Montag, 14. September 2026, 14:00-15:30

Keynote Panel I: Rethinking Knowledge Production and Relevance

Chair: Helena Segarra, Institute for Urban and Regional Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences

Fataneh Farahani, Department of Ethnology, History of Religions, and Gender Studies at Stockholm University

Migration Studies and Its Others: From Migrant-Centred Research to the Study of Migration Knowledge

In my opening talk for this panel, I trace the entanglement between my scholarly trajectory and migration studies as a field of knowledge production embedded in Eurocentric epistemic structures. I examine how migration scholars navigate regimes of epistemic ignorance while simultaneously contributing to the formation of the very field they study. I argue for moving beyond migrants as the primary object of inquiry toward an analysis of how migration-related discourses—such as hospitality and hostility, integration and disintegration—shape social and epistemic orders within host societies through the racialized and gendered logics that organize belonging and exclusion. Situating this within critiques of Global North–dominated epistemic hierarchies, I reflect on the conditions under which certain forms of knowledge become legible and authoritative, and how these conditions are themselves constituted through racialized and gendered regimes of recognition.

Anna Amelina, Chemnitz University of Technology

After Methodological Innocence: The Politics of Relevance in Migration Studies

Relevance in migration studies is neither self-evident nor politically neutral: it is contested, constructed, and inseparable from the epistemological and institutional conditions under which knowledge about migration is produced. Drawing on reflexive scholarship that challenges the field’s dominant Eurocentric orientations, this presentation argues that reflexivity and critique are inseparable, and that migration studies generate genuine social relevance not through political neutrality, but through sustained engagement with the power relations it studies. Central to this argument is the analytical tool of ‘(un)doing migration’, which scrutinizes the institutional labelling practices that construct ‘migrants’ as a governed population and determine their legal status and life chances. The talk further situates knowledge production within the university as a site of colonial and androcentric domination, insisting that institutional self-critique is a precondition for emancipatory research. Drawing on theoretical pluralism, the talk proposes a multidimensional conception of relevance that is simultaneously political, epistemological, ethical, and historical. These arguments suggest that migration research which combines these dimensions is not a weakened or politicized version of the discipline, but a more rigorous and socially responsive scientific field.

Montag, 14. September 2026, 18:00-19:30

Podiumsdiskussion I: Haben wir versagt? Zur wachsenden Distanz zwischen Migrationsforschung und politisch-medialer Debatte

Moderation: Judith Kohlenberger, Forschungsinstitut für Migrations- und Fluchtforschung und ‑management (FORM), WU Wien

Diskutant*innen:

Rainer Bauböck, EUI, Florenz

Marcus Engler, Deutsches Zentrum für Integrations- und Migrationsforschung (DeZIM), Berlin

Solmaz Khorsand, Journalistin, Autorin und Podcasterin, Wien

Wiebke Sievers, Institut für Stadt- und Regionalforschung, ÖAW, Wien

Peter Webinger, Innenministerium, Wien

Nie zuvor wurde so viel Wissen über Migration produziert wie heute. Dennoch findet dieses Wissen in die öffentliche Debatte und in politische Entscheidungsprozesse nur begrenzt Eingang. Das Panel fragt daher nach den Ursachen der zunehmenden Kluft zwischen Migrationsforschung, Politik und Medien – und danach, wie sie sich verringern lässt. Migrationsforscher*innen aus Österreich und Deutschland diskutieren gemeinsam mit Vertreter*innen aus Medien und Verwaltung über den Beitrag wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse zur Politik, über erfolgreiche Formen der Zusammenarbeit sowie über strukturelle Hindernisse für eine wissensbasierte Auseinandersetzung mit Migration. Zugleich richtet das Panel den Blick auf Leerstellen, Herausforderungen und zukünftige Entwicklungen der Migrationsforschung im deutschsprachigen Raum und darüber hinaus. 
Die Diskussion findet auf Deutsch statt.