Administrative sources for empirical social research on migration flows.

"The 21st century has been marked by intense migration movements involving international partnership, innovative methods of collecting related data as well as policy implications at the local, regional, European and international level. Our presentation attempts to highlight the opportunities and/ or constraints related to data as a source of dealing with the phenomenon, using Greece, an EU member country, as a case study. Since mid-2010 Greece became the main gate of the east Mediterranean for migration flows to Europe. This, along with the then on-going economic crisis created a fraught situation whose management required and involved multiple actors. Increased migration flows necessitated the systematic recording of arrivals, potential stays, and departures which rapidly led to the creation of new sources. A vast network of actors, international, European and local organisations and NGOs was set-up trying to deal with these unprecedented situations. The aim of this presentation is to observe, analyze and underline the way registered data can simultaneously offer a “neutral” way of depicting a shifting phenomenon and as/or an instrument facilitating decision making policies. Our analysis will focus on two “moments” in time in order to investigate the following issues related to the use of administrative resources by empirical research: Observing the evolution of these administrative reports (SMS reports), we seek to query the changes in actors’ involvement, their role in collecting and providing data, the consequent structural changes (camps, localities, typology of services provided etc.), and the modifications in the visualization of the information, content, role, implicit and explicit goals of reports. Special emphasis will be given to identifying lack and gaps, intentional or not, that can crucially affect the quality of scientific results. "