Andreas Pott on spatial reflexivity, feat. Christine Lang

From dreaming of Olympic glory on the track to reshaping how migration studies thinks about space and knowledge, sociologist Andreas Pott reflects on the intellectual detours and shifting perspectives that led him to question the very categories migration researchers take for granted.

He is joined by Christine Lang, whose work on skilled migration in the health sector illustrates what it looks like to step back from dominant policy framings and study how migration and the spaces around it are socially produced in the first place.

Guests: Andreas Pott, Professor of Sociology and Director, Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies, University of Osnabrück; Christine Lang, Researcher in Migration and Urban Studies, Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies, University of Osnabrück.

🎧 Follow Borders & Belonging on LinkedIn.

🌎 Have a question or episode idea? Email bordersandbelonging@gmail.com.

Transcript

Maggie Perzyna  

Welcome to Borders & Belonging, the podcast that explores migration through bold research, new ideas and stories that connect those findings to the real world. This season, we're talking with migration scholars whose ideas have left a lasting mark on the field. Then we dig deeper to uncover the past that brought them here, the turning points, lived experiences, and insights that shape the theories redefining how we understand mobility, borders, and belonging. Each scholar has been asked to nominate an up and coming researcher whose work they admire. In the chat, established voices and emerging thinkers come together in conversation to explore the connective tissue between the past, present and future of migration studies. From the personal to the political, from theory to practice, these conversations uncover not just what our guests study, but how their lives and work have helped shape the field and where they see it heading next. Today's guest is Dr Andreas Pott, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies at the University of Osnabrück, his work has helped reshape how migration studies approaches space, knowledge, and the categories we often take for granted. But long before he built that reputation, Andreas was chasing a very different kind of goal. As a teenager, he envisioned hearing his name in, or more accurately on, a different type of field. His passion was long jump and triple jump, and his talent took him around the world for a time. He even dreamed of making the Olympics.

Andreas Pott  

I discovered at some point, the age of, I think, 14 as well, 13, 14, that I had some talent for track and fields, for running and especially for jumping, and this is what became a big passion, really. Later on, I did all kinds of sports, and I specialized in a way on long jump and triple jump. So, I got so enthusiastic that I was part of a team, and we practice like four or five times a week, and became part of a circle that was supported in participating in national events. And the first international event that we went to was France and Israel and all this. And this was very motivating. And on some point, well, at the age of, say, 18, I was even dreaming becoming a professional sports person, and so I seriously considered whether the Olympics in Barcelona 92 were an option for me or not. But soon I had to realize I was simply too slow for this, because in triple jump as long as as well as a long jump, you have to be very fast and run have a pace that allows you to run 100 meters under 11 seconds. And however hard I tried, I never got faster than 11 seconds. So, this would have never taken me to an eight meters jump or 60 meters triple jump, which was the requirement to really be successful on the international level. I had to realize this and redirect my dreams. But this really was a big part of my youth, which I always look back with a lot of joy, really, because it was a great time and allowed traveling and training and practicing in teams and so on.

Maggie Perzyna  

Looking back, Andreas believes those early years helped shape the path ahead of him. It gave him freedom to explore and the confidence that anything he wanted to try was possible.

Andreas Pott  

My parents moved out of the bigger city, Düsseldorf, so we could spend a lot of time just outside, riding the bike, discovering the woods and so on, playing a lot. It was a pretty easy childhood, looking back, I would say, and we had a lot of security to discover things. I had two little brothers. We did a lot of playing, gaming. While my father had studied himself, my mother was within the chemical industry, and my parents were of educated background, and I surely benefited from this, I never doubted that I could achieve what I wanted to do. This security that you grow up when come from educated backgrounds, and it was just a normal expectation that you would continue doing this. You're not a social climber, and that comes, a life that comes with a lot of well, struggles in security when it comes to education and attainment and success, you just inherit this sort of both expectation and sort of security that you will do it somehow with time.

Maggie Perzyna  

Andreas sees his upbringing through a different lens, one that pushes him to question the status quo.

