Navigating New Homelands

Early Roots: Disciplinary Seeds

The seeds of migration studies can be found scattered across various disciplines. In the late nineteenth century, sociologists like Ernest George Ravenstein challenged prevailing assumptions about migration patterns, laying the groundwork for future research. Published in 1885, Ravenstein’s seminal work, “Laws of Migration, laid down several principles, such as the gravity model of migration, which suggested that migration flows are influenced by distance and population size between origin and destination areas. This marked the beginning of a systematic approach to understanding migration patterns and factors influencing migratory behavior.

Anthropologists like W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki, through their study of Polish immigrants in the early twentieth century, pioneered the use of qualitative methods to understand the migrant experience. Their work illuminated the social and cultural dimensions of migration, providing a more nuanced understanding of how migrants adapt to new environments. Thomas and Znaniecki posit;

The goal of our work has been to study the Polish peasant not only in relation to his own community, but also in relation to the American environment in which he finds himself. For this purpose, personal documents, letters, and autobiographies were particularly valuable as they reveal the subjective side of the migrant experience … Personal life-records, as complete as possible, constitute the perfect type of sociological material, and the more strictly personal they are, the more valuable they are. In these records, we find the most subjective side of social evolution. (183)

Historians have documented for long large-scale migrations, providing valuable insights into past movement patterns. By analyzing historical records, they have shed light on the causes and consequences of migrations throughout history. Economists have long been interested in labor migration and its impact on economies, examining how migration affects labor markets, wages, and economic growth.

Key Milestones in the Development of Migration Studies

Labor migration has been a very interesting area for the researchers of migration studies. It saw a significant rise during the interwar period. For the aftermath of the colossal World War I affected the demographics of refugee movements. Organizations like International Labour Organization (ILO), established in 1919 and the League of Nations, established in 1920 helped bolstering interest in labor migration issues. These institutions were instrumental in creating an international network to offer protect migrant labors and also in formulating international laws. The years after World War II witnessed mass scale displacement as millions of people in the newly independent nations sought refuge in foreign shores to face the challenges of life hurled at them. The 1951 Refugee Convention which was adopted by the United Nations played a crucial role in formulating the international refugee law. This convention is significant in migration studies as it established the principle of non-refoulement which prohibited the forced return of the refugees to their countries of origin wherein they could face prosecution.

The changing nature of global population and the constant movement of people ushered in an interdisciplinary approach in migration studies. Along with historical studies the academic field of migration studies incorporated critical tools from a diverse range of areas such as anthropology, economics, geography, sociology, and political science. The large-scale movement of people in the twentieth century, especially because of the two world wars in the middle of the century and decolonization made it necessary to construe the nature of migration from the prismatic lens of multidisciplinary study. Concomitantly, in this period, dedicated research centers and journals came up to focus solely on migration. The International Organization for Migration (IOM), founded in 1951, made it possible to work collaboratively on migration issues, which further resulted in assistance and aid to the migrants.

In the latter half of the twentieth century, the world was impacted by globalization and its ramifications. This resulted, in different possible ways, in a greater mobility of migrant movements. We came across concepts like software migrants which, in turn, bears a testament to the ubiquitous presence of multi-national companies in our lives today. Scholars started exploring the effects of transnationalism and globalization on patterns of migration, and excavating the politics of identity formation. Researchers imbibed ideas from theoretical frameworks such as world systems theory, dependency theory, and neoclassical economics to understand the interwoven presence of economic, political, and cultural factors influencing migration.

Theoretical Paradigms in Migration Studies

Early theoretical frameworks within migration studies were heavily influenced by the dominant disciplines from which they originated. The “push-pull” model, developed by sociologists like Ernest Ravenstein, focused on the economic factors that pushed migrants out of their origin countries and pulled them towards destination countries. Ravenstein observes:

Bad or oppressive laws, heavy taxation, an unattractive climate, uncongenial social surroundings, and even compulsion (slave trade, transportation), all have produced and are still producing currents of migration, but none of these currents can compare in volume with that which arises from the desire inherent in most men to ‘better’ themselves in material respects. (199)

Anthropologists, on the other hand, emphasized the importance of social networks and cultural factors in shaping migration decisions. Economists focused on the rationality of migration decisions, analyzing migration as a cost-benefit calculation.