ABSTRACT
We saw in the previous chapter the different ways of defining and measuring human migration and the corresponding difficulties this presents. However, there is another important obstacle facing anyone studying migration, namely how the act of migration should be conceptualised from a philosophical standpoint. Indeed, at least until a recent upsurge in interest in theoretical questions within population geography more generally (Findlay and Graham 1991), migration research has typically neglected and overlooked the philosophical debates that have raged, often quite furiously, in geography regarding the 'correct' way in which patterns and events should be studied and explained (Pooley and Whyte 1991a; White and Jackson 1995). Research has been much more concerned with questions of methodology and technique (Chapter 2), part of a move suggested by Findlay and Graham (1991) that takes population geography closer to 'spatial demography' (Woods 1982) than to the rest of geography. Nonetheless, these philosophical debates have influenced the way in which migration research has been carried out, and migration studies have taken on board, to a greater or lesser extent, all the main philosophical currents that have been experienced by geography and the other social sciences. It is therefore important that we describe the range and variety of conceptual approaches that have been adopted as a result.
