Agency: A Concept in Need of Resisting?

Abstract

The concept of agency is everywhere within refugee and forced migration studies, orienting research agendas, theoretical frameworks and empirical findings. In this article, I nonetheless argue that its transition from being a crucial corrective to becoming, at times, a disciplinary expectation warrants resistance. This is because its analytical dominance comes with risks. A focus on agency does not necessarily direct us towards explaining the complexity of people’s intentions, actions, and choices, and there is limited evidence that focusing on individuals’ agency, rather than the wider conditions shaping displaced people’s lives, produces the political and practical effects that such scholarship often seeks. I therefore argue for scholars to exhibit greater epistemic reflexivity around the use of agency, including through asking what political, disciplinary and professional commitments underpin its continued use, and what alternative explanations and insights its usage might be obscuring. Ultimately, this should not be read as a rejection of the use of agency within our disciplinary field, but as a call to ensure that it is being used in more principled, and likely more sparing, ways.