Unit 3: Possibilities, Limitations and Politicisation of Migration Data [FORTHCOMING]

Summary

What kind of migration data exist? Who collects it, how and for what kind of purposes? What are the sources of migration data, their possibilities and gaps? How did migration measurement tools evolve in the digital era? Do they help to overcome previous data limitations? How and why is migration data so often politicised? Can migration data be “objective” and “neutral”? Addressing these core questions this topic gives an overview of the current state of migration data infrastructure in the world, its possibilities and limitations. It alerts readers to the fact that any widespread political use of migration data should be critically and cautiously analysed.

Author: Lidia Kuzemska

(Student Assistant: Eduard Lopushniak)

Lidia Kuzemska is a sociologist with interdisciplinary interests in forced migration, internal displacement, borders, and citizenship. She received her PhD from Lancaster University in 2022, with a dissertation focusing on internally displaced persons in Ukraine. Kuzemska is a 2024-25 Prisma Ukraïna fellow at the Forum Transregionale Studien and serves as the academic coordinator of the research group “War, Migration, Memory.” Kuzemska’s research interests primarily focus on the following areas: forced migration, internal displacement, borders and border studies, citizenship, war and memory.