Andreas Pott  

What I do recall is having grown up in a rather, well affluent, and acquired environment. I always felt to have some responsibility to use this resource and this sort of padded upbringing, to give something back in a way, and need to question how some things work, and using this sort of privilege to contribute to ways to change the order of things in a way.

Maggie Perzyna  

As a young adult, new ideas and influences start to shape the way he sees the world. One mentor in particular led to a new way of thinking about culture, space and geography.

Andreas Pott  

My mentor was Peter Jackson, who became very influential in this intellectual movement towards a new cultural geography. Both his books, the one on race and racism, and particularly the one on maps of meaning, they highly influenced me. And this might have also been to do with the fact that he was my mentor, and we exchanged regularly, and I learned a lot from him, but also I started reading what he had written, and in many ways eye opening, this was a way of geography I hadn't discovered before. And I took this as a sort of baggage, intellectual baggage, and it really stayed with me for quite a long time, and inspired me to engage with directions and debates and fields of research that I hadn't discovered before.

Maggie Perzyna  

For Andreas, curiosity about the world works hand in hand with curiosity about people. That interest and desire for connection pulled him toward teaching.

Andreas Pott  

I'm very much interested in people, really. This might not immediately become clear, because I often have a strong interest in very abstract theories and very systematic theories, but I have hardly ever encountered someone who I found boring. I find people deeply interesting, really, however different and tiring or strenuous some of them are. But I have a genuine interest in people, and this was probably one reason why I always wanted to become a teacher. This was not because I found the subjects I studied so important that I had the sort of mission to convey them. But I love young people as well, so I wanted to, yes, spend time with them and get them understand things and and critical thinking and questioning and so this sort of engagement with mutual exchange with people and thinking together, thinking loudly, brought me into this teaching track really.

Maggie Perzyna  

Andreas has always been self aware. He recognized when a future in track and field became unrealistic. He understood the benefits of his upbringing, and although not a migrant himself, that didn't stop him from pursuing a future in migration studies. Instead, it shaped the way he approached it.

Andreas Pott  

Sometimes looking back, I found it interesting that I grew up in a sort of environment with researchers that were not migrants themselves, including me. I was not a migrant. I was never an international migrant. But nevertheless, I got interested in migration studies at a very fairly young age, really being inspired by global London and International Relations, and also the fact that migration issues were tackled and treated and examined in the academia in such a different way at this time than there were in Europe, continental Europe and Germany, that I thought, well, this is something you have to go after. And then later on, my wife became someone who I met during my PhD studies, and she's from Greece. So, indirectly, I became migrant as well. I've got now children with so-called migration background, as they're called, statistically, and this made me go to Greece regularly. We go to Greece once, twice a year. So I'm not a migrant, but through these family issues, I yeah, sort of, I'm very close to this biographically as well.

Maggie Perzyna  

Regardless of where Andreas career ultimately takes him. He hopes that the steps he took to get there are what people remember most.

Andreas Pott  

Well, intellectually, I think I'd be happy to know if people take the time and read what I thought through and try to develop, and if they would remember me as a person being very enthusiastic about not just developing, but discovering new ideas. And this is a very dialogical format, so I very much enjoy developing thoughts together and being inspired by exchanges with others. And this is how I learned a lot. And if this was part of my legacy, and you can also trace it in the way I pick ups ideas and try to take some things further. Another characteristic is probably that I love not just games, but the intellectual game really well. I like to play with arguments, and I take them very seriously. But it's type of competition like sports in a way, and so there are certain rules of the game, and you're not married to the argument, but it's for the sake of the argument that you can do the construction and and this is why I think you always have to be careful to essentialize when relating the argument to the person and the personality.

Maggie Perzyna  

For Andreas, the challenge of exploring new ideas isn't as much about reaching the final answer as it is about the conversations that move the ideas forward and those that help you get there.

