1st Edition
Aspiration, Desire and the Drivers of Migration
This book throws new light on the drivers of migration and explores the different ways in which aspiration and desire are involved in the generation, experiences, and outcomes of migration.
The authors propose novel approaches to advancing collective understanding of migration, including reassessments of classical push and pull theory; explorations of the lexicon of aspiration, desire and voluntariness in migration; and reflections on the relationships between migration and modernity, youth and expectation, and anti-immigrant discourses. The chapters have a broad geographical scope, spanning migration on different continents and in diverse socio-economic and cultural settings.
At a time when migration has become one of the most prominent areas of national and international political debate, this volume provides the tools for researchers to reconsider how we understand the forces and outcomes of global mobility. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
Introduction: Aspiration, desire and drivers of migration
Jørgen Carling and Francis Collins
1. Push-pull plus: reconsidering the drivers of migration
Nicholas Van Hear, Oliver Bakewell and Katy Long
2. Revisiting aspiration and ability in international migration
Jørgen Carling and Kerilyn Schewel
3. Desire as a theory for migration studies: temporality, assemblage and becoming in the narratives of migrants
Francis L. Collins
4. Forced to leave? The discursive and analytical significance of describing migration as forced and voluntary
Marta Bivand Erdal and Ceri Oeppen
5. Shifting migration aspirations in second modernity
Elisabeth Scheibelhofer
6. Desiring ‘foreign talent’: lack and Lacan in anti-immigrant sentiments in Singapore
Peidong Yang
7. Navigating aspirations and expectations: adolescents’ considerations of outmigration from rural eastern Germany
Frank Meyer
Biography
Francis L. Collins is a Professor of Geography in the National Institute of Demographic and Economic Analysis at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. His research focuses on international migration and cities with a particular emphasis on the experiences, mobility patterns, and government regulation of temporary migrants in urban contexts.
Jørgen Carling is a Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, Norway. His research addresses migration theory, transnational practices, and the links between migration and development. He has a particular interest in the thoughts and feelings that precede migration, and in the experience of involuntary immobility.
