Convivial Visual Research with Mobile Workers and Migrants in the Polish-German Borderzone: Opportuinites and Challenges

By insisting on participatory character of knowledge creation, convivial research wants to enact reflexive and a more ethical and democratic social science in settings which are characterised by power asymmetry. Our research is located in Brandenburg, the region bordering Poland, where many daily and weekly commuters find employment in logistics (Amazon, Zalando) and industry (Tesla Gigafactory). They are attractive, for cheap and flexible workforce whose precarious condition is increasingly a concern to trade unions and counseling services. To understand these workers’ lifeworlds and how they are shaped by migration industries, we use a mixture of creative, multimodal participatory methods. Rather than just documenting their practices, we invite the participants to envision with us their convivial futures using modes of creative expression proposed by themselves. In this contribution, we reflect upon the question whose futures are envisioned through collaborative research. We consider our role as researchers at different stages of professional careers (doctoral, postdoctoral, professorial), interest in our research from local, regional and national politicians, expectations of NGOs and community organizations that our research can make a difference, and the participants’ – both mobile workers and local inhabitants’ - capacities and readiness to engage in politicizing their own current and future situation. We thus address how convivial research could be the moment of opportunity for transformative politics. Our focus therby is on the questions of the limits of participation, asymmetries of collaboration in research, and ethical responsibility in research-based future-proofing contemporary politics.