Words on expertise

In the context of migration, the difference between the words expertise and experience captures the struggle for recognition and agency.

I reflect on the meaning of words often, a side effect of bilingualism. To reflect on the meaning of words is to reflect on the meaning of what words are seeking to define.

One of the words I often reflect on is the word expertise. Expertise is the sibling of the word experience. Both have the same prefix ‘ex’ meaning ‘out of’ and the core ‘per’ meaning ‘to try, to risk’. Despite being close relations there is a difference between the words. One means theory and the other means practice. In the context of migration, that difference captures the struggle for agency and recognition.

As a woman, often I am denied agency and recognition of my thoughts and knowledge when I am mansplained about history, politics, and life. I have a similar experience as an Eastern European when I am westsplained about history, politics, and life. Nothing however measures to when I am expertsplained about my experiences as a migrant woman.

Seating down to write this post I had to plough through lots of anger before I could get to a constructive flow of thoughts. I am angry that expertise is usually associated with academic or other professionally recognised credentials. I am angry that migrant expertise is considered only a personal experience. I am angry that as a migrant woman, I am asked to share my experience which is then colonised as someone else’s expertise.

Things definitely have changed since I started working in the migrant rights space, especially post the BLM movement. Perceptions started to shift about the place for so-called authentic voices in powering social change. There is a change in how philanthropy and funders demand evidence of including experts from the target groups in drafting programs’ content and implementation strategies. This may indicate recognition of agency.

However, when we are invited to the table, it is our experience not expertise that gets us the invitation

One of the many times when my expertise was reduced to a personal experience happened when I was invited to speak at a launch of an important national document in relation to the integration framework in Ireland. Despite my lengthy years of work at a national migrant rights organisation I was introduced as a migrant woman who was there to share my personal experience with integration. My professional expertise was omitted. Non-migrant professionals were there to offer their expertise to link my experience with that document’s content. I was there to add the authentic voice which somehow was less valued than the academic voice of theory.

Migrant and refugee leaders often are faced with the situation where our contribution is reduced to sharing our story whereas others are asked to give those stories meaning. Our expertise is less valued because it comes from our experience and not books. Our stories are taken away from us to become someone else’s expertise.

Be aware of how authentic voices are included in shaping public narrative and policymaking.

Be aware of the advisory committees too. This is another space where migrants and refugees are given a glimpse of recognition and agency at the cost of diminishing the value of our expertise.  

With the demand for including authentic voices, the solution applied are temporary constructions loosely attached to institutions. Structural changes in power dynamics are not part of solution-seeking efforts to truly include authentic voices in powering social change.

I have been often invited to participate in advisory committees which I have gladly accepted as this is a good opportunity to directly impact policy-making and service provision. I gladly accepted those invitations because I had the means to participate. As a staff member of a national migrant rights organisation expenses associated with my membership were covered by my employer.

It is an entirely different story for those migrant and refugee leaders who are engaging in advocacy on a voluntary basis or working for underfunded grassroots organisations. In both cases, their fee-free membership in advisory committees means that these migrant and refugee leaders must invest their resources to contribute to creating the integration framework. At the same time, consultants are paid hefty fees to harvest the expertise of the migrant advisory committee members to advance their own knowledge and benefit financially.

I always tell my fellow migrant and refugee leaders when we discuss whether we should ask for a fee for our knowledge, ‘someone is getting paid for your expertise, it’s just not you’.

You may say that other advisory committee members also participate for free. That’s not entirely true. Similar to my experiences, those who can include committee participation in their work duties are paid for their expertise by their employers. Those who organise and coordinate committees are also paid for their expertise by their employers. Those who bring their expertise from grassroots experiences are the only ones who are not paid for bringing essential knowledge and analysis to the table.

This is not an argument for monetisation of migrant experiences but an argument for equal recognition of our expertise. Platforming migrant and refugee authentic voices without platforming the power of our leadership is not inclusion but colonisation of our stories. Paying everyone else but migrant and refugee leaders for our knowledge is exploitation. Differentiating between the expertise of experts depending on their migration status is another form of maintaining unequal power dynamics.

Migrant and refugee leaders have limited access to meaningful platforms to impact policy and legal change. It is hard to say ‘no’ to invitations to decision-making tables as a way of protesting the undervaluing of migrant expertise. Advancing change however requires taking risks in calling out injustice and insisting on respecting common values. Taking risks, however, is nothing new for migrants and refugees. We took the risk of crossing borders, languages, and cultures and that’s the essence of our expertise. After all, to have expertise is to have knowledge ‘out of trying and taking a risk’. In the process of calling our injustice, we are gaining another layer of expertise in navigating the politics of recognition.