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Doing Migration Studies with an Accent

Speaker: Prof. Shahram Khosravi, Stockholm º£½ÇÉçÇø

Abstract: In this talk I use accent not in terms of a linguistic meaning but rather as a position. Accent as verb means to speak forcefully, to emphasize, and to accentuate. Accent means also breaking, a disruption of mainstream language. Accent reveals gaps and cracks in the otherwise imagined intact language, conversation, thinking. Accent as method offers a way to smash what otherwise is imagined as a whole and homogenous and thereby it highlights conflicts, contradictions, and disagreements. Accented-ness is a response and a reaction to the condition of coloniality that structures the processes of knowledge production. I use ‘accent as method’ to frame my critique of knowledge formation in the field of migration studies.

Bio: Shahram Khosravi is professor of Anthropology at Stockholms º£½ÇÉçÇø. His research interests include anthropology of Iran, forced displacement, border studies, and temporality. Khosravi is the author of several books such as : Young and Defiant in Tehran (2008); The Illegal Traveler: an auto-ethnography of borders, (2010); Precarious Lives: Waiting and Hope in Iran, (2017); After Deportation: Ethnographic Perspectives, Palgrave (2017, edited volume); Waiting. A project in Conversation (2021, edited volume), and Seeing Like a Smuggler (2022, edited volume).  He has been an active writer in the international press. He is a co-founder of Critical Border Studies, a network for scholars, artists and activists to interact.