Migrants moving through mobility regimes: The trajectory approach as a tool to reveal migratory processes

Schwarz, Inga

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.03.007

Cited by 29 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…It covers different phases of the migration process and takes migrants' trajectories as the central object of analysis. Such a method is crucial for research on multinational migrations because it moves beyond the single‐origin‐single‐destination model and eschews methodological nationalism (Schwarz, 2018). Moreover, as a longitudinal method trajectory analysis enables researchers to follow the complex and temporally extended trajectories of migrants who might have clear migration intentions but whose actual future moves are difficult to predict (Paul & Yeoh, 2019).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stepwise student migration: A trajectory analysis of Iranians moving from Turkey to Europe and North America

Zijlstra

2020

Geographical Research

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In the last decade, political and economic constraints have prompted many students to leave Iran. While Europe and North America have traditionally been Iranians' preferred destinations, selective entry procedures make direct access increasingly difficult. This article focuses on Iranian students' stepwise migration strategies to reach Western countries through Turkey. My research indicates that stepwise migration theory can be applied to international students, as visa restrictions and the selectivity of Western universities transformed Turkey into a stepwise migration corridor. The article also considers the advantages of the trajectory analysis method I developed. Trajectory analysis is a longitudinal and mobile method whereby migrants are followed over time and space. It enables the researcher to compare data about migrants who move stepwise and those who move crosswise by staying in Turkey. The research is based on interviews with 36 Iranians in Turkey, Europe, and the United States, of whom 15 moved in stepwise fashion. An important outcome is that students' academic capital is a crucial indicator for their ability to migrate to the West. This finding points to path dependency in students' trajectories along a hierarchy of destinations: not only in geographical terms but also in terms of the perceived level of educational institutions' reputations.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stepwise student migration: A trajectory analysis of Iranians moving from Turkey to Europe and North America

Zijlstra

2020

Geographical Research

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“…Refugee studies also tend to focus on one or several countries of arrival, but in contrast to migration scholarship they pay more attention to countries of origin and migration trajectories (Schwarz, 2018). Due to the difficulty of reaching unprotected populations, representative samples are rare.…”

Section: Sample and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Irrespective of migration, people are secondly embedded in social relations, so that the labor market integration may overlap with the transition to marriage or parenthood. It is only in a third dimension of institutional embeddedness that migrants differ from sedentary populations: they cross national borders (Tsianos; Karakayali, 2010) and traverse mobility regimes (Schwarz, 2018). In the case of migrants, the first two dimensions of status passages also interact with a transition between nationally framed institutions (Nohl et al, 2014).…”

Section: Socio-spatial Autonomy Constitutes a Dimension Of Global Inementioning

confidence: 99%

Becoming a refugee. A life-course approach to migration under duress

Weiß

2018

Sociologias

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This article offers a sociological approach to the ongoing debate about the distinction between refugees and migrants. It adopts a life-course perspective on seeking refuge. Seeking refuge is embedded not only in the legal regimes of refugee protection, but also in other institutional frameworks governing the life-course. Exploring continuities between migrants and refugees allows for a better understanding of whether and under what preconditions the refugee category is applied by administrations and accessed by refugees themselves. With the help of case studies selected strategically from a larger sample of narrative interviews with university educated migrants to Germany, Turkey, and Canada, the article shows how the implementation and administration of the Geneva Refugee Convention in Germany is organized in a manner that often diverges from the empirical reality of fleeing from persecution and lack of protection. On this basis, a broader comparison with migrants in Turkey and Canada who could fall under the Geneva Refugee Convention, but who mostly refrain from claiming asylum, shows that those with better resources and socio-spatial autonomy can, if well informed, find alternative options for gaining protection rather than claiming refugee status. Whether migrants under duress see themselves as refugees and whether they claim asylum does not only result from the persecution they face but also from specificities of legal and administrative frameworks, as well as their position in global structural inequalities and it is related to divergent degrees of socio-spatial autonomy.

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“…As such, focusing on multiple migrations resonates with a recent interest in time and temporalities in migration research (Mavroudi et al, 2017). There are also important connections to a focus on 'journeys' (Mainwaring and Brigden, 2016;McDowell, 2018) and 'trajectories' (Schwarz, 2018). Indeed, some of the most significant dimensions of migration, socially, economically and in relation to subjectivity are generated as people negotiate places on route rather than before departure or after arrival in intended 'final' destinations, whether geographical or a desired migration status.…”

Section: Multinational Migrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geographies of migration I: Platform migration

Collins

2020

Progress in Human Geography

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This first report on research about the geographies of migration examines the sociotechnical platforms that enable migration and shape its outcomes. I begin by examining two areas of recent inquiry that analyse (1) commercial actors that form migration industries and (2) the broader infrastructures that underpin and direct migration. To elaborate on these insights, I also discuss observations of multinational (stepwise) migration as grounded evidence for the importance of sociotechnical systems in understanding the geographies of migration. Addressing platform migration reconfigures the spatialities and temporalities of migration, highlighting the diverse and distributed actors, networks and institutions generating, directing and constraining movement in the world.

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Migrants moving through mobility regimes: The trajectory approach as a tool to reveal migratory processes

Cited by 29 publications

References 33 publications

Stepwise student migration: A trajectory analysis of Iranians moving from Turkey to Europe and North America

Stepwise student migration: A trajectory analysis of Iranians moving from Turkey to Europe and North America

Becoming a refugee. A life-course approach to migration under duress

Geographies of migration I: Platform migration

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