What makes an expert? Doing migration research in Denmark

ABSTRACT

What makes a migration expert? Taking Bourdieu’s understanding of the academic field as its point of departure, this article outlines the field of migration research in Denmark. Migration and integration are heavily politicised topics in Denmark as in many other countries. The migration field has also been influenced by this politicisation. The migration research field is an open field which means that academic knowledge producers are not the only actors within this field. Neither are they necessarily the ones recognised the most. The article outlines different types of experts which in different ways signal a change of hierarchies within the field. Not the only one but the dominating ones. The last years we have seen a research field characterised by different academic positions but also an expansion of the field with an increased importance given to boundary organisations. The article discusses what the implications for doing migration research might be.

KEYWORDS:

• Public sociology
• migration
• integration
• research-policy nexus
• knowledge production
• Denmark

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for the constructive comments from the reviewers. I also express my gratitude to the special issue editors this article belongs to. Thanks for all your work starting at the Nordic Migration Conference in Oslo.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.