twenty-first-century migration as a challenge to …21st+century... · twenty-first-century...

Twenty-First-Century Migration as aChallenge to SociologyStephen Castles

International migration is, by definition, a social phenomenon that crosses national

borders and affects two or more nation-states. Its analysis requires theories and

methodologies capable of transcending the national gaze. This applies more than ever in

the current epoch of global migratory flows and growing South�North mobility.

Sociology claims to be based on the work of scholars from around the world and to have

theories and methods valid for all societies. It should therefore have an important role in

the development of global migration studies. Yet national approaches, deriving from

historical projects of nation-building, have often been dominant. Moreover, the study of

migration has been peripheral in national scientific discourses and hierarchies. This has

often led to the diverging dual roles of the sociology of migration either as an

administrative tool based on micro-analyses of ‘social problems’, or as a form of social

critique cut off from actual struggles in institutions, workplaces and neighbourhoods.

This article argues for a global sociology of migration, devoted to analysis of migration as

part of the social transformations associated with globalisation, and based on global

networks of scholars.

Keywords: Migration; Sociology; Social Transformation; Policy; Theory; Methodology

Introduction

Most sociological studies of contemporary international migration are concerned

with specific aspects of cross-border mobility and their impacts on individuals,

groups, communities and societies. In this article, by contrast, my aim is to step back

from the empirical level, to present some reflections on the general challenges faced

by the sociology of migration in the early twenty-first century. I will address the

following seven questions:

Stephen Castles is Senior Researcher at the International Migration Institute and Professor of Migration and

Refugee Studies at the University of Oxford. Correspondence to: Prof. S. Castles, International Migration

Institute, Dept of International Development (QEH), University of Oxford, Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB,

UK. E-mail: [email protected]

ISSN 1369-183X print/ISSN 1469-9451 online/07/0300351-21 # 2007 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/13691830701234491

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

Vol. 33, No. 3, April 2007, pp. 351�371

. How do globalisation and transnationalism change the conditions and objectives

of sociological research on migration?

. Should migration research generally be interdisciplinary?

. What are the specific topics and analytical tasks of migration sociology?

. If the roots of sociology lie in the development of national industrial societies,

what effects has this had on the development of the sociology of migration?

. How can sociologists of migration move beyond the fixation on the nation-state to

conceptualise processes of global integration and social transformation?

. To what extent has the sociology of migration been driven by the influence of

politics and policy on the research enterprise, and the corresponding imperative of

‘policy-relevance’?

. What theoretical, methodological and organisational principles are needed for a

critical and socio-politically engaged sociology of migration?

This paper is an attempt to stimulate discussion among sociologists working on

migration. However, the questions raised have parallels in other disciplines and may

therefore also be of interest to other social scientists working in this area. Because

these ideas are work-in-progress and need more debate, I am using the format of

stating and arguing a number of propositions, rather than the more usual academic

paper format. My seven propositions correspond to the questions listed above.

One further preliminary remark is needed. The study of international migration

has usually fallen into two rather separate bodies of social scientific investigation:

first, research on the determinants, processes and patterns of migration; and second,

research on the ways in which migration brings about change in both sending and

receiving societies. In view of the dominance of developed (or Northern) country

perspectives in the social sciences, this second area has mainly focused on issues of

immigrant incorporation in receiving societies, although studies on sending countries

(especially in the context of ‘migration and development’) are now becoming more

common. Together with Mark Miller, I have argued for many years that this

distinction is artificial, and detrimental to a full understanding of the migratory

process (Castles and Miller 2003). In this article ‘migration studies’ and ‘the sociology

of migration’ are used in the widest sense, to embrace both bodies of investigation.

Proposition 1: Migration research in the era of globalisation is a transnational

undertaking, which requires theoretical frameworks and analytical tools that

transcend the nation-state.

This seems like stating the obvious. Indeed, since international migration, by

definition, involves the crossing of national borders, one could argue that it has

always been necessary to take an international perspective. However, as will be

discussed later, migration research has in fact been very much based on specific

national intellectual assumptions and modes of research organisation*which have

been linked to national policy models on migration and incorporation. In recent

352 S. Castles

years, a lot of effort has gone into cross-national comparative studies, but these do

not necessarily overcome the dominant influence of national models and assump-

tions: comparing national experiences can still imply that these are separate and

different. International networking through the International Sociological Associa-

tion (ISA) and regional associations has also developed, but the research enterprise is

still largely constituted within national frameworks of funding and discourse.

Today there are new reasons why our research undertaking should emancipate

itself from national divisions. Until recently, most migration tended to be from one

nation-state to another, and usually led either to permanent settlement, or to return

to the country of origin after a period abroad. In the era of globalisation, there is a

proliferation of patterns of recurring, circulatory and onward migration, leading to

greater diversity of migratory experiences as well as more complex cultural

interactions. The emergence of transnational communities is one of the most

obvious expressions of such trends. Research approaches centred on the nation-state

are not adequate to understand such trends. It is increasingly important to develop

new theories, methods and modes of cooperation to understand all the interlinked

aspects of such migratory processes.

Proposition 2: Migration research is intrinsically inter-disciplinary.

The experience of migration embraces every dimension of human existence, and thus

provides descriptive and analytical tasks for all the social sciences, from the macro-

social perspectives of economics and demography through to the micro-level

approaches of anthropology, psychology or cultural studies. It is hard to do a useful

study on any migratory phenomenon from a mono-disciplinary perspective, and to

avoid trespassing on the territory of some other social science. For example,

economists who use neo-classical individual income-maximisation models to explain

migration without any understanding of social networks tend to produce misleading

results. Similarly, legal scholars who ignore human agency find it hard to explain why

there is so much irregular migration, while sociologists who stress class and ignore

culture tend to be baffled by the persistence of ethnic conflict.

All this is obvious and well known (see, for instance, King 2002). An analysis of the

usefulness and limitations of the various disciplines and paradigms can be found in

the excellent survey of Massey et al. (1998). Yet the fact remains that much of the

research done on migration is mono-disciplinary*especially the research commis-

sioned by and listened to by governments, where neo-classical economics still holds

sway. However, in academic migration research circles, interdisciplinarity is widely

accepted. But this does not mean that we can dispense with the disciplines. Each has

its own subject matter, methods and theory. Inter-disciplinarity does not mean

putting them all together in a bland mixture, but rather building on and integrating

the insights of the different approaches, to give a general understanding of migratory

phenomena* ‘talking across disciplines’, as Brettell and Hollifield argue (2000). As

sociologists, therefore, we must be explicit about the special nature of our own

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 353

undertaking, and about how best we can combine it with the work of others. Such

discussions are clearly needed in other disciplines too: each needs to fulfil a specific

role as well as contributing to migration studies as an interdisciplinary enterprise.

