INMI: Interpreting Inequalities in Transnational Migration Societies

Project Website: Researching Discrimination with Citizen Science

Ethnoracial discrimination and stigmatization are difficult to grasp both in everyday life and in research, as they are often hidden behind naturalizations or justified with different rationales and intersectional categories. By involving people with different horizons of knowledge and experience in the analytical process, the Top Citizen Science project aims to deepen the sociological understanding of ethnoracial exclusion including the perspectives and interpretations of citizen scientists – thus expanding the interpretations of the academic researchers.

We organise interpretive workshops in which non-sociologically trained persons (who in part are themselves potentially affected by racism and ethnic discrimination) will participate. The aim of these workshops is, on the one hand, to contribute to a better understanding of racism by bringing a variety of perspectives into the analysis and thus opening the scope of interpretation by developing and discussing potentially more diverse and complex readings and interpretations. Thereby, we assume that research should be conceived as a communicative process and that the multiplication of perspectives fosters knowledge production. Also, we assume that this approach fosters the critical reflection of us researchers in regard to the embeddedness of research in racialized societal structures. On the other hand, the participants in the interpretation workshops should also benefit individually from the participation in the Citizen Science project by experiencing empowerment through a (deeper) understanding of structural discrimination mechanisms. We assume that the active participation of citizens can improve the quality of research and increase its social relevance. In general, we offer the participants the opportunity to participate in different phases of the research process, including the planning and implementation of the presentation of results at the end of the project.

The proposed extension project has great potential to make an innovative contribution to methodological development, as the involvement of citizens in interpretation workshops is still exceptional in qualitative social research. Also, we aim to contribute to a better understanding of ethnoracial exclusion, as knowledge created in fundamental research can serve as a basis for anti-racism policies. Moreover, the main target group of CEE migrants is still largely unexplored in terms of racism.

Project period: 2025

Subsidy grantor: Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [TCS 150]

Article about the Project: FWF Newsletter

Upcoming Issue in Social Inclusion: „Multilingual Challenges: Empirical Social Research in Migration Societies, Transnational Spaces, and International Contexts“

We live and research in societies that are characterised by multilingualism. Hence, working with a large number of research questions also implies reaching people who do not necessarily speak the official or local language(s) at a level required for study participation. Additionally, multilingualism matters when adopting a transnational research perspective as well as in international and cross-country comparative research projects; for example, collaborating with interpreters or translating questionnaires play a major role. How this multilingualism is dealt with varies in practice and depends, among other things, on the research question, research approach, the (financial) framework conditions of a project and the linguistic skills of both the researchers and those being researched. However, the literature has not yet adequately addressed several ensuing methodological challenges in the multilingual research context.

This thematic issue aims to help bridge this gap by focusing on, inter alia, the following questions: What methodological demands does multilingualism pose for researchers in both quantitative and qualitative designs? What challenges arise across the phases of the research process—from access to the field, data collection, field work and interpretation to presenting and publishing the results, as well as with regard to quality assurance and research ethics? How do power relations and language hierarchies impact the research process and, consequently, the produced knowledge?

Based on these questions, this thematic issue addresses the distinct features of empirical social research in the context of multilingual migration societies and examines approaches to managing associated difficulties and strategies for quality assurance. Contributions should provide insights into methodological approaches, interdisciplinary collaborations, research practice and therefore also emphasise the potentials of multilingual research.

Editor(s): Clara Holzinger (University of Vienna) and Anna-Katharina Draxl (University of Vienna)

Submission of Abstracts: 15-31 January 2025
Submission of Full Papers: 15-31 June 2025
Publication of the Issue: January/March 2026

For more information: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/pages/view/nextissues#MultilingualChallenges