The Locus of Control in Migrants’ Experience of Agency and Discrimination: A Mixed Methods Approach

Abstract

Locus of control is a fruitful concept for analysing how individuals perceive and evaluate their migration histories, yet it remains underused in migration research. It offers a way to address central questions of agency and discrimination in migration processes without relying on ‘critical’ reductions such as ethnicisation or migrantisation, which pose well-known challenges for (trans)national research methodologies. In this article, data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) migration samples are combined with qualitative interviews with a subgroup of survey respondents (n=37). This mixed methods approach links statistical locus of control measures with narrative accounts in order to develop a typology of perceived agency in migration processes. The results indicate systematic variation in how migration is evaluated: individuals with a generally high internal locus of control tend to view their migration – despite chance, obstacles and setbacks – as something largely within their own control (types: ‘(Life) Artists’ and ‘Controlled Migrants’). In contrast, migrants with a more external locus of control describe both their migration and their living conditions as uncontrollable or determined by others (type: ‘The Passives’), often seeing their achievements as lying beyond their own influence or as hindered by external forces. Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative evidence, this article further demonstrates that experiences of discrimination are reported differently depending on locus of control. It concludes by discussing how these findings contribute theoretically and methodologically to the understanding of discrimination and related phenomena such as the (de-)migranticization, integration paradox and mobility capital.