Proposition 3: Despite the principle of interdisciplinarity, sociology has particular

tasks within migration research (and in social science more broadly), both with

regard to a focus on specific topics, and at the meta level of providing an

overarching framework for the analysis of global social change.

Where does the sociology of migration fit into the social-scientific division of labour?

Does it simply address the classical themes of sociology as they affect migrants and

ethnic minorities resulting from migration? Such classical themes include the tension

between individual and society, the behaviour of people in groups, and the

relationships between social structure and social action. Key traditional analytical

categories include institutions, class (or stratification), integration, anomie, solidar-

ity, power, social order and social conflict. More recent categories include gender,

ethnicity, identity, agency, networks, social exclusion/inclusion and social capital. In

this understanding, the role of sociology would be to address the significance of

migration for stability and change in social relationships. For example:

. the tension between individual and society should be analysed with regard to

processes of migration decision-making, incorporation into receiving societies and

re-integration of returnees into societies of origin;

. the behaviour of people in groups takes on specific forms in migration networks,

transnational communities and collective interaction between the various groups

in the migratory process;

. the dynamics of structure and action can be analysed in the context of the effects

of migration laws and policies on migrant behaviour (and vice versa), and with

regard to changes in cultural and social practices through cross-cultural contact.

The sociology of migration does indeed need to address such specific themes, but

in my view it also has an overarching task. This could be characterised as the meta-

social-scientific role of addressing society as a whole*particularly the way a specific

aspect of society*migration*is shaped by the societal totality, and in turn shapes

this. In this understanding, sociology would examine the broad universe of social

actions and meanings, in which specific forms of sociality are then to be analysed in

detail by specific social sciences*including sociology itself in its specific research

topics.

Despite the established social-scientific division of labour, it does seem essential

that there should be a body of theory and research designed to address the

overarching dynamics of social transformation at the broadest thematic and

geographical levels. Economics, political economy or even cultural studies might

lay claim to that role, but it could be argued that sociology is best fitted for it, due to

its tradition of analysing and theorising the totality of societal relationships and

354 S. Castles

structures. The overarching project of the sociology of migration would thus be to

analyse two key dynamics:

. the ways in which social structures, institutions and relationships (and changes in

these) help cause migration and influence the conditions under which it takes

place;

. the ways in which international migration (including incorporation in receiving

countries or return to places of origin) affects social structures, institutions and

relationships in all the localities involved (including sending, transit and receiving

areas).

Obviously these aspects are interrelated in complex ways, so that in practice it is often

hard to separate cause and effect. This leads to such questions as: does development

cause migration, or does migration cause development? The answer is that these are

generally interactive processes, with complex feedback mechanisms. Equally

obviously, these meta-social-scientific questions must be asked not only at the global

level, but at a range of other spatial levels too: the local, the regional, the national and

so on. One specific task of sociology is to analyse the relationship between social

structure and human agency. Another is to study processes of mediation between

spatial levels: for instance, how are global economic or political phenomena

transformed by local cultural and social patterns?

Proposition 4: Sociology developed as a means of understanding social change in a

period of rapid industrialisation within Western nation-states in the nineteenth

and early twentieth centuries. Despite claims to universalism in theory, methods

and knowledge, sociology has been slow to shake off the tyranny of the national.

The strength of nationalist models has been particularly marked in the sociology of

migration.

Until at least the 1970s, most migration sociologists saw their central task in analysing

the experience of people as they exited one specific society and became part of

another. Changes in the character of migration as global economic, political and

cultural integration gathered pace made this approach inadequate. If the dynamics of

social relations transcend borders, then so must the theories and methods used to

study them. Such insights led, from the 1970s, to a new interest in cross-national

comparative studies and to attempts at constructing more generally applicable

frameworks such as migration systems theory (Kritz et al. 1992). In the 1990s,

transnationalism emerged as a new paradigm for analysing migration in the context

of economic and cultural globalisation (Basch et al. 1994; Portes et al. 1999). Despite

such trends, national models and research frameworks remain influential in

migration sociology.

Globalisation and transnationalism present special problems for mainstream

sociology, which developed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the

science of ‘national industrial societies’ (Wieviorka 1994). Sociology was concerned


with problems of integration and order in emerging industrial societies, which were

politically and culturally framed by the nation-state. A central issue was to

understand the contradictory nature of industrial society, with growing productivity

and wealth on the one hand, but social misery and class conflict on the other.

Another central characteristic of Western nation-states was their competition to

colonise the rest of the world. Sociology and its sister discipline, anthropology, were

thus concerned with understanding societies and cultures, in order to control

‘dangerous classes’ (i.e. the industrial workers) and ‘dangerous peoples’ (i.e. those

who resisted colonialism) (Connell 1997). Prominent early sociologists, such as

Herbert Spencer and Emile Durkheim, put forward developmental models based on

teleological assertions of the superiority of the Western industrial nation-state. The

later work of Parsons and other functionalists contained models of integrated social

systems and rational social order, reflecting an idealised image of the mid-twentieth-

century USA. The exception to this preoccupation with the national was Marx’s

political economy, which foreshadowed globalisation theory. Yet later critical

sociology, while drawing on Marxist ideas, often implicitly took the nation-state as

the framework for class analysis*partly because a key aim was the creation of

national welfare states.

This had two consequences. First, the stranger or ‘other’ was seen as deviant and

potentially dangerous. This can be seen most clearly in the assimilation theories

developed in the USA in response to the mass immigration of the early twentieth

century (Gordon 1964). Park and the ‘Chicago School’ studied inter-group relations

in the 1920s when Chicago’s population was over one-third foreign-born (Park 1950).

Migrants’ pre-migration cultures were seen as inappropriate and even harmful in the

new setting. They had to undergo a process of ‘acculturation’ to renounce their

original culture and adopt the values, norms and behaviour of the receiving society.

