Decolonizing Migration Studies: A Du Boisian/Decolonial Perspective ¹

Abstract

This essay addresses my current thinking on the question of the decolonization of the sociology of migration. Coloniality in knowledge production means that knowledge systems are founded in the ways of seeing created by colonialism. To decolonize a field means to think beyond these ways of seeing. This essay first identifies the key ways through which coloniality is expressed in the sociology of migration and then it presents an alternative decolonial approach based on the sociology of W. E. B. Du Bois. I show how this approach may reshape the field by a critical examination of my own work.