Maggie Perzyna  

We've just heard about Andreas' path through migration research and how reflexivity sits at the center of his work today. Now we're joined by Dr Christine Lang, researcher in migration and Urban Studies at the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies at Osnabrück University, Germany. Christine's work examines how space, power, and everyday life influence mobility. Together, they'll help us understand what spatial reflexivity looks like in practice, and how it can open up new ways of understanding migration. Thanks so much for joining me today.

Andreas Pott  

Thank you, Maggie. 

Christine Lang  

Thank you for having us, Maggie.

Maggie Perzyna  

When you talk about being reflexive in your work, what does that actually look like in your day to day, research or teaching? Andreas?

Andreas Pott  

Well, the way you put it is quite a good way to address it, because so often reflexivity is just addressed in a way that is sort of a statement, is a kind of disclaimer. But what we actually try to do at our Institute and at our Centre, is to make it a day to day element of research. You know, last year we set up a big research endeavor on the production of migration. This comprises fifteen sub-projects, many researchers, we realized that examining the production, what we call the production of migration, which is starting with the social existence of migration, that we then try to understand better how it comes about, how it's been molded and changed and so on. And doing so, you encounter that migration research is a co-producing force. This is why studying societal production of migration, we feel, is closely entangled with what is called the 'reflexive turn in migration studies', and this is why we set up a so-called Reflexivity Lab in our research center. This is to consider the daily involvement of research and researchers in the ongoing societal production of migration. And we came to do so because at our Institute, the IMIS Institute, in Osnabrück we've collected several years of research experience, especially in applied research, not just fundamental research that we try to carve out now, but also applied research. So IMIS was approached by various actors of civil society. It's like media journalists, policy makers, NGOs and so on. And among those, there have constantly and repeatedly been city administrations, regional administrations, and they sort of approached us to develop ideas for how they should treat migration integration concepts, for instance, how to deal with refugees and so on. So, trying to help them to do applied research to find out ways to improve their approaches. But in doing so, you start realizing that you sort of reproduce those categories and established ways of addressing things that deserve some criticism as well. This is why we try to collaborate in a way that we manage to, step by step, change views that are being established by, for instance, concepts of integration that often only look at the integration of those who migrate. So, this is why we felt it is time to step back a little bit and also question the usual questions we addressed with our approach\ with and question the assumptions of our work and our concepts. And this is how the idea came about to set up research project geared towards fundamental research migration. Research does not only create knowledge and reflect on, say, methods and concepts and approaches. This is, in a way, something you would expect from social science research, but we believe that migration research does more through its daily, well, you could say epistemic practices. It contributes to the very production of the forms of migration that are under study that we try to understand better. We try to explain migration or related to other social objects and constellations. So in a way, we give something like status reports on the development of migration, migration affairs and societies. So, in this way, we contribute to the societal production of migration, and have a certain responsibility in acknowledging this.

Maggie Perzyna  

Christine, what are your thoughts?

Christine Lang  

S,o in terms of my research, for me, it's especially thinking about the questions I ask and the categories I use. So where do they come from? What assumptions do they imply? How are they maybe influenced by a political and societal discourse, and how can I, as a researcher, take an analytical, scientific stance that does not reproduce common political perceptions of problems and possible, expected solutions to these. For example, I can describe this with regard to my current work on skilled migration in the health sector, which is a highly debated issue in Germany and in Canada and also many, many other countries where there are shortages in the health sector. And health sector relies a lot on internationally mobile nurses and doctors. This is a category of migrants that is perceived as desired. So, there are policies trying to attract these desired health professionals, and it's often contrasted, then, to the so-called undesired, irregular, unskilled migrants. And this is also a category of migrants where it's often related to the question, so how can we can attract them? So, how we can best benefit from these health professionals? For me, like to be reflexive means in this context, to not use these categories and ask these questions, but rather to investigate how they are used, how they are negotiated by all the actors that are involved in this migration, and what are the effects of this categories and of these kind of perceptions in terms of access to the labour market, inclusion and exclusion to the job, As Andreas said, to study the production of this migration. So, to take this analytical step back, and also, then, of course, try to not use the same concept categories questionings that are there in the field, but to study how they come about and what they do.

