Handbook of Culture and Migration: An introduction

Abstract

Despite the debates and an ever expanding literature, migration remains an exceptional process that has long interested scholars (Spencer 2011: 6). Yet, despite ongoing debates and improved theories, much of the research on contemporary migration continues to echo Ravenstein’s laws of migration (1889) and emphasise the economic logic of mobility. And while the economic foundation of migration and migration decision-making is a critical element if we are to understand human mobility, it is not the only or potentially the most important of drivers. There is a myriad of influences beyond jobs and wages as noted in the literature (e.g. De Jong and Graefe 2008; Fussell and Massey 2004). Humans move for many reasons, and perhaps the most important point we make in this collection is also the most simple: culture (of migration) matters. The decisions that movers make are founded in culture and social practice and over time, patterns emerge in a population’s sojourns. The patterns that come to characterise migration pathways are defined in the discussions that movers and potential movers have with their families and friends and determined by their access to resources as well as the securities and insecurities that are present at points of origin and destination (Cohen and Sirkeci 2011, 2016; Sirkeci 2009).