Last semester I took a class on international migration (political science and migration studies). A core tension in the course (and readings) was a debate surrounding the source(s) of migration.

The data make it fairly clear who migrates. Of course, there is certainly room for improvement there, as essentially all the pieces from this week discuss—there are data visualizations, collections of narratives, mapping projects, databases, and other creative means for examining whom migration affects, and how. This is key information that has the potential to help reshape narratives about the people who migrate, and to undo the harmful beliefs the masses have been conditioned to internalize about the “other.”

The core contradiction I observe in these data, though, is that they fall short of describing the underlying conditions which make migration necessary. In some ways, this missing link is reminiscent of the discussion points I brought up in my post last week: it is not enough to collect and present the data, whether in mapped, narrative, or database form—arrangers of data should not be congratulated simply (or even complicatedly) because they did the arranging. Rather than seeing the arrangement as an end in itself, it should be considered a means to a more politicized end, one that awakens political consciousness and builds explicit links between the visualized phenomenon and the conditions which created the phenomenon itself. In the same way, I think more must be done to address the central problems that the act of migration represents. People are not migrating in a vacuum, and so to understand why migration happens, we must assess the interactions of historical, current, ideological, and material conditions, all of which lead to people needing or feeling the need to move from one place to another. With this understanding, and if we agree we don’t like that people migrate for these reasons, we can build strategies for confronting and undoing the systems that cause the issues to arise.

To be even more specific: exceedingly few of these sources explicitly name/discuss the formations of capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism, the operation of which necessitate movement. When the land, labor, and resources of a person’s home are stolen in the name of capitalist/imperialist conquest, and remain out of reach due to colonial domination, it makes sense that the person would then feel compelled to leave (to the extent they are able to do so). For this not to factor into the conversation is very troubling! I searched various subtopics in the Migration Research Hub’s “Taxonomy” database, and only a very small number of articles contained any reference to capitalism or imperialism. (For instance, the “Economic and business conditions” subtopic only returned 13 of 694 articles that contained the word “capitalism.”)

I argue that the reason this matters is because when a project does not discuss these underlying conditions, it prevents the project’s political potential from being fully realized. The Undocumented Migration Project, for instance, is extremely powerful: it is a living testament to the people who have died in an attempt to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, ostensibly in search of improved material conditions and an opportunity to survive. I believe this project (and others like it) would do everyone a service by refusing to situate itself solely in the 1990s—there is a mountain of capitalist/imperialist/colonialist history undergirding the U.S.-Mexico border that demands interrogation and education. Not only would a more historical-materialist approach be more likely to unlock the political potential of this and other projects, but it would also be a great model for learners to see how to deeply analyze a problem and understand its roots.

I want an end to borders, an end to forced migration, and an end to the underdevelopment of places around the world that worsen material conditions for billions of people. I see the projects surveyed for this class as amazing steps in that direction, but believe further politicization of them would create even more conditions for change.