ABSTRACT
International migration has long been a subject of research and analysis in several disciplines of the social sciences, using a variety of methods and from a range of perspectives. Immigration, like climate change, is one of the challenges facing the world where “alternative facts” mask even the most well-established truths. This chapter reinstates some of these facts and deconstructs some simplistic misconceptions. The proliferation of borders to migration seeks to achieve a number of other ends, aside from controlling people’s movement. Numerical data on immigration is generally carefully selected before being circulated in order to paint immigration as a problem, from the point of view of both demographics and economics. Mapping migratory flows uses arrows (of varying thicknesses) to describe the volume and direction of population movements between several places. A dynamic process is thus reduced to a simplified graphic shape in the form of an arrow, which symbolises a direct transfer from place of origin to destination.
