In the past decade, research on the impact of environmental and climate change on human mobility has increasingly acknowledged the need to focus on population, which is highlighted as the potentially most vulnerable group. While early research has framed this population as trapped, the environment-migration research community has embraced more elaborate and multi-dimensional understanding of immobility. So far, most investigations involve qualitative methods and confirm that financial constraints are linked with a high risk of immobility, although, in some situations, the relationship could be mediated by other individual factors such as access to migrant networks, which seems to enable climate-related mobility in the poorest places. We seek to enrich the empirical evidence through an original case study based on a mixed-method research design, carried out in a deprived rural area of Ethiopia.

We aim to shed light on the livelihood’s trajectories of families, their means of coping with the multiple crises they have experienced in recent years (inflation, multiple environmental disasters including recurrent droughts, locust invasions, and unstable political and security situations) and their aspirations and capacity to migrate. A quantitative analysis of the Kersa Household Health and Demography Survey panel data, including 12,787 households over a 9-year period, first allows us to identify some populations potentially “involuntarily immobile”. Then, a qualitative investigation (Focus Group Discussions, Semi-structured interviews and expert interviews) among those populations allows us to characterise the processes and mechanisms of immobility in the research area. The analysis of qualitative research shows that, in a context of acute food insecurity, the most vulnerable populations certainly do not have the capacity to use mobility and migration as an effective livelihood strategy, nor do they have the means to (all) stay put. "We are not going to wait to starve to death". The involuntary and acquiescent immobility first observed is then transformed into survival mobility, where one or more members of the household often leave in difficult conditions (on foot and without means), to find money and food by begging in nearby towns or more distant cities in Somaliland.

Friendly encounters, mutual gifts, or sharing a meal not only characterize ethnographic encounters thematically but are also an integral part of everyday empirical research. Gift-exchange approaches to research relations are often used as vignettes and rhetorical devices in ethnographies and become spaces of knowledge production. Yet, far less is known about their influence on the position of all actors involved in the research process. Although ethnographers are becoming increasingly aware of their role as guests who are neither friends nor strangers, the importance of reciprocal hospitality in the negotiatiating asymmetrically structured research relationships remains understudied.

In migration research, the positionalities and power relations between researchers and research partners have received increasing attention since the reflexive turn. Following the current state of research, relationships ‘in the field’ go far beyond the “insider-outsider divide” (Erdal, Carling, Ezzati 2014). In research situations, categories such as ethnicity, nationality, gender, class, age, or language not only prove to be essential factors in the structure of research, but also overlap intersectionally and can reinforce or reduce differences and inequalities. In ethnographic research in transnational spaces, which is based on long-term and often recurring stays in different places, these dynamics can be seen in practices of hospitality. Transnational actors — researchers as well as research partners — appear as hosts or guests in different places and situations and are thus able to reflect asymmetrical power relations. However, this responsive role-playing does not always happen consciously. The inscribed, learned (material as well as immaterial) practices of hospitality — what we call doing hospitality — can be read as an expression of solidarity and agency. However, they can also be used to create distinction and normativity.

Drawing on reflexive tendencies in migration research, we apply the “doing migration approach” (Amelina 2022) to the practice of hospitality in transnational settings. In doing so, we focus on power- and inequality-relations that determine the production of knowledge about migration: Who acts as host, and who as guest – and how does this depend on the (social, cultural, geopolitical) context? To what extent do relationships between researchers and research partners reflect a host-guest divide, and how do these dynamics manifest themselves socially and spatially? How does hospitality as a performative and individual asymmetry affect the positions of researchers and research partners?

To address these questions, we draw on ethnographic data from our transnational research in the contexts of Moldova-Germany and Turkey-Austria in an analytically comparative perspective. Thereby, we aim to carve out the significance and ambivalence of hospitality in ethnographic research as well as in transnational everyday lives. By applying an empirically based doing hospitality approach, we aim to make a methodological as well as empirical contribution to transnational (post)migration research by focusing on asymmetries within research relations from both emic and intersectional perspectives.

This article focuses on bodily knowledge in ethnographic research on mobilities. It pays attention to three dimensions of multisensorial and embodied experiences of cross-border commuting. Firstly, we explore the embodied mobility of cross-border commuters in the Polish-German border region, emphasizing the significance of bodily experiences in gaining a deeper understanding of their mundane, mobile lifeworlds. Secondly, we reflect on employing mobile methods, particularly addressing female gender-specific safety concerns and the physical limitations encountered during fieldwork. Lastly, we discuss the integration of these insights into educational practices, proposing ways to teach mobile methods and strategies in the classroom. By reflecting on the embodied dimensions that emerge in our research, we demonstrate their significance in scholarly knowledge production. In conclusion, this paper seeks to contribute to the ongoing development of migration studies by emphasizing the importance of the body and the senses in understanding cross-border commuting and transnational/translocal relations more broadly. The incorporation of a gendered and reflexive approach adds a layer of depth to the research, challenging existing paradigms and opening new avenues for exploration, including through intersectionality. Through the exploration of different scales on which bodily knowledge plays a role, we aim to encourage a broader engagement with the sensory aspects of migration/mobility and, in doing so, foster a more comprehensive understanding of the complexities inherent in cross-border mobility.