Time as Method in Migration Studies

The Mobilities Research Cluster at Saxo is delighted to invite everyone to a talk with Melanie Griffiths (University of Birmingham) on time and migration. Please stop by, no sign-up necessary.

Abstract

We are at a pivotal moment, in which border crossing and refugee protection are under unprecedented political attack. It is in this context that I believe we must critically assess the purpose and practice of academic migration research, including the potential of a temporal lens. The field of time and migration has exploded in last decade, leading to what has been described as a ‘temporal turn’ in migration studies. However, there is a risk that time becomes a ‘fashionable’ metaphor, but an empty tool of migration studies. Time is everywhere and everything; simply identifying the place of time in mobility governance will change little. In this talk, I introduce the concept of ‘time as method’. I suggest that we approach time not as a free-standing subject of study per se, but as a lens through which to study society, power, and politics, by offering a way into better understanding and communicating individual experience and governance mechanisms. I will argue that a time as method approach offers hope: to go beyond documenting and theorising about what's happening now, to transformatively unmake hierarchies and expose exclusionary temporalities, so as to articulate alternative future systems and framing logic. It offers arguments for wider social justice and solidarity by demonstrating that the problems (and solutions) lie with systems not individuals, by re-politicising and de-naturalising the debate, and by providing a new language for advocating fairness: society’s moral responsibility to make time equally stable, self-determined, valued and valuable.