Maggie Perzyna  

Andreas, looking back on your early work, is there a point where your perspective shifts, where you start to see mobility, or the categories around it in a new way?

Andreas Pott 

Thinking about these steps and points I think they all have to do with changing perspectives, with changing contexts, in a way. I remember when I went to London as an undergraduate student, it was not just a different country, a completely different place than Bonn, where I started in Western Germany, where I started my degree, but it was also a different academic way to teach and learn geography. I, for instance, encountered Peter Jackson, then later founder of the new culture geography, and what he introduced and what he told me was that there's so much more to say about segregation and socio-spatial distributions and cities than I used to learn beforehand. He called his approach 'maps of meaning', and he was trying to understand better all the meaning production that comes with segregation patterns and the production of urban segregation. And this was, in a way, challenging the classic way of studying migration in cities. I learned very much through this shift of perspective, in a way, being back in Germany and for my PhD, I went for field work to the inner city of Dortmund. So, I went there and did ethnographic field work, and doing this in one of those districts, inner city districts that are often labeled as problematic, this was eye opening in many respects. For instance, I remember I went to one of those so-called ethnic clubs of a segregated group. And in sciences and migration studies, these associations or clubs, they're usually addressed as, or conceived as being elements of a so -called ethnic colony. So, you would expect that you would encounter something like the performance of ethnicity or culture, or however you would like to call it, and what I encountered was something completely different. I became aware how potentially dangerous this assumption is. That within such a building, within a club, within a district that you encounter something like the essence of a certain group of some ethnic identity or so on. And this is what we often call in research the spatial trap. You learn about the dangers and the misleading interpretations of this spatial perspective if you're not aware of these sort of deterministic assumptions that come with spatial references. Another influence was a linguist colleague who listened to me in some of my presentations when I often refer to migration space, and then he said, "What do you actually mean when you refer to space"? Is it sort of a descriptive category or category of practice, or is it an analytical category? And at first, I didn't even understand the question, what was he referring to? And on this pathway, what was very helpful is to start reading social theory. I was attracted most to these theories that did not start with the usual assumption that, for instance, many geography textbooks start with that is that space matters. So, what I learned is, through this sort of detour, that what it takes to produce spaces, that it is an achievement to produce spatial forms. And this would was what took me, then where I started distinguishing different ways to observe space, the way we observe space, and then the way that you can observe other observers observing space. So in a way, it was like several influences, several steps in a way, that were needed to make me realize how productive it is to think about space in a slightly different way than I used to learn it.

Maggie Perzyna 

Christine you said that the space you work in, your institute, your classroom, even the region you're based in, shapes how you ask questions? Can you share a moment when your surroundings changed how you thought about migration?

Christine Lang 

On the one hand, space is socially produced. We first of all have to ask whether it matters at all, and why and how it matters. I experienced this, for instance, during my university studies a bit similar to Andreas, and it actually strongly influenced my interest in doing migration research, because I studied university studies in Freiburg, which is a nice, traditional old university town in southern Germany. It's green, it's wealthy, it's also white in the city center. I did also my university studies at the time where German politicians still denied that Germany was a country of immigration, so early, 2000s, so and then I went to Paris during my studies, which was obviously not only a very different city where global migration was very visible, also racialization was prominently visible, but also very different national context of debates on migration. So, at the time when I did my studies there, it was a time of violent uprisings in the [?] of immigrant [?] that was promised quality as French citizens, but experienced everyday racism and discrimination. So, the debate was very different from the German debate. So this moved to another context, another spatial setting, and the everyday experiences there that drove my interest to study migration, and especially also the question how migration and race are socially produced.

Maggie Perzyna  

You've each worked and studied in different places, London, Paris, Osnabrück, Frankfurt. How does being based in a particular place influence the kinds of questions you ask? Andreas?

