Open AccessHumanizing Refugee Research in a Turbulent World
Author(s) -
Oliver Bakewell
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
refuge
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.485
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 1920-7336
pISSN - 0229-5113
DOI - 10.25071/1920-7336.40795
Subject(s) - dehumanization , refugee , perspective (graphical) , sociology , frame (networking) , epistemology , political science , environmental ethics , social psychology , psychology , law , philosophy , anthropology , computer science , telecommunications , artificial intelligence
This essay adopts a critical perspective of the idea of humanizing refugee research. It argues that much social scientific research is intrinsically dehumanizing, as it simplifies and reduces human experience to categories and models that are amenable to analysis. Attempts to humanize research may productively challenge and unsettle powerful and dominant hegemonic structures that frame policy and research on forced migration. However, it may replace them with new research frameworks, now imbued authority as representing more authentic or real-life experiences. Rather than claiming the moral high ground of humanizing research, the more limited, and perhaps more honest, ambition should be to recognize the inevitable dehumanization embedded in refugee research and seek to dehumanize differently.