In the dominant functionalist model, Western societies were portrayed as essentially

homogenous and harmonious. Immigrants had to be assimilated to restore this

harmony. Migrants who maintained their own languages, religions and cultures and

who clustered together were seen as a threat to social cohesion.

Clearly such sociological theories must be understood in the context of nationalist

myths of monoculturalism. In the US case, this took the special form of the idea that

culturally diverse peoples could be brought together in a great ‘melting pot’ to form a

common American culture. But assimilation was also the dominant paradigm in

Western European immigration countries, and it was supported by mainstream

sociology.1 In the 1960s and 1970s, such ideas were questioned by minority struggles

against racism and for cultural recognition and social equality. In the USA, the Black

Power Movement and the ethnic revival paved the way for a new politics of

affirmative action and multiculturalism. Similarly, migrant and minority actions

against discrimination and racism in Western European led to new approaches. The

rise of a critical sociology of race, ethnicity, gender and class went parallel to such

social movements, with much cross-fertilisation between political action and social-

scientific analysis. Comparative migration research can be seen as part of this process,

356 S. Castles

while transnational theory emerged as a later variant, strongly influenced by the post-

structuralist theories of the late twentieth century.

Yet assimilationist approaches have never lost their power in commonsense ideas

that immigrants should adopt ‘our ways’, as well as in mainstream political discourses

concerned with preserving national sovereignty. Such principles always remained

dominant in the French republican model, and have recently made a comeback in

countries that had tried more pluralist approaches, such as the Netherlands

(Entzinger 2002) and Sweden (Schierup et al. 2006, Chapter 8; Westin 2000).

Moreover, assimilation has remained an underlying (albeit generally unstated)

principle in quantitative sociological research concerned with integration and social

status within national welfare states. In recent years, concerns about difficulties in

multicultural approaches have led to a revalorisation of assimilation theory in

migration studies (Alba and Nee 1997).2 Thus the debate between national and

transnational approaches to the analysis of migration is far from over.

Second, if sociologists see the nation-state as the ‘container’ (Faist 2000) for all major

aspects of social life, this implies the need for distinct bodies of social-scientific knowledge

for each country. Despite international interchange between sociologists, there was

(and still is) considerable national specificity in the modes of organisation, the

theoretical and methodological approaches, the research questions and the findings

of the social sciences. Within the container of each country, there are competing

schools or paradigms, yet these function within distinct intellectual frameworks with

strong historical roots in national religious, philosophical and ideological traditions

linked to the historical roles of intellectuals in constructing national culture and

identity (Faist 2000). These are reflected in specific modes of interaction between

academics and the state in migration and minority policy formation. Until recently,

funding for social research through national research councils or research institutions

has constituted a barrier to cross-national research cooperation, since financial

support has generally been restricted to researchers based in the country concerned.

Now, European Union initiatives and the greater openness of national research

councils to cross-border networking are beginning to change this, but national

isolation remains entrenched in the academic structures of many European countries.

An example of the difficulties of cross-national migration research was provided by

a comparative project on the impacts of migration on society in Australia, Germany

and France in the late 1990s. The three research groups started with the assumption

that the theoretical insights, methodology and research tools of the social sciences

were universal in scope and a common good of researchers in the different countries.

In the course of comparative work, the researchers discovered that this was not the

case. In each country there seemed to be a distinct model of how migration and

migrants were perceived, and of how the state and society should react to migratory

phenomena. Even concepts that seemed to be held in common like ‘integration’ had

differing meanings in the three countries (Vasta and Vuddamalay 2006).

This points to a fundamental contradiction: sociology claims to be an international

discipline, based on universal theories and an international community of scholars,


yet its main organisational form has been the national academic framework, each

with its own perspectives. Nowhere is the conflict between the universalistic ideal and

the nationally-specific reality stronger than in migration studies. Fundamental ideas

on the nature of migration and its consequences for society arise from specific

historical experiences of population mobility and cultural diversity. Past experiences

with internal ethnic minorities, colonised peoples and migrant labour recruited

during industrialisation have helped shape current attitudes and approaches.

Historical precedents have led to stereotypes and practices which are often deeply

embedded in political and cultural discourses, so that they have become an

unquestioned ‘common sense’ (Goldberg 1993: 41�3), which affects even the most

critical researchers.

Despite the importance of studying migratory flows and networks as transnational

processes, this is still not the dominant research approach. Apart from conceptual

differences, another reason is that international migration research is still largely based

on data collected at the national level, which is not easily comparable with the statistics

of other countries*despite years of efforts to improve comparability through the

OECD’s SOPEMI reports and, more recently, EUROSTAT. Such problems are not

unique to the three countries just mentioned*one can also speak of the British,

Dutch, US, Canadian, Japanese or Swedish models of immigration and diversity. The

situation is similar in countries of origin like the Philippines or Mexico, where the main

focus has been on the effects of emigration at the national level. Methodological

nationalism*the dominance of research frameworks based on nation-state

boundaries*is still powerful in migration research (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2003).

The strength of the national gaze in migration studies is hardly surprising. Control

of belonging to the national community*both through border restriction and

through regulation of access to citizenship*has always been a key element of

sovereignty, and remains so today, as the current politicisation of migration shows.

Policy-makers in immigration countries continue to see social scientific research as an

instrument for understanding (and hence controlling) the dangerous immigrant

‘other’. As will be discussed below, this helps explains the strong principle of ‘policy

relevance’ in this field. The challenge for migration sociologists is to overcome

methodological nationalism and to study global and transnational phenomena

without losing sight of the continuing significance of national and local factors.

Proposition 5: A central theme for contemporary sociological analysis should be the

processes of social transformation, which take place in the context of reconfigura-

tions of economic and political relationships in the new global order. Accelerated

social transformation processes are the main driving factors in the growth and

diversification of international migration, and therefore constitute key themes of a

transnational sociology of migration. However, global forces are experienced at the

local, national and regional levels, where they are mediated by varying historical

and cultural constellations. Global transformations must therefore be analysed on

multiple spatial levels.

358 S. Castles

If classical sociological theory was based on the emerging national-industrial society

of the past, then today’s sociology should take as its starting-point the major social

transformations occurring at the beginning of the current new century. The idea of

transformation implies a fundamental change in the way society is organised that

goes beyond the continual processes of social change that are always at work (cf.

Polanyi 1944). This arises when there are major shifts in the dominant economic or

political relationships. At present we have to deal with both economic and political

step-changes: the process of economic globalisation and the emergence of a new

political and military order. Understanding these shifts can help us map out the tasks

of a transnational sociology of migration.

