Published February 13, 2024
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Humanising research on migration decision-making: a situated framework
Creators
- 1. Laboratory of Anthropology of Contemporary Worlds (LAMC), Institute of Sociology, Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Universite libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, B-1050, Belgium
Description
The question of why some people (re)migrate while others choose to stay remains one of the important preoccupations in migration studies. It underlines the need to further conceptualise transnational migration to identify the drivers behind individuals' aspiration or intention to (re)migrate or stay where they are. Drawing from several migration theories and perspectives in various disciplines, this paper proposes the situated framework of "humanising research on migration decision-making", that is, highlighting its human aspects. This scholarly enterprise is critically important as mainstream migration theories put more emphasis on individuals' rationality and some life dimensions, thereby overlooking other human aspects of migration and stasis. Viewing individuals as persons, this framework offers three ways to humanise the analysis: thick contextualisation, life dimensions-focused analysis, and time-situated inquiry. It also calls for the engendering of the analysis and decolonising the methodologies adopted in the study of (non-)migration decision-making.
This paper proposes an analytical framework to address the question of what drives people to migrate, remigrate, or stay where they are. To do so, it draws from existing migration theories in different disciplines and situates itself within the vast literature theorising migration. The resulting framework focuses on (non-)migration decision-making, specifically the drivers of migration aspiration and intention. It views individuals as persons with internal processes in cognitive, emotional, and relational terms; subjectivity; agency; social world; and lived experiences. This humanising framework not only calls for engendering research on (non-)migration decision-making but also suggests several decolonising data-gathering techniques. It offers three analytical ways: thick contextualisation, life dimensions-focused analysis, and time-situated inquiry. Its humanising approach to individual (non-)migration decision-making is a response to several calls to make scientific inquiries more humane, inclusive, and grounded.
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