Governing with Knowledge: Decentring Migration, Gender, Race and Policymaking In a Global Context

In an era of mass displacement, political polarisation, and growing anti-immigrant sentiment, knowledge production on migration has accelerated. However, this knowledge frequently reproduces gendered, racialized, and Western-focused geographical and mainstream hierarchies that determine which forms of migration expertise are deemed legitimate (Gren, Abdelhady, and Joormann 2024). This session advances the reflexive turn in migration scholarship by critically examining the entanglement of knowledge production and migration policymaking through an intersectional, global lens. This panel seeks to dismantle gendered, racialized, and Western-focused epistemic hierarchies. We shift the analytical focus toward global contexts, exploring how migration governance and ‘expert’ knowledge are produced across diverse geographical and policy contexts.

Drawing on critical feminist epistemologies, we aim to interrogate the production of migration knowledge as an inherently political, non-linear process. We will discuss how gender, race, class, and sexuality act as co-constitutive dimensions that shape both knowledge production and its translation into policy. We invite proposals that transcend Western-centric mainstream paradigms to explore configurations of the knowledge-migration policy nexus globally. Contributions are welcome on:

1. Intersectional reflexivity in migration knowledge production

2. The mobilization of gendered and racialized knowledge claims in local, national, or transnational migration governance;

3. The role of civil society and alternative epistemic communities in contesting dominant knowledge claims and policymaking.

By bridging reflexive migration studies and critical gender epistemology, this session builds a framework for analyzing how the migration knowledge production functions as a dynamic site of power.