ABSTRACT
Current migration between Asia and Europe is diverse, not only with respect to migrants’ motivations and legal categories, but also regarding the different transformation and development processes it may unleash. While much of this movement is of a temporary nature, no coherent conceptualisation of the meaning of temporariness in different legal migrant categories exists. Diverse strands of literature have addressed the mobile lifestyle of highly-skilled workers and international students and the restrictive nature of temporary labour migration schemes, as well as the consequences of granting only temporary protection to humanitarian migrants. This introductory chapter brings together different debates on temporary migration and migration policies and links them to general academic discussions about processes of transformation and development in societies of migrants’ origin and destination.