I understand economic globalisation (following Castells 1996) as a differentiated

process of inclusion and exclusion of particular regions and social groups in world

capitalist market relations. Penetration by global capital means economic restructur-

ing, in which some groups of producers are included and experience higher incomes,

while other groups find their workplaces destroyed and their qualifications devalued.

This means that globalisation leads to enormous increases in human insecurity and

inequality (Freeman 2004). In 1970 the ‘advanced countries’ (according to the IMF

classification) received 68 per cent of world income, the ‘rest of the world’ 32 per

cent. By 2000 the ‘advanced countries’ received 81 per cent of world income, while the

‘rest of the world’ got 19 per cent. Moreover, in the same period the world population

share of the advanced countries fell from 20 to 16 per cent.

So one aspect of this is North�South inequality, but growing inequality is also to

be found within all regions, with new elites in the South gaining from their role in the

transnational circuits of capital accumulation, while workers in former Northern

industrial centres lose their livelihoods. Thus economic globalisation means profound

transformation of societies. This is recognised by leading liberal economists, like

Stiglitz, who argues that ignorance of this connection on the part of the IMF and

similar bodies led to failures, which ‘have set back the development agenda, by

unnecessarily corroding the very fabric of society’ (Stiglitz 2002: 76�7).

Such dramatic economic and social transformations can be contained without

major international political crises or conflicts because of the emergence of a global

political and military order based on US hegemony since the end of the Cold War. The

bipolar world system, which long served as a limitation on the dominance of global

markets and corporations, has been replaced by a unified system based on a single

hyper-power. This does not mean that this system is unitary and conflict-free. Rather,

as I have argued elsewhere (Castles 2005a), a novel characteristic of the new order is

that its components are defined not as the colonies or protectorates of an empire, but

as nation-states with all the formal trappings of independence and*usually*democracy (even if these are mere facades for tyranny). Similarly, for the first time

in history, most people are defined as citizens, with all the rights this entails (in

theory though often not in practice). However, this formally equal status of nation-

states and citizens hides complex new hierarchies of power, social status and rights.


What does this mean for the sociology of migration? Globalisation essentially

means flows across borders*flows of capital, commodities, ideas and people.

Nation-states welcome the first two types, but remain suspicious of the last two.

Differentiated migration regimes have been set up which encourage elites and the

highly skilled to be mobile, while low-skilled workers and people fleeing persecution

are excluded. As Bauman has argued, in the globalised world ‘mobility has become

the most powerful and most coveted stratifying factor’. However, ‘the riches are

global, the misery is local’ (Bauman 1998: 9, 74). The new transnational class

structure being created in this way should be a pre-eminent topic for a transnational

sociology of migration.

At the same time, a new legitimating ideology is being developed to justify

inequality. The hierarchisation of the right to migrate can be seen as a new form of

transnational racism. Its intellectual basis lies in discourses on the ‘naturalness’ of

violence in less-developed regions and the cultural incompatibility of their peoples

with Western-Christian civilisation. Such discourses developed in the early 1990s

during the wars accompanying the break-up of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union

(Kaplan 1996). The implication was that groups with different cultures and histories

could not share a single territory (Gallagher 1997; Turton 1997) and that a ‘clash of

civilisations’ was inevitable (Huntington 1993). This led to the idea of a new

‘tribalism’ in which people in less-developed areas retreat from universalistic to

localistic outlooks, and chaos dominates much of the world (Global Commission

1995). Such ideas have been further reinforced by fears of terrorism and

fundamentalism since 11 September 2001. In this context, migration control is

seen increasingly as an issue of national security (Weiner and Russell 2001).3 Older

racist ideologies about the need to exclude the ‘other’ to prevent pollution of the

nation thus take on a more modern and acceptable form. Understanding such new

ideologies and the way they influence popular attitudes and official policies would be

another important task of a transnational sociology of migration.

However, globalisation also creates pressures and mechanisms which facilitate

migration. The growth in inequality is a powerful incentive to mobility. The new

media associated with globalisation provide images of first-world prosperity to

potential migrants. Electronic communications facilitate the dissemination of

knowledge of migration routes and work opportunities. Thus globalisation creates

the cultural capital needed for mobility*again providing an important theme for

the sociology of migration. Many of the world’s excluded perceive that mobility

brings the chance of prosperity, and are desperate to migrate. This helps explain the

upsurge in asylum-seekers and undocumented migrants since about 1990. Such is the

underlying reality behind the recent observation of the Global Commission on

International Migration that international migration is driven by ‘development,

demography and democracy’ (GCIM 2005: 12).

Globalisation also creates the necessary social capital, for another key characteristic

of globalisation is that power is diffused through networks (Castells 1996). Network

organisation characterises the ‘globalisation from above’ of transnational corpora-

360 S. Castles

tions and global governance as well as the ‘globalisation from below’ of migrants and

their communities (Portes et al. 1999). Informal networks facilitate migration even

when official policies try to prevent it (Castles 2004a; 2004b). Some of these networks

take on institutionalised forms in the ‘migration industry’*one of the fastest

growing forms of international business. This term embraces the many people who

earn their livelihood by organising migration as travel agents, people smugglers,

bankers, lawyers, labour recruiters and housing agents. As King has pointed out, this

‘privatisation of migration’ is entirely consistent with dominant trends to liberal-

isation and deregulation in the global economy (King 2002: 95). Migration networks

help to re-connect South and North at a time when many areas of the South have

become economically irrelevant to the globalised economy (Duffield 2001). The

growing understanding of the importance of migration networks can be seen as one

of the major contributions of the sociology of migration (Massey et al. 1998).

Network theory is based on traditional sociological preoccupations with the relation

between structure and action, as well as on the anthropological notion of human

agency and the way it helps shape communities.

Like other forms of social transformation, migratory processes are linked in

complex ways to globalising forces and transnational processes. As pointed out above,

research confined to national frameworks is hardly ever likely to reveal the whole

picture. However, it would be equally wrong to concentrate exclusively on the

transnational level. The flows and networks that constitute globalisation take on

specific forms at different spatial levels: the regional, the national and the local. These

should not be understood in opposition to each other, but rather as elements of

complex and dynamic relationships in which global forces have varying impacts

according to differing structural and cultural factors and responses at the other levels

(see Held et al. 1999: 14�16). Historical experiences, cultural values, religious beliefs

and social structures all mediate the effects of external forces, leading to forms of

change and resistance that bring about very different outcomes in specific

communities or societies.