Andreas Pott  

Well, I think we gave some examples already that not necessarily the place itself makes the difference, but the people and opportunities you encounter, and what also matters is the way that social objects that populate the world, that we live by, that they are not established in a similar way everywhere. I just spent a few months in Toronto at the CERC Migration, the Global Migration Institute as a invited Scholar of Excellence and what I encountered there was the constant reference to communities, an expression, and I would say even the concept, that is relevant in migration studies in Canada and in the US, in some other context, but in a very different way than it matters in many parts of Europe and also in Germany. And Germany communities are not as relevant in research as they are in Canada, and that tells you a lot about the framing and the history of becoming a social object that then influences the way you ask questions and do research. I was often asked, "so what way do you relate to communities in your research"? And this is the question, that you would not be asked often in Germany, yeah? You realize, and you experience this kind of framing, this kind of discourse, you start wondering, what do they actually mean? Do I refer to communities, or would I use different notion and then you start adjusting your research perspective a little bit. So, in this way, I realized again, how much the location, also of research centers matters.

Maggie Perzyna  

Christine, for you, space isn't just an idea. It's classrooms, communities, cities, and the power dynamics inside them. How do you help students or colleagues start noticing the spatial blind spots that are often overlooked?

Christine Lang  

In terms of space for students, often the blind spot is space itself, because space is just there, so it's a category that is often not further thought about. So, this is a starting point to make students understand this. And it's not just one space which is just there, but this entails so many different spatialities. I often take the example of so called immigrant neighborhoods to illustrate this. On one hand, there are bounded spaces. So, there's a neighborhood, there's a kind of territory which is perceived as to have some administrative boundaries. There are also places that are made through transnational mobilities and connections. Doreen Massey, a famous British geographer, has written about this, how actually a certain neighborhood is the product of so many interrelations and connections, also globally, but they are also product of power relations. So, which play out in their material infrastructures, but also in the discourses that stigmatize or racialize these neighborhoods. So, we can think about all these various spatialities that produce whatever immigrant neighbourhoods are. So, this is an example which often also connects well with students own, not so much experience, but rather the discourse that they encounter in everyday media about specific kinds of neighborhouds that are stigmatized or racialized.

Maggie Perzyna  

Both of you have influenced each other's thinking. Christine, you build on Andreas' approach to space. Andreas, you learn from newer perspectives in the field. How do you see that exchange shaping your work, and what does it teach you about learning across generations in migration research? Andreas, maybe let's start with you. 

Andreas Pott  

Well, I think this is an essential and daily practice, really, that we do. I mean learning across generations, collaborating, but also across many other boundaries, across disciplines, across contexts, as we just referred to, across different positionality social backgrounds, but also mobility backgrounds. So in a way, I think we benefit a lot from the diverse diversifications of researchers. Let them be younger ones, female, male, social background, global perspectives that come through migration experiences and so on. I think these interrelations are most fruitful when they actually are performed or experienced as a true collaboration. If you design together a research question or research project, if you write together. Christine and I, we just finished a special issue on the spatial reflexivity, and this helped us really to think through some assumptions that we were not totally clear about at the beginning, we wanted to reflect on the space of migration research, but we ended with a programmatic suggestion how to address spatial reflexivity in a much more profound way that we started, and this sort of collaborating and doing research together, this really takes you somewhere and is full of interesting surprises and potential. I think one aspect we often overlook is that we should invest more time and energy in reading across generations. We keep forgetting what has been written and developed already. We often don't find time to do so. But this is a way of learning across generations, at least for the younger ones, reading what the other ones have thought through some some while ago. And this is often very, very useful.

Maggie Perzyna  

Christine?

Christine Lang  

I would emphasize the interdisciplinary aspect of the exchange. This was actually also how I came to like this thinking at all, because I didn't study geography, I studied sociology, and I didn't think a lot about space. So, when I started my PhD and started working with Andreas, so that's actually how I started reflecting upon space, also kind of interdisciplinary dialog, explicitly thinking about perspectives from sociology or specific sociological theories about geographical approaches. And I think this now continues also when we work here in our interdisciplinary research institute, where the new questions come up from colleagues that are not trained geographers, but they deal with some questions where space matters. And then in this exchange, you kind of develop your own argument, your own thinking. You'll think about concepts and theories that might help thinking through these issues. So, I think this interdisciplinary exchange also is very important for migration research and as for other research.

