Migration

What is Migration?

Key Question:

Movement

• Cyclic Movement – movement away from home for a short period.

– Commuting– Seasonal movement– Nomadism

• Periodic Movement – movement away from home for a longer period.

– Migrant labor– Transhumance– Military service

Migration

Migration –A change in

residence that is intended to be permanent or semi-permanent usually across political boundaries.

Little Haiti, Miami, Florida

Words Used to Describe People Who Migrate

• Emigrant: A person who is leaving a country to reside in another. Immigrant: A person who is entering a country from another to take up new residence.

• Refugee: A person who is residing outside the country of his or her origin due to fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

Words used to Describe People Who Migrate

• Internally Displaced Person (IDP): A person who is forced to leave his or her home region because of unfavorable conditions (political, social, environmental, etc.) but does not cross any boundaries.

• Migration Stream: A group migration from a particular country, region, or city to a certain destination.

Types of Migration

• Internal Migration: Moving to a new home within a state, country, or continent

• External Migration: Moving to a new home in a different state, country, or continent.

• Emigration: Leaving one country to move to another (e.g., the Pilgrims emigrated from England).

• Immigration: Moving into a new country (e.g., the Pilgrims immigrated to America).

Types of Migration • Population Transfer: When a government

forces a large group of people out of a region, usually based on ethnicity or religion. This is also known as an involuntary or forced migration.

• Impelled Migration (also called "reluctant" or "imposed" migration): Individuals are not forced out of their country, but leave because of unfavorable situations such as warfare, political problems, or religious persecution.

Types of Migration • Step Migration: A series of shorter, less

extreme migrations from a person's place of origin to final destination—such as moving from a farm, to a village, to a town, and finally to a city.

• Return Migration: The voluntary movements of immigrants back to their place of origin. This is also known as circular migration.

Types of Migration

• Seasonal Migration: The process of moving for a period of time in response to labor or climate conditions (e.g., farm workers following crop harvests or working in cities off-season;

• For example "snowbirds" movement from the Southern and South-western United States during winter)

Types of Migration

• Chain Migration: A series of migrations within a family or defined group of people.

• A chain migration often begins with one family member who sends money to bring other family members to the new location.

Types of Migration • Chain migration results in

migration fields—the clustering of people from a specific region into certain neighborhoods or small towns.

• Return Migration: The voluntary movements of immigrants back to their place of origin.

• This is also known as circular migration.

Types of Migration

• Seasonal Migration: The process of moving for a period of time in response to labor or

climate conditions e.g. farm workers following crop harvests or working in cities off-season;• This "snowbirds" moving to the southern

and southwestern United States during winter).

International Migration – Movement across country borders (implying a degree of permanence).

Internal Migration - Movement within a single country’s borders (implying a degree of permanence).

Choose one type of cyclic or periodic movement and then think of a specific example of the kind of movement changes both the home and the destination. How do these places change as a result of this cyclic or periodic movement?

Why do People Migrate?

Key Question:

Why do People Migrate?

• Forced Migration – Human migration flows in which the movers have no choice but to relocate.

• Voluntary Migration – Human migration flows in which the movers respond to perceived opportunity, not force.

Forced Migration

• The Atlantic Slave Trade remains the most outstanding example of forced migration due to the magnitude of the numbers of the people who were forcibly moved and the inhumane treatment given to them.

Atlantic Slave TradeBy the Numbers

Region Number %West Indies 4,128,000 36.4

Brazil 4,000,000 35.4

Spanish Empire

2,500,000 22.1

North America/U.S.

500,000 4.4

Europe 200,000 1.8

TOTAL 11,328,000 100

Distance Decay weighs into the decision to migrate, leading many migrants to move less far than they originally contemplate.

Voluntary Migration – Migrants weigh push and pull factors to decide first, to emigrate from the home country and second, where to go.

Kinds of Voluntary Migration• Step Migration –

When a migrant follows a path of a series of stages, or steps toward a final destination.* intervening opportunity –at one of the steps along the path, pull factors encourage the migrant to settle there.

• Chain Migration –When a migrant communicates to family and friends

at home, encouraging further migration along the same path, along kinship links.

Ravenstein’s Laws of Migration

• Geographer E.G. Ravenstein developed a series of migration 'laws' in the 1880s that form the basis for modern migration theory.

• Most migrants move only a short distance. (Distance Decay)

• There is a process of absorption, whereby people immediately surrounding a rapidly growing town move into it.

• The gaps left by people moving from a place closer to the growing town are filled by migrants from more distant areas, and so on until the attractive force [pull factors] is spent.

Ravenstein’s Laws of Migration

• Each migration flow produces a compensating counter-flow.

• Natives of towns are less migratory than those from rural areas.