For most people, the pre-eminent level for experiencing migration and its effects is

the local. This applies especially where social transformations linked to economic

globalisation make it necessary for people to leave their community and move

elsewhere: for instance through changes in agricultural practices or land tenure,

through reconfiguration of production by multinational corporations, or through a

development project (such as a dam, airport or factory) which physically displaces

people. The departure of young active people, gender imbalances and financial and

social remittances all transform conditions in the local community that is the focus of

everyday life. Similarly, the impact of immigration in host areas is felt in the way it

affects economic restructuring and social relations in local communities.

Nor should the national dimension be neglected. Despite postmodern ideas about

the erosion of the nation-state, the number of nation-states has increased four-fold in

the last half-century. Nation-states remain important and will do so for the

foreseeable future. They are the location for policies on cross-border movements,


citizenship, public order, social welfare, health services and so on. Nation-states retain

considerable political significance and have important symbolic and cultural

functions. But the autonomy of the national governments is being reduced, and it

is no longer possible to ignore transnational factors in decision-making and planning.

One result of this is the growing importance of regional cooperation on many issues

including migration. Regional organisations like the European Union are rooted not

only in spatial proximity and economic interests but also in historical and cultural

affinities.

Social transformation research must therefore give as much weight to the local as

to the global, while not forgetting the national and regional levels in between.

However, understanding the social experience of social transformation often requires

specific research approaches. Methods are not neutral and their choice is based on

specific conceptual frameworks and objectives, and may lead to widely varying

findings. One can differentiate between top-down and bottom-up approaches. These

in turn can be linked to differing ideas on social power and agency. I will return to

this below.

Clearly, global change and the increasing importance of transnational processes

require new approaches from the sociology of migration. These will not develop

automatically out of existing paradigms, because powerful academic traditions tend

to resist a shift away from established institutional and conceptual frameworks.

Migration is amongst the most important social expressions of global connections

and processes. The sociology of migration is therefore important not only as a field of

sociological enquiry in itself, but also as an area with the potential to make major

contributions to ‘global sociology’ as a whole (Cohen and Kennedy 2000).

Proposition 6: Research on migration has often been driven by the needs of

governments and bureaucracies*frequently expressed in the call for ‘policy-

relevance’. This has been linked to a situation of marginalisation within

mainstream social theory. Sociologists who wish to achieve a critical but socially

engaged sociology of migration need to find ways of bridging the divides between

theory, practice and policy.

Until the late twentieth century, it was possible to observe a dual marginality of the

sociology of migration. First, in the nation-state model, crossing the borders that

delineated national sovereignty and belonging was seen as exceptional. Therefore

control of migration and incorporation of immigrants were not central areas of

politics. Second, issues of mobility and difference were not central themes of

sociology. They played little part in the grand theories of classical sociology*except

perhaps with regard to understanding colonised peoples, or in exceptional situations

of mass inflows (as in the USA from 1870 to 1920).

Clearly things have changed today. Only about 3 per cent of the world’s population

are migrants (United Nations Population Division 2002), but in industrial countries

migrants and minorities make up 10 per cent or more of the population, and are

362 S. Castles

often 25 per cent or more of the inhabitants of fast-growing global cities. Here

migrants are no longer marginal, but rather a major population group and a powerful

ferment for social and cultural change. Policy-makers at the local and national levels

have had to find strategies to respond to these changes, and the result has been a large

volume of research commissioned to answer administrative questions and to provide

policy options. The first type of marginality has been superseded by a massive

politicisation of migration issues.

The benefit of policy-oriented research is that it provides social scientists with the

resources to carry out empirical research on important emerging issues. The danger,

on the other hand, is that research designed to answer policy questions may be

narrowly focused, and take a short-term perspective*dictated by a time-frame that

corresponds with the electoral cycle of 3�5 years. Research questions, methods and

even findings may be shaped by the political interests of governments, local

authorities and funding bodies. Such research is too narrowly focused to pay

attention to the global social transformations which form the context for

contemporary migration. It cannot explain the mediation between global trends

and local forms of response and resistance. Thus policy-driven research may be

providing simplistic, short-term administrative remedies to complex, long-term

social processes.

This helps to explain the dismal record of many recent migration policies. Policy-

driven research is not only bad social science*it is also a poor guide to successful

policy formation, as many observers have noted (Bhagwati 2003; Cornelius et al.

1994). Migration policies fail because policy-makers refuse to see migration as a

dynamic social process linked to broader patterns of social transformation (Castles

2004b). Ministers and bureaucrats still often see migration as something that can be

turned on and off like a tap through laws and polices. By imposing this paradigm on

researchers, the policy-makers have done both social scientists and themselves a

disservice.

But it is also necessary to ask: why are migration studies so dependent on policy

agendas? This brings us back to the second form of marginality mentioned above: the

relative absence of the sociology of migration in the mainstream of the discipline. It

appears that many migration sociologists have become dependent on government

consultancies and policy-linked funding just because the topic is still seen as rather

marginal within the discipline. To understand this fully would require a detailed

country-by-country study of the extent to which sociological theory includes

migration in analyses of contemporary society. In British sociology, for instance,

the initial response to the New Commonwealth immigration of the 1950s and 1960s

was the reworking of Chicago School theories of assimilation and acculturation.

However, by the 1970s, issues of racism, cultural identity, class and gender*influenced considerably by black, feminist and Marxist scholars*began to play an

important role in sociological discourse. In the meantime such approaches have

become parts of the accepted body of sociological analysis, but have not always

moved on to embrace the newer complex forms of global mobility affecting the UK.


In other European countries, sociology has been involved in debates on migration,

integration and multiculturalism, but these seem to have had little impact on core

theories of social order and differentiation (Favell 1998).

Globalisation theory is now at the centre of sociological debate, and the mobility of

people is a crucial form of globalisation. Yet some of the seminal works on

globalisation, like those of Castells (1996; 1997; 1998), Albrow (1996) and Beck

(1997), pay scant attention to the mobility of people. There are contrasting examples

of course, such as the works of Bauman (1998), Held and collaborators (1999) and

Cohen and Kennedy (2000). The point here is that analysis of migration as a central

element of global social change is still the exception. The sociologists who specialise

in such themes*in Europe at least*tend to be located in migration research centres

rather than in sociology departments.

