’We have nothing to hide’:Legitimacy narratives, researcher positionality and the ethics of accessing the Dutch deportation apparatus

This article presents a reflection on the contentious access negotiations involved in researching the Dutch deportation apparatus. Previous studies described how hostility towards researchers and the opacity within migration control regimes more generally lead to difficulties for conducting academic research. This article instead relies on a self-reflexive account of two successful access negotiations to question what acquiring access tells us about the workings of migration control, and what consequences entering into a relationship with powerful actors has for academic knowledge production.... Mehr ...