Researching Migration

Catalog description

This seminar introduces students to the practice of qualitative research on international migration. The course combines the in-depth study of human movement, state migration governance, and citizenship with an introduction to the basic elements of qualitative research design in political science. In other words, what do we know about migration, and how do we know it? Students will learn about concepts and measurements, case studies, ethnography and interviews, text analysis, and historiography, and how these topics and methods are applied to produce new knowledge about migration governance, forced displacement, citizenship, and immigrant integration. Through a series of exercises, students will practice using different qualitative methods, and reflect on how they might adopt these methods for larger-scale research in the future. Students will write research designs that can be applied to future projects or grant proposals. This class may be of particular interest to students who would like to do qualitative political science research for an undergraduate thesis, graduate school, or in a future research career.