Tuesday 16th July
Wednesday 17th July
Thursday 18th July
Friday 19th July
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Mixed Methods in Migration Research: Challenges, Innovations and Applications 3 |
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| Convenor | Dr Rossalina Latcheva (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights) |
The pleas for improvement in the quality and quantity of the data available for the study of migration are not new. In 2009, the expert group of the Centre for Global Development even specified a handful of practical and politically feasible priority actions that could be taken by institutions to greatly expand the availability, quality and quantity of the information about the movement of populations across the globe. What is new is the beginning of an intensified methodological debate on the necessity of interdisciplinary or mixed methods approaches and methodological innovations in migration research. This becomes visible in increasing publishing activities such as the release of edited books (e.g. "Handbook of Research Methods in Migration" in 2012) or of special issues in peer-reviewed journals dealing with issues of migration and the combination of methods necessary to catch its complexity. Well-known migration scholars, economists, social geographers and scholars in transnational studies persuasively show that in order to build more holistic and comprehensive approach to the study of migration we require more sophisticated and broadly conceived sets of methods grounded in an interdisciplinary framework, i.e. the complexities and nuances of transnational lives require triangulating research.
The aim of the proposed session is to bring together researchers that try to overcome the weaknesses of more traditional approaches to migration by relying on multiple instruments and methods for analysing populations different to define, catch and follow, and which are marked by multiple and shifting identities. Since the use of mixed methods may cause tensions and faces its specific challenges, the exchange of knowledge and experiences during the conference are of particular importance. The session organizer is going to make efforts to (co)edit successful contributions and make suggestions for a special issue in e.g. Journal of Mixed Methods Research.
The aim of our research is to shed light on return intentions of the North African migrants in Italy. Return intentions are directly linked to the integration in the receiving country but also to the migratory project that is behind the initial migration and to the presence (or absence) of family members in the country of origin (or destination). The latter may imply the so called "pendulum migration" (de Haas H., Fokkema T., 2010), i.e. migrants that spend a part of the year in their country of origin, even if they reside legally in Europe where they spend the rest of the year. Finally we are going to explore if the events of Arab springs changed the return intentions of North African migrants.
In order to answer to our research questions, we will use a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. First of all, we will lead a quantitative multivariate analysis on return intention of North Africans migrants in Italy. Data stem from the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) of 2009, that is the Italian wave of an European wide survey on living and income condition of migrant and non migrants. Logistic regression will be performed with the aim to understand the main reasons of return intentions. Qualitative analysis based on interviews to North Africans migrants in Italy will be used to better understand the "pendulum migration" phenomenon and the consequence of Arab springs on return intentions.
Most migration surveys do not ask about the legal status of migrants due to concerns about the sensitivity of this question. List randomization is a technique that has been used in a number of other social science applications to elicit sensitive information. We trial this technique by adding it to surveys conducted in Ethiopia, Mexico, Morocco and the Philippines. We show how, in principal, this can be used to both give an estimate of the overall rate of illegal migration in the population being surveyed, as well as to determine illegal migration rates for subgroups such as poorer or richer households. Our results suggest that there is some signal in this method: we find higher rates of illegal migration in countries where illegal migration is thought to be more prevalent, and we find that households who say they have a migrant are more likely to report having an illegal migrant. Nevertheless, some of our other findings also suggest some possible inconsistencies or noise in the conclusions obtained using this method, as we suggest directions for future attempts to implement this approach in migration surveys.
It is estimated that descendants of immigrants represent 10 % of the France's population (Breem, Borrel-Breuil). These estimates are made through the Labor Force Survey and a specific study called "Trajectories and Origins". The Population Census, one of the main source of information about immigrant population, doesn't allow to estimate the number of second generation migrants in France. If the sources cited above identify them perfectly, they are not useful for a local estimate. This study aims to make a methodological overview before making an estimate of the number of descendants of immigrants by local areas.
Two sources are used: the Population Census and the Labor Force Survey. In the first part, we're going to give an overview of former estimates and sources used. Secondly, we're going to compare and choose the best explaining variables available in both sources. Then, we're going to make a "Fay and Heriot" model of the target population (descendants of immigrants) for France, by NUTS 2 ("régions"), according to variables available in the Labor Force Survey such as immigrant population number, characteristics known as descendants related (housing,…) and usual demographic characteristics (sex, age,…). At last, we're going to give some estimates according to the best model used on the Census data.
In August 2011, the killing of a black young man by the police triggered a series of violent riots across England. While direct references to ethnicity were avoided, ethnic diversity was an apparent feature in public debates and media depictions of the riots. The present study relied on a mixed method design to examine how agreement with the official discourse was related to individuals' ethnic diversity attitudes during these tumultuous events. First, a content analysis was performed on four official speeches delivered during the riots. Although ethnicity was barely mentioned, distinctions between a virtuous ingroup and dangerous outgroups linked with references to stereotypes of ethnic minorities were constantly made, justifying harsh measures against rioters. Then, based on data (N = 233) collected online during the riots, we examined the relationships between individuals' agreement with the content of the speeches and ethnic diversity attitudes. Two complementary methods were sequentially used to measure individuals' agreement: In addition to a scale directly assessing agreement, we evaluated, by means of automated content analysis, the similarity between the official speeches and the comments provided by the participants (N = 99). Regression analyses showed that agreement was related to negative ethnic diversity attitudes. Moreover, the more participants blamed diversity for the riots, the closer to the speeches their comments were. Overall, the use of mixed methods was necessary to not only capture the meaning of agreement with the official speeches, but also to confirm its consequences for ethnic diversity attitudes.