Week 1: Definitions

 How can we define mobility?

 How can we define migration?
 Territorial mobility - Any move from one place to another place, including
temporarily, comprised moves between adjacent territories.
 Mobility includes migration, commuting, amenity migration,* the movement for
sanitary reasons (hijyenle ilgili nedenler), for shopping, or city-consumer
(disco, restaurant, etc).
 Mobility is a journey taken to reach a destination. The displacements under 5
minutes are excluded.
How can we define migration?

Italian migrants going to France – early Syrian Refugees in 2010s

1900s
 How can we define migration? (2)

 Modern Human Migration

https://earth.google.com/web/@15.83449686,
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=CjESLxIgNzQxMzFkNGY0MzEwMTFlODk1
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(What is Migration? By UNHCR)
How can we define migration? (3)

It is not easy to define migration, we must consider a lot of dimensions.

Migration is a multidimensional phenomenon,so it is not possible to identify
and define through a single variable.
The propensity to migrate depends on a very complex, often interacting set
of individual and collective economic, political social, cultural, ecological,
psychological, and others factors that vary in time and space.
While births and deaths can be defined biologically and marriages and
divorces legally, migration is more difficult to define.
Migration entails not only the crossing of international borders but also
entails the intention of staying in the country or area of arrival.
 How can we define migration?(4)
 Encylopaedia Britannica defines human migration as «the permanent change
of residence by an individual or group; it excludes such movements as
nomadism, migrant labour, commuting, and tourism, all of which are transitory
in nature»
• Nomadism – way of life of peoples who do not live continually in the same
place but move cyclically or periodically. It does not imply unrestricted and
undirected wandering; rather, it is based on temporary centres whose stability
depends on the availability of food supply and the technology for exploiting it.
• Migrant labour – casual and unskilled workers who move about systematically
from one region to another offering their services on a temporary – usually
seasonal – basis. Various forms may be found in South Africa, the Middle East,
W. Europe, N. America and India.
• Tourism – the act and process of spending time away from home in pursuit of
recreation, relaxation, and pleasure, while making use of the commercial
provision of services.
How can we define migration? (5)
 Migration involves the movement of a person from a place of departure
to a place of arrival, but what is important is that the possible types of
movement vary widely according to how the place of arrival and of
departure, the length of absence from the place of departure, the
duration of stay in the place of arrival and the reasons for the move
are defined. All of these characteristics interact with one another (G.
Caselli, J. Vallin, G. Wunsch, 2005)
 Golini (2000) developed a typology to account for modern migration
referring to «criteria- distance, recurrence & duration, causes, and
legality that are prevalent in the literature, but generally taken
discretely, when they should be combined»
 How can we define migration? (6)
 According to the distance
 no minimum distance for migration and any change of house, region, country, etc.
is a geographic migration that lends itself to analysis, but it will vary in terms of
determinants and consequences (e.g. Int’l migration - we consider the distance
between the country of origin and the country of arrival)
 According to recurrence and duration
 Two inseparable aspects may also vary widely. Daily, weekly, seasonal
migrations tend to be of short duration.
 United Nations Recommendations on Statistics of International Migration (1998) –
“Long-term migrant is a person who stays outside his/her usual country of
residence* for at least one year” (173 million in 2000, 191 million in 2005, 222
million in 2010, and 272 million in 2019, 281 million in 2020); «Short‐term migrant
is a person who moves to a country other than that of his or her usual residence
for a period of at least 3 months, but less than a year (12 months) except in cases
where the movement to that country is for purposes of recreation, holiday, visits to
friends or relatives, business, medical treatment or religious pilgrimage»
 How can we define migration? (7)
 Is migration an event “spot” or a process during the individual’s life ?
We can give an example to answer the Question as such:
If you live for several months abroad, you can stay there as a traveller, as a student
or as a migrant. In this continuum you can observe a difference of kind and you can
draw the line at the moment when a student changes his/her usual residence and
becomes a migrant
traveller ----------------- student ------------- change usual residence --------- migrant
 According to cause of the move
 The migrant is someone who undergoes:

 Displacements due to job search

 Displacements due to the family changes
 Displacements due to reasons of education
 Displacements due to a desire or need to live closer to the place of work
 Displacements due to the change of house
 Displacements due to catastrophes and others acts of nature
 Displacements due to war, repression, climate changes
How can we define migration? (8)

