Quite a disappointing analysis of an interesting question (especially having read somewhere that it's the summary of a new book?). That there is an "obsession" is true. That the media's fixation on crisis narratives, nationalism and the research hype contribute to this obsession is also beyond evidently true. But this doesn't answer why this obsession occurs. The media hype, essentializing language, nationalism and complicit research are as much a result of this obsession as they are helping reproduce it.
Have we not established long ago that there is no such a thing as "migration facts"? There is a wealth of works showing that the whole idea of migration is only legible through a neocolonial-nativist logic that sees national borders as natural dividers of clearly delineated "nations". The reinforcement of these borders ("migration management") is a necessary tool in protecting the wealth and privilege of former empires from the very same people whose historical and ongoing (if more subtle) dispossession financed this privilege. That's why states need an obsession with migration - to justify the violent ways they defend their wealth and privilege, which is globally concentrated in a minority of white-dominant countries.
Scholten is here doing the same thing as de Haas and other respected migration scholars of peddling the myth that all that is wrong with migration governance is that the "facts" are ignored. Hence policies are not "balanced", "rational" and "evidence-based" - if only they could rely more on that research on "flows" and "categories" and "integration" that Scholten himself rightly sees as part of the problem. Why then ask for more evidence as a solution to this obsession, when evidence is reinforcing this rationale? I find this narrative - while evidently well intentioned - ultimately dangerous because it justifies migration as something objective, observable and solvable, therefore deflecting from its function of regulating racial capitalism.
Thanks for the response. As I agree with most of it I'm not sure what to say. I start in the very first section by saying "I will argue that there is much more to this fixation on migration than migration facts or the acts of radical and populist politicians", so precisely the point that is being made that it is not straightforward to speak of migration facts, nor of facts being decisive in complexity governance. I also refer consistently to the migrantization of problems, the role of migration language, and the proxying of migration from globalization (you can read global capitalism if you like). And I would certainly not call to a return to only rationalism in policymaking, but in replacing a migration debate with a more proportion, precision and perspective in how we stalk about social change more in general. Facts will not solve the migration obsession as the obsession produces its own truths. It was a bit disappointing that this was apparently not evident from the contribution.
Quite a disappointing analysis of an interesting question (especially having read somewhere that it's the summary of a new book?). That there is an "obsession" is true. That the media's fixation on crisis narratives, nationalism and the research hype contribute to this obsession is also beyond evidently true. But this doesn't answer why this obsession occurs. The media hype, essentializing language, nationalism and complicit research are as much a result of this obsession as they are helping reproduce it.
Have we not established long ago that there is no such a thing as "migration facts"? There is a wealth of works showing that the whole idea of migration is only legible through a neocolonial-nativist logic that sees national borders as natural dividers of clearly delineated "nations". The reinforcement of these borders ("migration management") is a necessary tool in protecting the wealth and privilege of former empires from the very same people whose historical and ongoing (if more subtle) dispossession financed this privilege. That's why states need an obsession with migration - to justify the violent ways they defend their wealth and privilege, which is globally concentrated in a minority of white-dominant countries.
Scholten is here doing the same thing as de Haas and other respected migration scholars of peddling the myth that all that is wrong with migration governance is that the "facts" are ignored. Hence policies are not "balanced", "rational" and "evidence-based" - if only they could rely more on that research on "flows" and "categories" and "integration" that Scholten himself rightly sees as part of the problem. Why then ask for more evidence as a solution to this obsession, when evidence is reinforcing this rationale? I find this narrative - while evidently well intentioned - ultimately dangerous because it justifies migration as something objective, observable and solvable, therefore deflecting from its function of regulating racial capitalism.
Thanks for the response. As I agree with most of it I'm not sure what to say. I start in the very first section by saying "I will argue that there is much more to this fixation on migration than migration facts or the acts of radical and populist politicians", so precisely the point that is being made that it is not straightforward to speak of migration facts, nor of facts being decisive in complexity governance. I also refer consistently to the migrantization of problems, the role of migration language, and the proxying of migration from globalization (you can read global capitalism if you like). And I would certainly not call to a return to only rationalism in policymaking, but in replacing a migration debate with a more proportion, precision and perspective in how we stalk about social change more in general. Facts will not solve the migration obsession as the obsession produces its own truths. It was a bit disappointing that this was apparently not evident from the contribution.