From representation to co-creation: rethinking migration knowledge through arts-based sociolinguistic research

Contemporary migration research increasingly recognises that migration knowledge is not simply documented or represented but collaboratively produced through interactions among researchers, participants and institutions, as well as through the use of diverse semiotic resources. Against this background, our editorial advances a broader epistemological agenda for sociolinguistic approaches to migration, positioning co-creation not as a participatory methodology or normative aspiration but as an organizing principle for rethinking the conditions through which migration knowledge is produced, interpreted and circulated. The discussion below develops this agenda through four interconnected dimensions. First, it examines how a co-creative orientation reshapes research practice by reconfiguring research encounters, narrative inquiry, authorship and dissemination as collaborative processes of knowledge production. Second, it conceptualizes multimodality as an epistemic practice through which linguistic, visual, embodied and material resources participate in the production and mediation of migration knowledge. Third, it argues that reflexivity extends beyond individual positionality towards institutional accountability for the categories, infrastructures and regimes of visibility through which migration knowledge is authorized. Finally, it shows how the contributions to this Special Issue enact these commitments across diverse empirical, institutional and geopolitical contexts. Taken together, the articles demonstrate that co-creation is best understood as an epistemological orientation rather than a fixed methodological model. By bringing collaborative, multimodal and arts-based perspectives into dialogue, the Special Issue contributes to an evolving line of inquiry concerned with the collaborative production, mediation and circulation of migration knowledge.