Maggie Perzyna  

So, as we wrap up the conversation looking ahead, where do you see the most interesting opportunities to rethink how space and mobility fit together in migration research? Andreas?

Andreas Pott  

We take neither as given, neither space nor migration, but understand space, migration as forms, as social forms that need to be established, sustained, reproduced, and so on. It is very worthwhile thinking about and studying into the interrelation of these two types of productions. And so what we try to understand better is how migration is brought about, how migration is societally produced through the production of spaces. And this leads you to several questions of the co-production of spaces and migration, and this is an essential research question that we try to shed light on, using various examples and cases, and case studies and all this helps us to understand better what it could mean that society produces migration. So, in a way, it's a study of society more than a study of just one type of migration, or a group of migrants. And this is what I think is is very important for the future, to break open the field of migration studies and to conceive as much more as a study of society, a study of contemporary or past societies, and to understand the mechanism, the processes and the effects, the impacts of producing migratory forms.

Maggie Perzyna  

Christine, you get the last word.

Christine Lang  

Another perspective, as I think is very important now for future research, is to think about our own knowledge production. So, what we already talked about and about the role of space in this, what we call the spatial reflexivity, which is, on the one hand, how we as researchers kind of co-produce these spaces of migrations ourselves by looking at specific things, disregarding others, using specific concepts and categories that are always also referring to spaces, but then also the, what we call the geographical situatedness of our knowledge production. So, how spaces in which we are situated in shape the way we produce knowledge, and this also especially, but not only, with a focus on knowledge is produced in the Global North, the dominant knowledge, the knowledge that is disseminated, that is perceived as to be legitimate knowledge, whereas other knowledges that are produced, for instance, in the Global South, are much less visible. And this has to do with the situatedness of knowledge production and the power relations in which this is based. So, I think this is also a very important line for future research on the role of space and mobility.

Maggie Perzyna  

Well, thank you both for a wonderful conversation and for reminding us that the questions we ask always affect the answers that we get. But before I let you go, we're going to do a quick little lightning round. I'm going to throw out some questions and just give me the first thing that pops into your mind. Ready? Okay, all right, your favourite book, Andreas

Andreas Pott  

Luhmaan, Social Systems.

Maggie Perzyna  

Christine?

Christine Lang  

Bourdieu, Distinction.

Maggie Perzyna 

You guys both went theoretical. Okay, what policy buzzword should disappear? Andreas?

Andreas Pott  

Illegal migration.

Maggie Perzyna  

Good one! Christine? 

Christine Lang  

Integration problem.

Maggie Perzyna  

Nice!

Maggie Perzyna  

Favourite place you've done field work or research, Andreas?

Andreas Pott  

Street corners. 

Maggie Perzyna  

Nice.

Christine Lang  

Christine? 

Christine Lang  

I cannot count on the street corners. It's difficult. Music Festival

Maggie Perzyna  

Awesome.

Maggie Perzyna  

And the last one, what is one thing that you can't learn about you from your CV. So, this could be like something you do outside of work, and it doesn't have to be overly original. Don't worry. Andreas? 

Andreas Pott  

I love mathematics.

Christine Lang  

Christine?

Christine Lang  

How challenging life as an academic is when you at the same time have kids and family.

Maggie Perzyna  

That's very fair. All right, I think we've made it all the way through. Thank you so much.

Andreas Pott  

Thank you for preparing this. 

Andreas Pott  

Yeah, thanks a lot.

Maggie Perzyna  

Thanks so much to Andreas Pott and Christine Lang for joining me today, and thank you for listening. This episode was produced by Toronto Metropolitan University journalism student, Kristian Cuaresma, alongside executive producer Angela Glover. Special thanks to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and CERC Migration for making this conversation possible. If you're enjoying Borders & Belonging. Follow us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you, get your podcasts and share your thoughts with us on LinkedIn. For more on today's conversation, check out the show notes. I'm Maggie Perzyna. Thanks for listening.