ABSTRACT
In an age when a fair proportion of the world’s population is living in a city or region other than its birthplace, ‘being a migrant’ may seem quite a mundane experience. Yet the phenomenon of migration continues to occupy a prime position on the research agendas of most academic institutions across the globe. Political concerns ranging from the ‘cost,’ for receiving nations, of migration from poorer states, issues relating to national security, and fear of social instability arising from the arrival of large numbers of people perceived as ‘culturally different,’ have generated increasing funding for research into themes such as ‘integration,’ ‘social cohesion,’ and ‘transnationality’1. Within this context of policy-driven research, academic questions continue to renew and refi ne theory2. New themes have emerged recently linked to the fi elds of sociolinguistics, gender studies, and sexuality research. At the same time, considerable energy is devoted to the study of concepts; among these, assimilation (Alba and Nee, 1997; Nagel, 2002; Brettell, 2003), ethnicity (Waters, 1999; Fenton, 2003; Song, 2003), and community (Alleyne, 2002). This all makes for an ever-expanding theoretical context at the same time as the number of case studies of migration around the world increases. Whilst most current research holds ‘new migrations’ in the spotlight, describing movements and their impacts in China, the Indian subcontinent, the Gulf states, Africa, the former Soviet states, and so on, a section of research maintains a historical focus on the migration process (N. Green, 1997; Hareven, 2002; Watkins-Owens, 1996). Between these two poles of research, life history approaches and longitudinal data analyses provide a contemporary historical view of migration over recent decades (Bruno, 2006; McDowell, 2003; Brettell, 2003).
