ABSTRACT
Recently, migration has become an object of study for data scientists who employ algorithms to analyze social media and mobile phone positioning data. At the same time, states and international organizations have discovered big data as a source for evidence-based policymaking. Drawing on the work of Christina Boswell and Andrew Geddes, this chapter argues that three dominant relationships between evidence and governance can be identified in the field of big-data-based migration research and policymaking: evidence-based policymaking, policy-based institution-building, and policy-based evidence-making. Data challenges organized by mobile phone companies can be understood as an approach to evidence-based policymaking. The recent mushrooming of migration-related data hubs launched by international organizations can be interpreted as policy-based institution-building, whereby international organizations expand their role as indispensable knowledge providers for a more evidence-based migration policy. Finally, feasibility studies on the use of big data for migration management produce “evidence” that substantiates the dominant political concept of migration management and can be seen as policy-based evidence-making. All three ways to use big data in the context of migration policy reinforce the assumption that lack of “evidence” is the central challenge for migration governance; thereby ignoring that the often conflicting relationship between migratory practices and the attempts to govern them is actually a highly political question.
