ABSTRACT
Narrating Migration Introduction: Researching Migration The sensible place to start with any research into migrant groups has to be with the migration experience itself. Too often migrants are seen only in terms of their immigrant status, with their histories as emigrants sidelined in favour of the consideration of settlement and integration into the host society. For the Italians, Greek-Cypriots and Poles studied here the migrant journey long predates arrival in Britain, and the nature of the migration experience carries a legacy that reaches forward to influence subsequent generations. This chapter focuses on the significance of migration as a process in itself, emphasising the contrasting ramifications of ‘economic’ and forced migration, and providing a context where these two very different types of experience can be compared.
