From interculturalism to inter-recognition: towards an ethico-onto-epistemological approach in migration research

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Migration policies and social science research tend to describe and stratify migrants according to bureaucratic and legal categories, which prevent the understanding of the complexity of migration as a process of recognition. Having in mind the migration of healthcare professionals to a semi-peripheral country like Portugal, this paper critically debates ‘multi-inter-cultural discourses’ and the asymmetric power relations it envisions. The case study under analysis reveals the production of different types of migrants’ disqualification (‘overstayers and irregulars’, ‘non-native’, ‘overqualified’, ‘underemployed’ and ‘non-human beings’) and the invisibilities that it promotes (socio-institutional, discursive, educational, professional, alterity). This article is influenced by the recognition framework as a critical approach and the decolonial proposal of an ‘Ecology of Recognitions’ [Santos, B.S. 2014. Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. London: Paradigm Publishers]. In my view, this dialogic and comprehensive expression represents a turning point concerning the replacement of ‘culture’ as the core domain to embrace the socio-political construction of ‘difference’. A new framework for the ‘ethico-onto-epistemology’ of migration studies is therefore suggested: an inter-recognition approach. This could be an added value for the understanding of the wastage of human diversity as a process of loss of human dignity.