In the Global Induction, fellow scholars will remember a member of the Advisory Board telling us that starting her research felt like being dropped without direction in the middle of the ocean, and having to pull on strings until one gave way. I can certainly sympathise with her now: these first three weeks have tested me in ways I didn’t expect, and challenged all of my assumptions about what this research period would entail.
After the first couple of days of research, I quickly clocked that a comprehensive analysis and comparison of 2 countries’ immigration policies, which include integration and citizenship for example, as well as the obvious entry/exit policies, would simply not be feasible in neither 6 weeks nor 3000 words. To gain some more background knowledge, I also read Alan Manning’s book, “Why Immigration Policy is Hard”, which, whilst being admittedly indispensable, filled me with apprehension and reinforced the enormity of the issue I was tackling. Hence the first challenges arose. How would I narrow my focus? How would I prioritise high quality over extensive breadth? How would I navigate the minefield that is immigration policy? Advice from my supervisor, Professor Thom Brooks, steadied my nerves and neatly reiterated the lessons we had learnt from Guy Richardson in our leadership training. Take a step back, and get some context. I had rushed into the policy side of the research, without properly considering the background of both countries, their differing socio-economic and political contexts, and cold hard numbers.
The process of constructing this background did feel trivial at times (“I haven’t even started on policies yet, I’m running out of time!”), but I could ultimately see how essential it was. That being said, it did reveal a personal discomfort of mine. So many statistics buried in either robotically emotionless language, or needlessly polarised language, meant that the human element and individual stories behind each number became harder and harder to find. This was made worse by my determination not to let my own personal biases interfere with my judgement and analysis; I decided I should read from a range of sources, including think tanks and advisory bodies from across the political spectrum. I had to grit my teeth reading some of these, but I was able to reframe my frustration and discomfort into an even greater commitment to compassionate impartiality in my research. I do believe that there is a balance to be had between cooling the political temperature around the topic, and remembering that we are talking about people’s lives, not just graphs and trends. I hope I can contribute to this balance.
Finally, without meaning to sound overly poetic, I have found that one of my greatest obstacles has been within myself. With limited time, I have had to make executive decisions over the direction of my research, and for a usually indecisive person, trusting my instincts and making important calls has been a necessary but demanding element of the process so far. We will see whether my decisions pay off…