ABSTRACT
I address some survey strategies as they pertain to the study of international migration. First, I review the barriers to creating bi- or multinational sampling frames while addressing the challenges of representativeness and standardization. Then I describe how a specific type of migration survey, the ethnosurvey, provides bi- or multinational data and responds to those challenges. Afterward, I briefly review a number of research projects that have employed the ethnosurvey methodology, often introducing important variations. I close by considering two recent developments in social survey research that are of central interest to migration survey practitioners: community-based participatory research (CBPR) and challenges to the “stranger-interviewer norm.” CBPR has been applied to research on health among immigrants and deserves to be expanded to cover other topics as well, as it improves data validity. Empirical research on the stranger-interviewer norm suggests that under relatively ordinary circumstances the use of community members as interviewers, even when interviewers and respondents know each other, may also increase data validity.
