Migration policies and knowledge production

This workshop examines the intersection of Critical Race Theory, postcolonial and decolonial studies, and migration studies, focusing on how migration policies perpetuate inequalities. Presenters offer diverse perspectives on racial hierarchies in migration governance. The workshop explores how decolonial thinking and an intersectional approach help understand global migration dynamics. Participants reflect on theorizing from a context-dependent perspective, acknowledging the agency and life stories of migrants facing dehumanizing immigration regulations.

Racial and gender categories of inequality

Dr. Nodira Kholmatova and Dr. Lucia Direnberger's presentation critiques how migrants' experiences inform the analysis of racial and gender inequalities in post-Soviet Central Asia. They challenge myths about the 'Soviet development’ project, analyzing qualitative data on Tajikistani and Central Asian populations in Russia. The paper problematizes the category of a migrant as a decolonial tool to discuss inequalities in socialization and adult lives. It questions current academic and policy debates that homogenize migrant accounts, especially after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Migration Studies

Dr. Faten Khazaei's work, "Racism in/through Migration Studies," addresses critiques of Migration Studies' role in problematizing migrants. The paper links this to the limited attention to race and racism within the field, arguing for explicit discussions on racism. Drawing from Critical Race Studies and Postcolonial Studies, it suggests lessons to avoid contributing to a racial order of things and challenges the neocolonial and racist governance of immigration in Europe.

About the speakers

Dr. Faten Khazaei is an Assistant Professor in Sociology and Criminology at Northumbria University, UK. She is currently on a research leave as a Marie Curie Fellow at KU Leuven at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology in Belgium. She is an interdisciplinary scholar by training who works at the intersection of gender studies, critical race studies, but also sociology of migration, institutions and violence.

Dr. Lucia Direnberger is a researcher in sociology at the Laboratory of Gender and sexuality studies (CNRS). Her work focuses on the relationship between power relations, nationalism, and imperialism, particularly in Tajikistan and Iran. She also studies women's movements in postcolonial contexts and hierarchies within the production and circulation of knowledge on women and gender.

Dr. Malika Bahovadinova is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Amsterdam and a political anthropologist working on migration, bureaucracy, and development. She focuses on these themes, exploring the politics of representation and colonial legacy and the changing content and normative ideas of citizenship. She conducted ethnographic research with high-ranking officials in migration bureaucracy and migrant workers in Tajikistan and Russia. Recent publications include Before the Law: Policy, Practice, and the Search for the ‘Prepared Migrant Worker’ in the Transnational Migration Bureaucracy, in The Central Asian World, (2023); In the shade of the chinar: Dushanbe’s affective spatialities (2020). She has also completed her book manuscript Making Migrants: The International Bureaucracy of Labour Export.

Dr. Nodira Kholmatova is a postdoctoral researcher on the Reintegrate project at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research(AISSR) of the University of Amsterdam. She is a sociologist with a Ph.D. in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute in Italy. She researches return migration and reintegration processes in Serbia, the Philippines, and Central Asia. She has extensive expertise in migration research in Russia and Central Asia. Her recent publications focus on female return and reintegration, family migration, and global visa regimes.