ABSTRACT
The previous chapters in this book have demonstrated some of the many different perspectives that can be brought to bear in the study of migration. We have seen migration described as a response to economic factors, as a quality of life decision, or as a desperate attempt to avoid persecution. However, although the rationale for migration may come from these varied directions, the specific act of migration itself is always part of an individual’s life-course experience. This is the emphasis suggested by the biographical approach, introduced in Chapter 3, which argues that rather than see migration as a discrete event, carefully calculated at a specific time and in a specific place, the action must be seen as being embedded firmly within an individual’s overall daily existence. Migration events relate to an individual’s whole life — both past experiences and projected future expectations — and tend to have a wide variety of causes — some highly prominent and others more hidden but still essential to understanding the precise form that migration takes. This sense of embed-dedness makes migration a very cultural event: migration is both a reflection of culture and a constitutive element of culture.
