Giving justice to migrant storytellers is about reciprocity.

We tell stories of injustice because we hope to incite change. How to protect migrant storytellers from exploitation by researchers and other story harvesters when you are asked to give access to them

Why do humans tell stories? ‘Often, we explain and express so that we can be seen or so that others can empathize with us’ wrote Amanda Gorman in a collection of opinions about the same question. This is true, especially for stories about hurt.

The bigger the hurt the greater the need to be heard and seen.

When we tell stories of hurt, we want the hurt to stop or to never happen again to us or someone else. This has been my experience organising conferences, panel discussions, and gatherings on migrant rights. Whether we were meeting to discuss migrants’ political participation, local integration strategies, or diversity in arts there were always participants who just wanted to tell the story of injustice that fell upon them, regardless of whether that story was related to the meeting subject or not.

A few years ago, I received an email from a university lecturer I knew with a request for help in accessing migrants’ stories. One of her students wanted to write their thesis about the experiences of migrant students. First, I thought she wanted to interview me as one of the experts in this field. After a few emails back and forth the misunderstanding was cleared. As a person holding a leadership position within migrant communities, I could open gates for those seeking access to the communities. I was asked for my connections because the researcher knew not even one migrant. It wasn’t the first time I received such a request. There was however a different reaction on my behalf than ever before. Perhaps it was because I knew the lecturer acting as an intermediate and I felt I could speak my mind about why this was not right. I wrote an email with my concerns captured in 4 points.

Following that correspondence exchange, I was invited by that university lecturer to speak on a panel on the subject of the decolonising curriculum. My contribution was that decolonising curriculum must include changing knowledge production practices. Especially when it relates to producing knowledge about minoritised communities. Dr Ebun Joseph who participated jointly with me on that panel added that as a researcher, she understands the need for conducting interview-based studies. As a migrant and one of the leading racial justice experts in Ireland, she, however, was very ambivalent about providing access to marginalised people to retell their stories of marginalisation to researchers. She even compared that to slave trading. Radical? I wouldn’t say so.

Extracting people’s stories for personal gains resulting in career progression is nothing more than the colonisation of people’s experiences. Asking people to commit time and to perform emotional labour without providing them with any form of compensation is a form of exploitation.

It is true that researchers must comply with the ethical code, however, the ethical consideration is usually limited to ensuring a voluntary and willing participation in research and the subsequential use of harvested stories. Ethical consideration for the impact of the emotional labour, time commitment, and invested hopes for change is not part of ethical planning.

We tell stories not only to explain or to be heard, but we also tell stories to incite change.

Researchers claim their work populated by migrant stories can benefit the community by influencing policy-making. There is a long way from extracting stories from marginalised communities and policy making. Meantime, the benefits weigh only on the side of the researchers in the form of career progression, published papers, etc. This is the key issue I have with researchers, and other story harvesters asking migrants or other marginalised people to help them meet their goals without much consideration for reciprocity.

As a person involved in policymaking, I understand the importance of research. We need evidence to form policies. As a migrant and a campaigner, I however do not want to participate in replicating systems of migrant exploitation.

Research fatigue is the effect of harmful knowledge production practices that not only relate to the frequency of being asked to contribute stories for researchers. Research fatigue can also happen due to the type of issue being explored and whether it has the potential to benefit the researched community. Grace Huckins wrote an excellent article explaining how research fatigue can happen and what are the potential solutions to this issue. An article worth reading by anyone who is harvesting stories to power their research. The article pays attention to the participatory research method where members of the research community are involved not only in conducting the research but also in designing the research question and methodology. I am all for any practice that recognises that personal experience can become expertise. Prof Sunny Singh also gives valuable tips on how to conduct ethical writing about marginalised communities.

Here is my contribution to the topic. These are the 4 points of concern that I wrote to the university lecturer and their student. If you are a researcher here are 4 steps to consider before you start seeking migrant stories to populate your research. If you are a person holding a position of leadership in the community, also consider those 4 steps before providing access to migrant stories.

1)      Positionality.

Ask yourself/the researcher if you/they are the right person to conduct the research. Are there researchers who are invested in this issue beyond academia (e.g. personal experience, strong ties with the community)? Leave that topic to them.

2)      Connection.

If you decide to do the research don't just parachute yourself into the community to extract knowledge and personal experience. Build connections with the community first. Invest yourself beyond academia. Invest your emotional labour too.

3)      Reciprocity.

Offer something in return. Your research may help policy change in the future, but people hope for a change now. That's why they take part in your research. Think creatively about what you can offer in exchange but also ask the community what they need. E.g., if you are researching the labour integration of migrants, organise an interview techniques workshop; help someone get an internship or a job; organise fundraising for a community project; source a venue for an event; etc.

4)      Angle.

Consider doing the topic from a different perspective. E.g. if you're interested in the integration of university migrant students, flip the angle and research non-migrant students and staff about their approach. Let's stop making integration only a migrant duty.