Licence to leave: the 'had-to' device as a method for producing normative accounts of migration

Abstract Migration has been theorised as an act motivated by pull and push factors often linked to structural determinants of human behaviour. This article contributes to the critical literature on migration with its examination of individual accounts of migrations to South Africa. The present study utilises conversation analysis and discursive psychology to analyse five interviews with foreign nationals currently residing in South Africa. The findings suggest that individuals constructed accounts that oriented to their migration as a non-normative act, and provided no-fault accounts that eliminated desire and preference from their decision to migrate. In particular, participants routinely use the 'had-to' device as a method for constructing normative accounts of migration. These findings are significant because they demonstrate a participant orientation to migration as an accountable action, displaying some of the interactional practices for 'doing accounts' of migration that are both embedded in, and constitutive of, a shared moral order.