Refugee Research Methodologies: Consolidation and Transformation of a Field

It may seem paradoxical that a Special Issue on Refugee Research Methodologies is being published at a time when the very category ‘refugee’ is sidelined in favour of other publicized terms such as asylum seeker, irregular migrant or undocumented migrant, or is subsumed under emerging academic taxonomies such as the asylum–migration nexus (Castles and Loughna 2005). Conceptual clarification is a prerequisite for any methodological approach adopted, while doing research on any subject. For the purposes of this Issue we are choosing the concept ‘refugee’ as the key term to synthesize the varieties of issues relevant to forced migration research. Refugees are becoming an ‘endangered species’, with fewer individuals being officially recognized under the 1951 Refugee Convention (UNHCR n.d.; USCRI n.d.) and permanent protection being replaced by temporary protection. At the same time we observe a trend that fewer doctoral theses are written on refugees specifically or on specific groups of refugees.