South knowledge hierarchies, where empathy risks becoming a paternalistic mode of knowledge production. Third, it raises concerns about the blurred boundary between academic research and migration governance, warning that scholarly analyses of migrants’ digital practices may be appropriated for surveillance, securitization, and biopolitical control.
Despite these unresolved tensions, the review concludes that Doing Digital Migration Studies represents the most comprehensive methodological contribution to the field to date. Its enduring value lies not in offering prescriptive solutions but in cultivating a critical “toolbox of self-doubt” that compels researchers to recognize methodology itself as a political practice with material consequences for migrants' lives.
Keywords:
Digital Migration; Visibility and Invisibility; Methodological Reflexivity; Migration GovernanceData Availability Statement
Not applicable. This study is a critical book review and does not involve the collection or analysis of empirical data.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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ponzanesi, sandra. (2024). Doing Digital Migration Studies. Theories and Practices of the Everyday. Amsterdam University Press. https://doi.org/10.5117/9789463725774