This issue of marginalisation within their discipline does not, of course, apply to

sociologists alone: it affects migration researchers of all disciplines. It is important to

seek ways out of this dilemma. Some sociologists seem to have sought a solution by

withdrawing from the empirical level and focusing on increasingly abstract

theoretical accounts rooted in post-structuralism, which are mainly of interest to

fellow academics (Papastergiadis 2000; Urry 2000). Such efforts may strengthen the

inclusion of migration issues within mainstream social theory, but there is a danger of

concentrating on formalistic theories and becoming irrelevant to processes of social

change. The real challenge is to develop a sociology of migration which is both critical

and engaged with social reality, both empirical and grounded in theory. This means

remaining close to specific research issues without losing sight of the societal totality,

and using sociological analysis to address issues of practical concern to a wide range

of social actors.

How can this be achieved? The answer is not to choose the one side or the other of

the policy/academic divide, but to seek news ways of integrating them through the

linking of empirical research to broader theories of social relations, structures and

change. Even where policy-driven projects only address narrow, immediate questions,

there is no reason why researchers should not use their empirical findings as the basis

for more fundamental analyses, linked to long-term processes. Sociologists of

migration need to adopt a wider definition of the actors in processes of change

and policy formation. If official policies often have unintended consequences because

they ignore the human agency of migrants, sending communities and receiving

communities, then it is up to sociologists to recognise such processes of globalisation

from below and grass-roots activism, and to draw all those concerned into the

research process. Thus researchers should relate not only to official policy-makers,

but also to non-governmental organisations and to civil-society groups of all kinds

(both formal and informal). In the end, the aim must be to make it clear that

independent research, based on participatory methods as well as theoretical,

historical and comparative principles, leads to more useful public knowledge than

short-term policy-oriented studies.

364 S. Castles

Proposition 7: A critical and engaged sociology of migration is not an abstract

postulate, but something that many sociologists have been trying to create through

their research, writing, teaching and networking. To develop migration studies

further it is necessary to work through the consequences for theory, methodology,

and the organisation of the research enterprise.

Theory

The task of the sociology of migration is indeed broad, because it needs to elaborate a

theoretical framework for understanding the dynamics of international migration

and incorporation in a situation of rapid and complex transformations. Moreover,

this framework must be capable of including the various spatial levels at which these

processes work and the mediations between them.4 In view of this complexity, Portes

has pointed out that it is unrealistic to expect the emergence of a single all-embracing

sociological theory of migration. A theory that took account of all the complex forms

and permutations of migration would be so abstract as to be without any useful

explanatory content. Indeed it would end up ‘redefining the problem until it was

coterminous with its explanation’ (Portes 1997: 811). Thus the sociology of migration

needs to eschew attempts at grand theory and to focus instead on complexity,

contradictions and the unintended consequences of social action (Portes 1997; Portes

and DeWind 2004). Portes argues for the idea of ‘sociology as analysis of the

unexpected’ (Portes 1999). This implies returning to Robert K. Merton’s concept of

‘theories of the middle-range’: ‘special theories applicable to limited ranges of data*theories for example of class dynamics, of conflicting group pressures, of the flow of

power and the exercise of interpersonal influence . . .’ (Merton 1957: 9). Portes

characterises this mid-range theory approach as:

. . . narratives about how things got ‘from here to there’ including the multiplecontingencies and reversals encountered in the process. At this level of analysis, it ispossible to delineate, at least partially, the structural constraints and other obstaclesaffecting a specific individual or collective pursuit (Portes 1999: 13).

Thus the starting point for middle-range theorisation of contemporary migration

could be the analysis of a particular migration system linking specific countries of

origin, transit and destination, within the context of the wider social relations of

globalisation and social transformation. This could lead to theoretical frameworks

incorporating both structure and agency. Structure here would include macro-social

structures (states, corporations, international agencies), micro-social structures

(families, groups, social networks, local communities), and meso-social structures

(intermediate networks or collectivities like the migration industry, or transnational

communities). Agency refers to individual and group action, which helps people to

survive and cope in specific situations of change or crisis. All these factors should be

examined in a broader temporal and spatial context. Including temporal dimensions

means considering issues of path-dependence*the way particular historical, political


and cultural experiences shape understandings and actions. Spatial dimensions refers

to the multi-level influence of global, national, regional and local patterns.

It is interesting to compare this type of approach with Massey and his colleagues’

(1998) attempt to integrate the various components of contemporary migration

theory. After summarising, discussing and criticising the various approaches, they

come to the conclusion that:

. . . all theories play some role in accounting for international migration in thecontemporary world, although different models predominate at different phases ofthe migration process, and different explanations carry different weights indifferent regions depending on the local circumstances of history, politics andgeography (Massey et al. 1998: 281).

This sounds at first almost like a restatement of the difficulties of grand theory and

the need to rely on middle-range theories in migration studies. However, Massey and

colleagues go on to say that: ‘Our review suggests the outlines of what an integrated

theory of international migration should look like’ (Massey et al. 1998: 281).

Apparently it is a matter of taking parts of the various paradigms and using them

when and where they fit the various stages and specific situations. It is hard to see this

eclectic approach as an ‘integrated theory’. Indeed there seems to be a risk of making

fairly arbitrary choices about which bit of theory to use in which circumstances. In

any case, it is important to heed Merton’s warning that:

To concentrate entirely on the master conceptual scheme for deriving all subsidiarytheories is to run the risk of producing 20th century sociological equivalents of thelarge philosophical systems of the past, with all their varied suggestiveness, all theirarchitectonic splendour and all their scientific sterility (Merton 1957: 10).

Following the spirit of these ideas of Merton’s and their reprisal by Portes, it seems

important to abandon ideas of grand theory and integrated systems. A credence in

comprehensive systems of knowledge can all-too-easily lead to belief in all-embracing

policy models of top-down social engineering to manage migration and its

consequences. Instead we as sociologists should focus on the unintended con-

sequences of human action, the self-fulfilling prophecies (both Mertonian concepts),

the complexity of migratory systems and the importance of human agency. In other

words, our theoretical approaches should help us understand why things go wrong in

social planning, why top-down policy models fail*and how more participatory

approaches might avoid such pitfalls.