• Females are more migratory than males.

• Families are less likely to make international moves than young adults.

• Most migration occurs in steps.

Ravenstein’s Laws of Migration• Most migration is rural to urban.

• Most migrants are adults.• Most international migrants are

young males, while more internal migrants are female.

• Economic factors are the main cause of migration.

Gravity Model

• Spatial interaction (such as migration)– Directly Related to the Populations– Inversely Related to the Distance

Between Them

Population 1 x Population 2Distance Between Them

Types of Push and Pull Factors

• Economic Conditions• Political Circumstances• Armed Conflict and Civil War• Environmental Conditions• Culture and Traditions• Technological Advances

Economic Conditions –

Migrants will often risk their lives in hopes of economic opportunities that will enable them to send money home (remittances) to their family members who remain behind.

Environmental Conditions –In Montserrat, a 1995 volcano made the southern half of the island, including the capital city of Plymouth, uninhabitable. People who remained migrated to the north or to the U.S.

Think about a migration flow within your family, whether internal, international, voluntary, or forced. The flow can be one you experienced or one you only heard about through family. List the push and pull factors. Then, write a letter in the first person (if you were not involved, pretend you were your grandmother or whomever) to another family member at “home” describing how you came to migrate to your destination.

Where do People Migrate?

Key Question:

Global Migration Flows

• Between 1500 and 1950, major global migration flows were influenced largely by:– Exploration– Colonization– The Atlantic Slave Trade

• Impacts the place the migrants leave and where the migrants go.

Major Global Migration FlowsFrom 1500 to 1950

Regional Migration Flows

• Migrants go to neighboring countries:- for short term economic opportunities.- to reconnect with cultural groups

across borders.- to flee political conflict or war.

Economic Opportunities

Islands of Development –Places within a region or country where foreign investment, jobs, and infrastructure are concentrated.

Economic Opportunities

In late 1800s and early 1900s, Chinese migrated throughout Southeast Asia to work in trade, commerce, and finance.

Reconnecting Cultural Groups

About 700,000 Jews migrated to then-Palestine between 1900 and 1948.

After 1948, when the land was divided into two states (Israel and Palestine), 600,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were pushed out of newly-designated Israeli territories.

Jerusalem, Israel: Jewish settlements on the West Bank.

National Migration Flows

• Also known as internal migration- eg. US, Russia, Mexico

Guest Workers

• Guest workers – migrants whom a country allows in to fill a labor need, assuming the workers will go “home” once the labor need subsides.

- have short term work visas- send remittances to home

country

RefugeesA person who flees across an international boundary because of a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.

• Subsaharan Africa• North Africa and Southwest Asia• South Asia• Southeast Asia• Europe

Regions of Dislocation –What regions generate the most refugees?

The Sudan –Fighting in the Darfur region of the Sudan has generated thousands of refugees. In eastern Chad, the Iridimi refugee camp is home to almost 15,000 refugees from the Darfur province, including the women in this photo.

Imagine you are from an extremely poor country, and you earn less than $1 a day. Choose a country to be from, and look for it on a map. Assume you are a voluntary migrant. You look at your access to transportation and the opportunities you have to go elsewhere. Be realistic, and describe how you determine where you will go, how you get there, and what you do once you get there.

How do Governments Affect Migration?

Key Question:

Governments Place Legal Restrictions on Migration• Immigration laws – laws that restrict

or allow migration of certain groups into a country.

– Quotas limit the number of migrants from each region into a country.

– A country uses selective immigration to bar people with certain backgrounds from entering.

Waves of Immigration

Changing immigration laws, and changing push and pull factors create waves of immigration.

Post-September 11

One goal of international organizations involved in aiding refugees is repatriation – return of the refugees to their home countries once the threat against them has passed. Take the example of Sudanese refugees. Think about how their land and their lives have changed since they became refugees. You are assigned the daunting task of repatriating Sudanese from Uganda once a peace solution is reached. What steps would you have to take to re-discover a home for these refugees?

Impacts of Migration• Human migration affects population patterns and

characteristics, social and cultural patterns and processes, economies, and physical environments. As people move, their cultural traits and ideas diffuse along with them, creating and modifying cultural landscapes.

• Diffusion: The process through which certain characteristics (e.g., cultural traits, ideas, diseases) spread over space and through time..

Impacts of Migration

• Relocation Diffusion: Ideas, cultural traits, etc. that move with people from one place to another and do not remain in the point of origin.

• Expansion Diffusion: Ideas, cultural traits, etc., that move with people from one place to another but are not lost at the point of origin, such as language.

• Cultural markers: Structures or artifacts (e.g., buildings, spiritual places, architectural styles, signs, etc.) that reflect the cultures and histories of those who constructed or occupy them..