Methodology, Objectives, and Takeaways

Rethinking how we study migration

This resource not only bridges contemporary and historical perspectives on migration, but also reshapes how we think about Ukraine and Eastern Europe in broader scholarly debates. Among its core innovations are:

• Temporal depth: It places current migration dynamics into a long historical continuum by showing how concepts such as refugeehood, governance, and return were shaped.
• Diversity: it engages reflections upon Ukraine’s cultural, confessional, or linguistic diversity and its importance in the context of migration and displacement.
• Interdisciplinarity: It blends history, sociology, political science, memory studies, and digital anthropology to provide a multi-perspectival understanding of migration.
• Decolonial orientation: It challenges Eurocentric migration narratives by foregrounding subaltern actors, local infrastructures, and Eastern European perspectives often sidelined in global scholarship.
• Methodological experimentation: The module provides tools such as digital ethnography and participatory research, which are particularly relevant for conflict-affected and postcolonial contexts.
• Reflexivity and ethics: Authored primarily by Ukrainian scholars working under conditions of war and displacement, the module advocates for an ethical and situated approach to knowledge production.

This innovation is not only educational, but also conceptual in nature. It equips learners to question static categories (like ‘migrant’ or ‘refugee’), critically reflect on their research practices, and understand how migration intersects with broader political and societal transformations.

What are the learning objectives of this resource?

After working through this resource, learners will be able to:

• Explain Ukraine’s historical and contemporary roles as a hub for emigration and immigration.
• Identify and analyze multiple forms of mobility, including immobility, emigration, displacement, deportation, and return.
• Critically assess how migration categories are created, imposed, and contested.
• Understand the challenges involved in collecting and interpreting migration data, including how such data can be politicized by various actors.
• Critically examine the visual politics of migration, exploring how images and representations shape public perception and political discourse.
• Compare state and non-state actors in migration governance across time periods.
• Apply interdisciplinary approaches and innovative methods to research on migration.
• Reflect on the ethical and political implications of conducting migration studies in conflict zones.

These objectives serve not only students of Ukrainian history or migration studies, but all learners seeking to engage with critical, global, and justice-oriented perspectives on human mobility.

Conceptual Takeaways

At its core, this resource is about reimagining how we study migration. The conceptual takeaways of the resource are the following:

• It resists static models of refugee flows, normative classifications and assumptions about ‘home’ and ‘return’, and simplistic binaries between state and society, past and present, or East and West.
• Instead, it offers a dynamic, layered approach that foregrounds experience, agency, and the shifting infrastructures of mobility.
• Focusing on the hybridity and evolving nature of civic activism and volunteering in the context of migration and displacement reveals how such practices foster new forms of cooperation, support integration, and contribute to broader social transformation.
• This approach draws upon theoretical developments in migration studies, border studies, media studies and the sociology and history of displacement.
• It foregrounds the power relations embedded in migration regimes, challenges the reification of legal or scientific categories, and invites a deeper reflection on how displacement shapes and is shaped by space, time, and knowledge-production.
• By using Ukraine as a focal point, the resource generates new insights into global migration debates on bordering, exclusion, citizenship, and humanitarianism. Ukraine is not simply a case study but a lens through which to view the intersections of empire, conflict, resilience, and mobility.
• This focus destabilizes North–South binaries and adds analytical depth to discussions of how regional, national, and transnational actors engage with the politics of movement.
• Moreover, the resource demonstrates how the tools of the digital humanities and the ethics of participatory, situated research can enrich academic inquiry, particularly in conditions of armed conflict and violence. The attention to researcher positionality and the lived experiences of the displaced reflects a shift toward more inclusive and collaborative forms of knowledge production.
• Finally, this resource highlights the value of historical perspective in migration studies. The early NGO-led governance models, refugee aid networks, and imperial and totalitarian state migration regimes discussed in the historical units remind us that forced migration is not a recent phenomenon. Understanding its longue durée allows us to see patterns and ruptures that shape today’s crises.

We hope that engaging with these eight units will not only inform but also challenge and inspire readers to approach migration as a lived existence, a realm of political questions, and a broad analytical field.