“What Would You Do If You Were to Win the Lottery?” A Qualitative Tool for Overcoming Agency-Structure Issues in Migration Research

Abstract

This paper proposes a quasi-standardized hypothetical interview-guide question and demonstrates its applicability in addressing participants’ general life aspirations, and, in particular, the embedded migration aspirations. The proposed interview question is related to the hypothesized behavior of participants in the off chance of having won the national lottery. Based on fieldwork results, conducted in rural Hungary between 2014-2019, the paper demonstrates how this question, introduced as a closing question during interviews, may be useful in addressing cultural values and attitudes in an agency-oriented way and with a reduction of perceived structural constraints affecting them. The question was eligible in differentiating between forms of geographical mobility, reflecting some migration-related phenomena that were formerly claimed challenging to be specifically addressed, revealing that pro-migration structural constraints might mask general attitudes to stay among those seemingly opting for emigration, and conversely, structural, restraining-constraints that, in some cases, mask pro-migration attitudes among those seemingly aspiring to stay.