Rethinking Archiving and Oral History in Queer Migration Research

• In Event: Methods and Theory in the Sociology of Sexualities

Abstract

This paper offers a methodological intervention into oral history and archiving in queer migration research by interrogating their conventional emancipatory claims. While oral history and community archives are often framed as democratic tools that amplify marginalized voices, feminist standpoint theory (Harding, 1991; Collins, 2000), critical race methodologies (Delgado Bernal, 2002), and decolonial thought (Mignolo, 2009) remind us that methods are never neutral. In migration contexts, oral history frequently mirrors the epistemic logics of the nation-state: linear temporality, narrative coherence, and regimes of credibility that discipline refugee and migrant testimony.
Drawing on queer methodological interventions (Browne & Nash, 2010; Murphy, Pierce, & Ruiz, 2016), this paper advances three propositions. First, it argues for moving beyond linearity by valuing fragmentation, silence, opacity, and refusal as legitimate forms of knowledge rather than methodological deficits. In high-stakes asylum and migration contexts, such gestures challenge chrononormative expectations and bureaucratic demands for consistency. Second, it interrogates the blurred boundary between researcher and participant, proposing relational and shared interpretive authority as alternatives to extractive models of expertise. Third, it conceptualizes slowness, care, and community ownership as methodological infrastructures. Inspired by queer and post-custodial archival practices (Lee, 2015; Haritaworn, Moussa, & Ware, 2018), the paper argues that governance structures, ethics policies, authorship practices, and circulation protocols are themselves epistemological decisions.
Ultimately, queering and decolonising oral history and archiving is not about adding diversity to established methods. It requires rethinking qualitative inquiry itself—its assumptions about rigor, neutrality, temporality, and authority—and treating methodology as a site of epistemic struggle, relational accountability, and world-building within migration research.

Author

• Ahmed Hamila, University of Montreal