Pagani Detention Centre in

Greece

According to the legality

Migration is more or less
controlled by law (refugees)
A distinction may therefore be
drawn between legal and
illegal/irregular migration.
 Components of Migration

 space (movement over space)

 time (certain degree of permanency in the place of destination is
required)
 culture (change and readjustment of community affiliations of the
migrant)
 gender (‘feminisation of migration’ – women comprise slightly less
than half of all international migrants; even though the share of
female migrants fell from 49 per cent in 2000 to 48 per cent in 2015,
the feminisation is still a fact [still 48% in 2019]; female migrants
outnumber male migrants in Europe and Northern America)
Feminisation of Migration
 For a long time gender was not considered a critical factor in understanding the drivers
behind international migration. Rather, women were seen simply as spouses who
accompanied husbands (Tittensor and Mansouri, 2017)
But
since 1980s, the expression that there has been a ‘feminisation of migration’ has become
commonplace (INSTRAW, 2007), despite the fact that female migration is not a new
phenomenon, but simply remains largely unaccounted for in migration studies (see Donato,
Alexander, Gabaccia, & Leinonen, 2011).
 Castles and Miller (1998: 9) - the feminisation of migration is one of the five major
factors to play a role in migratory flows (“women play an increasing role in all
regions and all types of migration»)
 Piper (2003: 726) - the feminisation of labour migration is “a fact” of the new global migration
scene.
 However, other scholars are not so certain about the accuracy of the term
Vause and Toma (2015) - question such claims by pointing to the statistics
Feminisation of Migration (2)
 According to available statistics, from the 1960s, sex ratios have been
close to parity for a long time (47% female) and this has remained largely
unchanged. In the 1990s it was 48% and by 2000 it was approximately
49%. In other words, men still remain the major category of migrants, and this
suggests that such claims of a feminisation process do not reflect accurately the
empirical facts on the ground (Tittensor and Mansouri, 2017).
 Nevertheless, the concept of feminisation is not without merit. When we
look at migration compositions on a regional basis, we see a more nuanced
picture showing that while we cannot claim a uniform feminisation that
speaks of women as the dominant migrant category, there has been a distinct
feminisation of migration in various parts of the world (1990-2013, the
proportion of women migrating increased in all areas with the exception of Africa
and Asia; 2013- women constituted more than half of all migrants in 101
countries or areas) (Tittensor and Mansouri, 2017).
Why are we talking about «feminisation of migration»?
 Demand for foreign labor (esp. in more developed countries) has become
more gender-selective in favour of jobs fulfilled usually by women
(services, healthcare and entertainment)
 Right of family reunion
 Growth in the migration of women for domestic work, organised migration
for marriage and the trafficking of women into the sex industry
Main Terms in Migration Studies
Emigration : moving from one’s own country to another with the intention to settle there
Immigration: coming to a country with the intention to settle there for a period of time

Int’l migration is a multi-dimensional and multi-faceted phenomenon that includes;

 Economic migration (voluntary)
 Forced migration
a) Displacement (conflict, disaster and development-induced displacement) / internal
displacement
b) Population Exchange - the movement of a large group of people from one region to
another, often a form of forced migration imposed by state policy or international
authority and most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion but also due to
economic development.
c) People trafficking

 Return migration (return of economic and

forced migrants)
 Irregular migration
 Circular migration
 Main Terms in Migration Studies (2)

 Economic m. : people moving to another country because of economic reasons (economic well-being thus
better life); pull and push factors are important in the decision to migrate

 Forced m. : people moving to another place or country as a result of displacement (due conflict, natural
disasters, development programs)

 Return migration: Migratory movement when people return after emigration for the first time to their country
of origin

 Irregular migration: Movement that takes place outside the regulatory norms of the sending, transit, and
receiving countries (no clear or universally accepted definition of irregular migration. From the perspective of
destination countries it is an entry, stay or work in a country without the necessary authorisation or
documents required under immigration regulations. From the perspective of the sending country, the
irregularity is for example seen in cases in which a person crosses an international boundary without a valid
passport or travel document or does not fulfill the administrative requirements for leaving the country)

 Circular m. : «a fluid movement of people between countries, including temporary or more permanent
movement which, when it occurs voluntarily and is linked to the labour needs of countries of origin and
destination, can be beneficial to all involved» (Global Forum on Migration and Development, 2008)*
Main Terms in Migration Studies (3)

Forced migrants – generally called as ‘refugees’ in popular speech, but it is a narrow category
since forced migration is multi-faceted

 Refugee : a person residing outside his/her country of nationality, who is unable or

unwilling to return because of a ‘well-founded fear of persecution on account of race,
religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion’ (1951
UN Geneva Convention)
 Asylum-seeker : a person who moves across int’l borders in search of protection, but
whose claims for refugee status has not yet been decided
 Internally displaced person (IDP) : person who, as a result of persecution, armed
conflict or violence, has been forced to abandon his/her home and leaves his/her usual
place of residence, and who remains within the border of his/her own country (UNHCR,
1997)
Main Terms in Migration Studies (4)

 Development displacees : people compelled to move by large-scale

development projects, like dams, airports, roads, and urban housing

 Environmental and disaster displacees : people displaced by environmental

change (water pollution, deforestation, etc.), by natural disasters (floods,
earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, etc.), and by man-made disasters
(industrial accidents)

 People-trafficking and smuggling: smuggled migrants are moved illegally for

profit whereas the movement of trafficked persons is based on deception and
coercion and is for exploitation (impossible to quantify the numbers but both
smuggling and trafficking are widespread)
International Migrants