Artwork: Surian Soosay

Migration scholars, look no further. A new website and blog by the AMMODI network offers a meeting place for academics and practitioners within the migration field.

“One of our objectives is to narrow the gap between research and policy”, says NAI researcher Jesper Bjarnesen who co-founded the AMMODI network with migration scholar Franzisca Zanker in July of 2017.

AMMODI stands for African Migration, Mobility, and Displacement, three thematic areas within migration studies, and is connected to the Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies (AEGIS), which has a growing number of thematically defined collaborative groups.

The website’s main feature is a blog, where researchers can showcase their work in a lighter format than in traditional academic settings, Bjarnesen explains. The blog posts will be placed under three categories: Research notes, Policy notes, and Notes from the field. The first is for ongoing or forthcoming research; the second for reflections on the policy implications of the research, and the third is about methods and research ethics – something which is particularly important when working with vulnerable or marginalised groups

.“The site should be useful for researchers to showcase their work, but also to come into dialogue with policy experts. There is so much political debate about migration issues today, we hope that a site devoted to nuanced and in-depth understanding of migration, mobility, and displacement in all its diversity may be useful for a broad range of readers and not just academic specialists”, Bjarnesen says, and continues:

“By following the blog you will get a regular dose of diverse perspectives on migration-related research – and probably read reflections that you would not find elsewhere.”

In addition to the blog, the site offers a list of upcoming migration-related workshops and conferences, and a growing list of websites and institutions working with similar issues.

Mattias Sköld

nai.uu.se