Multisensory approaches in migration research : reflections and pathways

The rapidly developing field of visual methods and growing body of literature employing visual methodologies in the collection of data have contributed to the acknowledgement of the senses with a prevalence of sight in the research process. Yet, the ‘sensuous scholarship’ is not always considered in the systematic methodological process when visual methodologies are at stake. The aim of this paper is to problematise this stance in the context of the particular field of migration research. Our aim is to ‘de-essentialise the visual’ by presenting cases from our studies on immigrant communities in Norway, Turkey, Israel, and Portugal, and to exemplify how the embodied knowledge gained by both the researcher and research participants can contribute to research findings. We argue that sensuous experiences are part of researchers’ positionality and influence the intellectual outcomes of our work. We support this stance with four claims that relate to a researcher's physical presence in the field. We claim that (1) our work suffers an intellectual bias, (2) our geographical bias influences the interpretation of sensory experiences, (3) we tend to overstudy groups for which we have sympathy/empathy, and (4) the sensing scholar does physical labour. As for the perspective of research participants, we argue that the attention to their sensory experiences may bring knowledge on important aspects of their livelihoods and can give in-depth insight into micro, meso, and macro processes the respondents are entangled with. We claim that (5) senses influence the inclusion-exclusion dynamic, (6) senses are drivers of ethnic boundary maintenance, and (7) emplacement is mediated by senses.