Methodology

Methodology refers not to specific techniques of investigation but to the underlying

principles for research and analysis. The development of migration sociology cannot

be based simply on an accumulation of data through a proliferation of empirical

studies. The research needs to be guided by new questions and approaches, based on

366 S. Castles

broader theoretical understanding. Moreover, it must use information-collection

methods that correct frequent practices of exclusion based on class, gender or race.

Top-down approaches to understanding social transformation tend to focus on the

realities of powerful institutions and privileged groups at both the global and local

levels, and may be blind to the differing realities of disempowered groups. Research

concerned with sustainability, equality and human rights requires approaches that are

sensitive to the needs, interests and values of all the groups involved in processes of

change. Such methods*known as participatory approaches*imply reducing

reliance on official data sets and pre-formed questionnaires in favour of techniques

that allow disadvantaged groups to help define the issues and engage in research

processes (Chambers 1997).

Some basic methodological principles for a critical migration sociology include:

. Interdisciplinarity: sociologists should work in interdisciplinary teams in larger

projects, and make use of the research findings of other disciplines in smaller ones.

. Historical understanding of sending, transit and receiving societies is vital in

understanding any specific migration situation.

. Comparative studies of experiences in different societies can increase awareness of

general trends and alternative approaches.

. Migration researchers need to take a holistic approach, linking their specific

research topic to broader aspects of migration and its embeddedness in social

relations at various spatial levels.

. In this era of globalisation it is essential to examine transnational dimensions of

social transformation as a key factor in migration. However, social transformation

is always an interaction between global, national, regional and local factors, which

together shape economic, political, social and cultural relations. Thus multi-level

analysis is essential.

. It is vital to investigate the human agency of the migrants and of sending and

receiving communities, and the way this agency interacts with macro-social

organisations and institutions.

. This implies the need for participatory research methods, which give an active role

to migrants and other persons affected by migration in research processes.

Organisation of the Research Enterprise

Academic funding bodies and universities often replicate the hierarchical structures

of traditional bureaucracies or corporations. If the network has become the key

organising principle of global economic and social relationships, then we should

examine how it can be best applied in organising research on migration. International

networks of researchers could help overcome the nationalist and colonialist legacy of

the social sciences. Network research implies a new approach, in which researchers in

a range of countries, both Western and non-Western, become equal partners in the

research process. Instead of first-world social scientists going out to conduct studies


of other peoples, research becomes a collaborative process of equals. The researchers

of each country can apply their understanding of local social structures and cultural

practices, while Western values and methods cease to be the yardstick; instead they

themselves become objects for study and critique.

Research is not a neutral activity, and researchers can make conscious choices

about goals, such as providing information and analysis to groups demanding

measures to combat inequality and exploitation and to increase social and political

participation by disadvantaged groups. Working with migrants and their associations,

as well as with civil society organisations representing the various communities

affected by the migration process, could be an important counterweight to the power

of policy-makers and funding bodies.

In recent years there has been a trend towards increased international cooperation

and networking in the social sciences. Some national research councils have also

looked favourably on projects that stress international collaboration. But many

researchers who participate in international networks have found that the going is not

always easy. Language remains an important barrier*often in subtle ways: the

translation of concepts from one language to another may mask quite different

cultural meanings and historical connotations. Researchers who have been trained in

different national academic cultures often ask questions in rather different ways, use

differing methods, and interpret findings in specific ways. Some international

collaborative projects have collapsed because of failure to grasp such differences.

Indeed, one aspect of network research is bringing these issues into the open, and

making their analysis part of the research process.

Despite all the difficulties, it seems to me that these approaches could take us

forward. Choices about theory, methodology and research collaboration are not

dictated simply by scientific logic: they are also normative questions, linked to our

understanding of the role of social science in society. I believe that the principles

outlined here could lead not only to better empirical research and theoretical

analyses; they might also help to make our work as migration researchers more

relevant to societies that are looking for understanding and solutions in this period of

rapid change.

Acknowledgements

This article is based on a paper given at the International Sociological Association

Research Committee 31: Sociology of Migration Conference: From Emigration to

Immigration in Europe, Cerisy, France, 2�6 June 2005. An earlier version was

published in French in Migrations�Societe (Castles 2005b). I thank the organiser,

Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, and the participants for their comments. I also thank

Ellie Vasta of COMPAS, University of Oxford, for her suggestions. Finally, I thank two

anonymous JEMS referees for their comments.

368 S. Castles

Notes

[1] For an example see Patterson (1965). For other references and a critique of such approaches

see Castles and Kosack (1973, especially Chapter 10).

[2] A more critical variant of this is the attempt to re-think incorporation into societies marked

by racial and class inequality through the notion of ‘segmented assimilation’ (Zhou 1997).

[3] This was one reason for President Bush’s proposal for a new US ‘guestworker programme’ in

2004. Since Mexican workers were essential for the US economy, he thought it better that

they enter legally so that their identities and records could be controlled (Migration Policy

Institute 2005). In the meantime, such plans have been overtaken by a growing politicisation

of migration, with large-scale demonstrations by undocumented workers on the one hand,

and calls for high walls and military patrols on the border by Republicans on the other.

[4] For an insightful treatment of similar issues from a geographical perspective see King (2002).

References

Alba, R. and Nee, V. (1997) ‘Rethinking assimilation theory for a new era of immigration’,

International Migration Review, 31(4): 826�74.

Albrow, M. (1996) The Global Age. Cambridge: Polity.

Basch, L., Glick-Schiller, N. and Blanc, C.S. (1994) Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects, Post-

Colonial Predicaments and Deterritorialized Nation-States. New York: Gordon and Breach.

Bauman, Z. (1998) Globalization: The Human Consequences. Cambridge: Polity.

Beck, U. (1997) Was ist Globalisierung? Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.

Bhagwati, J. (2003) ‘Borders beyond control’, Foreign Affairs, 82(1): 98�104.

Brettell, C.B. and Hollifield, J.F. (eds) (2000) Migration Theory: Talking Across Disciplines. New York

and London: Routledge.

Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell.

Castells, M. (1997) The Power of Identity. Oxford: Blackwell.

Castells, M. (1998) End of Millennium. Oxford: Blackwell.

Castles, S. (2004a) ‘The factors that make and unmake migration policy’, International Migration

Review, 38(3): 852�84.

Castles, S. (2004b) ‘Why migration policies fail’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 27(2): 205�27.

