Migration studies have developed rapidly as a research field over the past decades. This article provides an empirical analysis not only on the development in volume and the internationalization of the field, but also on the development in terms of topical focus within migration studies over the past three decades. To capture volume, internationalisation, and topic focus, our analysis involves a computer-based topic modelling of the landscape of migration studies. Rather than a linear growth path towards an increasingly diversified and fragmented field, as suggested in the literature, this reveals a more complex path of coming of age of migration studies. Although there seems to be even an accelerated growth for migration studies in terms of volume, its internationalisation proceeds only slowly. Furthermore, our analysis shows that rather than a growth of diversification of topics within migration topic, we see a shift between various topics within the field. Finally, our study shows that there is no consistent trend to more fragmentation in the field; in contrast, it reveals a recent recovery of connectedness between the topics in the field, suggesting an institutionalisation or even theoretical and conceptual coming of age of migration studies.

Nationality swapping in sports is commonly assumed to be a rapidly expanding practice that is indicative of the marketization of citizenship. Sports are said to have become wholesale markets in which talent is being traded for citizenship. In this article, we seek to empirically explore such claims by analysing 167 athletes who have competed for two different countries in the Summer Olympic Games. It seems that most switches occurred after the 1990s. Then, following a citizenship as a claims-making approach, we introduce the work of Bourdieu so as to connect citizenship as both legal status and practice with normative claims. The analysis reveals that the practice of nationality switching is shaped by structural conditions of the Olympic field. First, a complex realm of citizenship laws and regulations produces conditions under which athletes make legitimate claims to citizenship. Second, through a mechanism of reverberative causation, prior migrations are often echoed in contemporary nationality swapping. Only a limited number of athletes acquired citizenship via the explicit market principle we call jus talenti. Claiming that instrumental nationality swapping is indicative of the marketization of citizenship obscures the complex interplay between structures of and practices within the Olympic field.

It is often believed that the Olympic Games have become more migratory. The number of Olympic athletes representing countries in which they weren’t born is thought to be on the rise. It should, however, be noted that migration in the context of sports is hardly a new phenomenon. In this paper we hypothesise that, as a reflection of global migration patterns and trends, the number of foreign-born Olympians hasn’t necessarily increased in all countries. Furthermore, it was expected that the direction of Olympic migration has changed and that foreign athletes increasingly come from a more diverse palette of countries. We conducted an analysis of approximately 40,000 participants from 11 countries who participated in the Summer Games between 1948 and 2012. The selected countries have different histories of migration and cover the distinction between ‘nations of immigrants’ (Australia, Canada, United States), ‘countries of immigration’ (France, Great Britain, Netherlands, Sweden), ‘latecomers to immigration’ (Italy, Spain) and, what we coin, ‘former countries of immigration’ (Argentina, Brazil). We conclude that the Olympic Games indeed have not become inherently more migratory. Rather, the direction of Olympic migration has changed and most teams have become more diverse. Olympic migration is thus primarily a reflection of global migration patterns instead of a discontinuity with the past.

Background For some patients with advanced cancer not knowing prognosis is essential. Yet, in an era of informed decision-making, the potential protective function of unawareness is easily overlooked. We aimed to investigate 1) the proportion of advanced cancer patients preferring not to know prognosis; 2) the reasons underlying patients’ prognostic information preference; 3) the characteristics associated with patients’ prognostic information preference; and 4) the concordance between physicians’ perceived and patients’ actual prognostic information preference. Methods This is a cross-sectional study with structured surveys (PROSPECT). Medical and thoracic oncologists included patients (n = 524), from seven Dutch hospitals, with metastatic/inoperable cancer and an expected median overall survival of ≤ 12 months. For analysis, descriptive statistics and logistic regression models were used. Results Twenty-five to 31% of patients preferred not to know a general life expectancy estimate or the 5/2/1-year mortality risk. Compared to patients preferring to know prognosis, patients preferring unawareness more often reported optimism, avoidance and inability to comprehend information as reasons for wanting limited information; and less often reported expectations of others, anxiety, autonomy and a sense of control as reasons for wanting complete information. Females (p < .05), patients receiving a further line of systemic treatment (p < .01) and patients with strong fighting spirit (p < .001) were more likely to prefer not to know prognosis. Concordance between physicians’ perceived and patients’ actual prognostic information preference was poor (kappa = 0.07). Conclusions We encourage physicians to explore patients’ prognostic information preferences and the underlying reasons explicitly, enabling individually tailored communication. Future studies may investigate changes in patients’ prognostic information preferences over time and examine the impact of prognostic disclosure on patients who prefer unawareness.