The Refugee-Migrant Distinction and the Need for Bridging Analytical Divides in the Historiography

Abstract

Abstract This epistemological article discusses the existing and potential historiographic connections between the history of refugees and migration history, which are increasingly regarded as two separate fields of knowledge. It focuses on how this dialogue could help scholars overcome the analytical divisions between migrants and refugees through decentred and self-reflexive approaches. By drawing on the overlooked familiarity of migration historiography with refugees and on its robust experience with deconstructionist challenges, historians have all the tools to historicise ‘refugee-ing’ processes instead of essentialising the ‘refugee experience’ and reinforcing unwarranted epistemic separations. In crafting new analytical models to this effect, historians will have to reckon with the colonial genealogy of contemporary refugee-making.