SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Recently, a colleague ‘cited’ me in a German newspaper article. The problem is, however, that I literally have never said the sentence that was ascribed to me in that newspaper article. I assume this misquotation comes out of a desire for categories and boxes that is projected onto my knowledge production. I do understand this need for certainties, which comes with the struggle of naming structural violence. How can we find words that are strong enough to make clear that people are being killed because they are being read as migrants? However, my conceptualisation of migratism is epistemological and not ontological—it is not about boxes, but rather about critically examining the ascription of belonging to a certain category.