Keeping the struggle alive: A methodologically disobedient essay

In the summer of 2013, the author decided to interview his grandparents, who originally migrated to Germany as so-called ‘guest-workers.’ On the one hand, he intended to get a better grip on their work and life stories. On the other hand, he wanted to show them how he work as a researcher. Until today, he dared not listen to the recordings again. Only years later, after many considerations about perspectives, representations, and questioning of the knowledge production he encountered, did he seriously think about his grandparents’ perspectives. As migration researchers, they examine, for instance, the causes, routes, and implications of migration. Growing up in Germany to become a professional migration researcher as a (grand)son of labor migrants from Turkey, it could be said that he was, in a way, part of his own sample.