Geographies of migration I: Platform migration

Abstract

This first report on research about the geographies of migration examines the sociotechnical platforms that enable migration and shape its outcomes. I begin by examining two areas of recent inquiry that analyse (1) commercial actors that form migration industries and (2) the broader infrastructures that underpin and direct migration. To elaborate on these insights, I also discuss observations of multinational (stepwise) migration as grounded evidence for the importance of sociotechnical systems in understanding the geographies of migration. Addressing platform migration reconfigures the spatialities and temporalities of migration, highlighting the diverse and distributed actors, networks and institutions generating, directing and constraining movement in the world.