Pre-Conference Workshop: Big Data and Migration Research

Pre-conference workshops that offer in-depth engagement with the core themes of the Rethinking Complex Migration conference.

Big Data and Migration Research: Concepts, Data Infrastructures, and Analytical Horizons

Date: Wednesday, April 15, 2026

Time: 10:00 AM – 3:30 PM (ET)

Location: Toronto Metropolitan University Campus (In-Person Only)

About the workshop

This workshop offers a structured and critical introduction to the use of big data in migration research. Rather than focusing on coding or technical implementation, the session provides a conceptual and methodological deep dive into the types of digital trace data currently transforming the field, their analytical potential, and their epistemic and ethical implications.

Migration is increasingly studied through data sources that were not originally produced for research purposes: mobile phone metadata, social media content, platform-based administrative data, satellite imagery, digital remittance traces, online search queries, and platform labour data. These sources promise scale, granularity and temporal depth, but they also raise fundamental questions about representation, bias, inference, and power.

Refund policy: Refunds minus any transaction fees are available up to April 1, 2026. After this date no refunds are available.