Contested Concepts In Migration Studies

This volume demonstrates that migration- and diversity-related concepts are always contested, and provides a reflexive critical awareness and better comprehension of the complex questions driving migration studies. The main purpose of this volume is to enhance conceptual thinking on migration studies. Examining interaction between concepts in the public domain, the academic disciplines, and the policy field, this book helps to avoid simplification or even trivialization of complex issues. Recent political events question established ways of looking at issues of migration and diversity and require a clarification or reinvention of political concepts to match the changing world. Applying five basic dimensions, each expert chapter contribution reflects on the role concepts play and demonstrates that concepts are ideology dependent, policy/politics dependent, context dependent, discipline dependent, and language dependent, and are influenced by how research is done, how policies are formulated, and how political debates extend and distort them. This book will be essential reading for students, scholars, and practitioners in migration studies/politics, migrant integration, citizenship studies, racism studies, and more broadly of key interest to sociology, political science, and political theory.

This book explores the role of complexity in the governance of migration and diversity. Current policy processes often fail to adequately capture complexity, favouring ‘quick fix’ approaches to regulation and integration that result in various forms of alienation: problem alienation, institutional alienation, political alienation and social alienation. Scholten draws on literature from gender and environmental governance to develop ‘mainstreaming’, an approach that reframes migration as a contingent and emergent process made up of complex actor networks, rather than a one-size-fits-all policy model. By ensuring actors understand and respond to complexity, migration research can contribute to reflexivity in policy processes, help to promote mainstreaming, and prevent alienation. The result will be of interest to students and scholars of migration and governance studies, with a focus on policymaking and integration.

“Indigeneity” has become a prominent yet contested concept in national and international politics, as well as within the social sciences. This edited volume draws from authors representing different disciplines and perspectives, exploring the dependence of indigeneity on varying sociopolitical contexts, actors, and discourses with the ultimate goal of investigating the concept’s scientific and political potential.

This book provides a toolkit for tackling the fundamental questions and challenges in planning and conducting migration research. It illustrates not only how to develop rigorous methodological procedures, but also how to effectively disseminate research findings to both academics and practitioners. Analyzing diverse disciplinary perspectives from across the field of migration studies, this book identifies valuable practical approaches to studying human mobility. Chapters cover key features of migration research including contested concepts, mixed-methods approaches, archival data collection and intersectional, ethical research design. Contributing authors show that migration issues are intertwined with complex power dynamics and increasing inequalities that define contemporary societies. They critically examine cutting-edge issues in the field, from the use of social media and public opinion data to the design of indices and indicators. How to Do Migration Research is a vital resource for human mobility researchers seeking to refine their analytical skills and learn impactful publishing strategies. Highlighting the multidisciplinary nature of the field, it is also an excellent guide for students and scholars of sociology, anthropology, geography and political science seeking a gateway into migration research.

"Demonstrates that the study of international migration has really come of age. From acculturation to undocumented immigration, the authors consider more than three dozen concepts at the heart of migration studies. Clearly written in a highly readable style, the book is a valuable resource for students and scholars alike." - Nancy Foner, City University of New York "This very useful and authoritative compendium explicates thirty-eight concepts central to analysis of international migration. It is accessible to undergraduate students and even can enrich graduate courses. It nicely complements books like The Age of Migration or Exceptional People. Concision is a virtue!" - Mark J. Miller, University of Delaware This book provides lucid and intuitive explanations of the most important migration concepts as used in classrooms, among policymakers, and in popular and academic discourse. Arguing that there is a clear need for a better public understanding of migration, it sets out to clarify the field by exploring relevant concepts in a direct and engaging way. Each concept: Includes an easy to understand definition Provides real-world examples Gives suggestions for further reading Is carefully cross-referenced to other related concepts It is an ideal resource for undergraduate and post-graduate students studying migration in sociology, politics, development and throughout the social sciences, as well as scholars in the field and practitioners in governmental and non-governmental organizations.

This open access book covers the main issues, challenges and techniques concerning the application of qualitative methodologies to the study of migration. It discusses theoretical, epistemological and empirical questions that must be considered before, during, and after undertaking qualitative research in migration studies. It also covers recent innovative developments and addresses the key issues and major challenges that qualitative migration research may face at different stages i.e. crafting the research questions, defining approaches, developing concepts and theoretical frameworks, mapping categories, selecting cases, dealing with concerns of self-reflection, collecting and processing empirical evidence through various techniques, including visual data, dealing with ethical issues, and developing policy-research dialogues. Each chapter discusses relative strengths and limitations of qualitative research. The chapters also identify the main drivers for qualitative research development in migration studies. It is a unique volume as it brings together a multidisciplinary perspective as well as illustrations of different issues derived from the research experience of the recognized authors. One additional value of this book is its geographic focus on Europe. It seeks to explore theoretical and methodological issues that are raised by distinctive features of the European context. This volume will be a useful reference source for scholars and professionals in migration studies and in social sciences as well. The publication is also addressed to graduate and post-graduate students and, more generally, to those who embark on the task of doing qualitative research for the first time in the field of migration.

This book aims to further the understanding of migration processes and policies in a European context with a particular focus on evaluating integration and the gendered aspects of migration, integration and citizenship. Integration is regarded as a contested concept and as entailing a variable and problematic set of discourses and practices.

During the last decade the issue of migration has increased in global prominence and has caused controversy among host countries around the world. To remedy the tendency of scholars to speak only to and from their own disciplinary perspective, this book brings together in a single volume essays dealing with central concepts and key theoretical issues in the study of international migration across the social sciences. Editors Caroline B. Brettell and James F. Hollifield have guided a thorough revision of this seminal text, with valuable insights from such fields as anthropology, demography, economics, geography, history, law, political science, and sociology. Each essay focuses on key concepts, questions, and theoretical frameworks on the topic of international migration in a particular discipline, but the volume as a whole teaches readers about similarities and differences across the boundaries between one academic field and the next. How, for example, do political scientists wrestle with the question of citizenship as compared with sociologists, and how different is this from the questions that anthropologists explore when they deal with ethnicity and identity? Are economic theories about ethnic enclaves similar to those of sociologists? What theories do historians (the "essentializers") and demographers (the "modelers") draw upon in their attempts to explain empirical phenomena in the study of immigration? What are the units of analysis in each of the disciplines and do these shape different questions and diverse models and theories? Scholars and students in migration studies will find this book a powerful theoretical guide and a text that brings them up to speed quickly on the important issues and the debates. All of the social science disciplines will find that this book offers a one-stop synthesis of contemporary thought on migration.