Castles, S. (2005a) ‘Nation and empire: hierarchies of citizenship in the new global order’,

International Politics, 42(2): 203�24.

Castles, S. (2005b) ‘La migration du XXIe siecle comme defi a la sociologie’, Migrations�Societe,

17(102): 19�44.

Castles, S. and Kosack, G. (1973) Immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Europe. London:

Oxford University Press.

Castles, S. and Miller, M.J. (2003) The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the

Modern World. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (3rd edition).

Chambers, R. (1997) Whose Reality Counts? Putting the First Last. London: Intermediate Technology

Publications.

Cohen, R. and Kennedy, P. (2000) Global Sociology. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Connell, R.W. (1997) ‘Why is classical theory classical?’, American Journal of Sociology, 102(6):

1511�57.

Cornelius, W., Martin, P.L. and Hollifield, J.F. (1994) ‘Introduction: the ambivalent quest for

control’, in Cornelius, W., Martin, P.L. and Hollifield, J.F. (eds) Controlling Immigration: A

Global Perspective. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 3�41.

Duffield, M. (2001) Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security.

London and New York: Zed Books.


Entzinger, H. (2002) ‘The rise and fall of multiculturalism: the case of the Netherlands’, in Joppke,

C. and Morawaska, E. (eds) Towards Assimilation and Citizenship: Immigration in Liberal

Nation-States. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 59�86.

Faist, T. (2000) The Volume and Dynamics of International Migration and Transnational Social

Spaces. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Favell, A. (1998) Philosophies of Integration: Immigration and the Idea of Citizenship in France and

Britain. London: Macmillan.

Freeman, A. (2004) ‘The inequality of nations’, in Freeman, A. and Kagarlitsky, B. (eds) The Politics

of Empire: Globalisation in Crisis. London and Ann Arbor MI: Pluto Press, 46�83.

Gallagher, T. (1997) ‘My neighbour my enemy: the manipulation of ethnic identity and the origins

and conduct of war in Yugoslavia’, in Turton, D. (ed.) War and Ethnicity: Global Connections

and Local Violence. New York: Rochester University Press, 47�75.

GCIM (2005) Migration in an Interconnected World: New Directions for Action: Report of the Global

Commission on International Migration. Geneva: Global Commission on International

Migration.

Global Commission (1995) Our Global Neighbourhood: Report of the Commission on Global

Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Goldberg, D. (1993) Racist Culture: Philosophy and the Politics of Meaning. Oxford: Blackwell.

Gordon, M. (1964) Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Race, Religion and National Origins.

New York: Oxford University Press.

Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D. and Perraton, J. (1999) Global Transformations: Politics,

Economics and Culture. Cambridge: Polity.

Huntington, S. (1993) ‘The clash of civilisations’, Foreign Affairs, 72(3): 22�49.

Kaplan, R. (1996) The Ends of the Earth: A Journey at the Dawn of the 21st Century. New York:

Random House.

King, R. (2002) ‘Towards a new map of European migration’, International Journal of Population

Geography, 8(2): 89�106.

Kritz, M.M., Lin, L.L. and Zlotnik, H. (eds) (1992) International Migration Systems: A Global

Approach. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Massey, D.S., Arango, J., Hugo, G., Kouaouci, A., Pellegrino, A. and Taylor, J.E. (1998) Worlds in

Motion: Understanding International Migration at the End of the Millennium. Oxford:

Clarendon Press.

Merton, R.K. (1957) Social Theory and Social Structure. Glencoe: Free Press.

Migration Policy Institute (2005) A New Century: Immigration and the US. Online at http://

www.migrationinformation.org/, accessed: 11 February 2006.

Papastergiadis, N. (2000) The Turbulence of Migration. Cambridge: Polity.

Park, R.E. (1950) Race and Culture. Glencoe: The Free Press.

Patterson, S. (1965) Dark Strangers. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Polanyi, K. (1944) The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. New

York: Farrar and Rinehart.

Portes, A. (1997) ‘Immigration theory for a new century: some problems and opportunities’,

International Migration Review, 31(4): 799�825.

Portes, A. (1999) ‘The hidden abode: sociology as analysis of the unexpected*1999 Presidential

Address to the American Sociological Association’, American Sociological Review, 65(1): 1�18.

Portes, A. and DeWind, J. (2004) ‘A cross-Atlantic dialogue: the progress of research and theory in

the study of international migration’, International Migration Review, 38(3): 828�51.

Portes, A., Guarnizo, L.E. and Landolt, P. (1999) ‘The study of transnationalism: pitfalls and

promise of an emergent research field’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22(2): 217�37.

Schierup, C.-U., Hansen, P. and Castles, S. (2006) Migration, Citizenship and the European Welfare

State: A European Dilemma. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Stiglitz, J.E. (2002) Globalization and its Discontents. London: Penguin.

370 S. Castles

Turton, D. (1997) ‘War and ethnicity: global connections and local violence in North East Africa

and former Yugoslavia’, Oxford Development Studies, 25(1): 77�94.

United Nations Population Division (2002) International Migration Report 2002, AT/ESA/SER.A/

220. New York: United Nations.

Urry, J. (2000) Sociology Beyond Societies: Mobilities for the Twenty-First Century. London:

Routledge.

Vasta, E. and Vuddamalay, V. (eds) (2006) International Migration and the Social Sciences:

Confronting National Experiences in Australia, France and Germany. Basingstoke: Palgrave

Macmillan.

Weiner, M. and Russell, S.S. (eds) (2001) Demography and National Security. New York and Oxford:

Berghahn.

Westin, C. (2000) Settlement and Integration Policies towards Immigrants and their Descendants in

Sweden. Geneva: International Labour Office.

Wieviorka, M. (1994) ‘Introduction’, in Wieviorka, M., Bataille, P., Couper, K., Martuccelli, D. and

Peralva, A. (eds) Racisme et Xenophobie en Europe: Une Comparaison Internationale. Paris: La

Decouverte, 7�25.

Wimmer, A. and Glick Schiller, N. (2003) ‘Methodological nationalism, the social sciences and the

study of migration’, International Migration Review, 37(3): 576�610.

Zhou, M. (1997) ‘Segmented assimilation: issues, controversies, and recent research on the new

second generation’, International Migration Review, 31(4): 975�1008.


twenty-first-century migration as a challenge to …21st+century... · twenty-first-century...

Documents