Abstract
This contribution introduces the special issue commemorating the 60th anniversary of International Migration Review. We first review the scholarly themes of articles published in the journal during the last 10 years, since the 50th-anniversary issue. We identify seven broad trends and aspects of international population movements, migration, and the migrant experience, including mixed migration, access to asylum, climate migration, South-South models of integration and assistance, studies of legal and liminal status, and attitudes and national political response to immigrants, as key themes represented in the last decade of IMR articles. We then discuss the process of creating the special issue and introduce the scholars and their contributions to the issue around the analytical and conceptual themes of (i) knowledge, expertise, and policy; (ii) migration theory; (iii) methods and analysis; (iv) assimilation and transnationalism; (v) borders and bordering; (vi) legal statuses and in-between experiences; and (vii) migrant well-being and health. Finally, we reflect on what we have accomplished so far, but also challenges IMR as a journal and the broader community of international migration scholars, practitioners, and advocates to continue to work toward further diversity, interdisciplinarity, innovation, and collaboration in our work.
Keywords
Introduction
Except perhaps for a loving marriage or partnership, a 60th anniversary is not a marker in time often celebrated. To be sure, there was a spirited discussion among members of the Editorial Board of International Migration Review about commemorating such a moment in the journal’s history. But with the rapidly changing landscapes of international migration and international migration research, as well as migration governance at the international, regional, national, and local scales, the moment is justified, even demanded.
The year 2024 itself warrants attention: national elections throughout the world, including in the United States; in many of these elections, immigration is a leading issue. The centennial legacies of both the Johnson–Reed Act and the US Border Patrol are front of mind, while the pursuit of safe and secure migration continues through the regional review process of the UN Network on Migration. The 1924 Immigration Act, also known as the Johnson–Reed Act, formalized the idea of national-origin quotas based on the origins of the white US population in 1890 (excluding Black, Asian-American, Mexican American, Indigenous, and non-European origin citizens from the quotas). This had far-reaching consequences, including cementing a white, European-origin ideal vision of the United States and excluding immigrants from non-European nations until the passage of the 1965 Hart–Cellar Immigration Act. Also, in 1924, Congress created the Border Patrol to curtail informal, unregulated movement across the US–Mexico border, which was at odds with the goals of lawmakers’ national-origin quotas and a white nation (Ngai 1999). One hundred years later, it is difficult to overestimate the enduring impact that these twin developments continue to have on immigrant life in the U.S. today.
As we reflect on the last 10 years of migration history and scholarship, including the continuing racialization of immigrants in the United States and globally, and the increasing securitization of borders, especially in the U.S. Southwest, these anniversaries are particularly relevant and poignant. The scholarship in this special issue reflects the legacies of earlier inquiries, much of it published in IMR, that elucidated the links between policy and outcomes, including unintended outcomes. But at the same time, authors in this issue reflect on the impacts and limits of previous research and point the way forward to new international migration scholarship that aims to explain and reshape future policy and patterns.
The 50th anniversary of International Migration Review was also commemorated with a special issue edited by Lee, Carling, and Orrenius (2014). The contributed papers in that issue took critical stock of the scope and themes of IMR and its editors reflected on emerging “frontiers” in international migration research. The issue presented here builds on these goals by seeking reflexivity on the state of international migration research both within the annals of IMR and more broadly. Contributors to this special issue have been asked to review, critique, and synthesize the existing research on selected topics in international migration and mobilities but also to reflect on if, how, and to what extent that research has engaged with audiences and communities across disciplines and among scholarly and geographic spaces. In posing our general questions, we are seeking to understand the broader contributions of international migration scholarship, both realized and aspirational, and what the field has yet to accomplish, not only as a scholarly pursuit but also as a policy-, practitioner-, and migrant-facing enterprise.
More specific questions provide indirect measures of evolving models and approaches to international migration research. These overarching questions frame our approach to this stock-taking and forward-looking review and analysis:
How successful has international migration research been at communicating and sharing knowledge and evidence with diverse groups of stakeholders, including policymakers, advocates, international and nongovernmental organizations, the public, and migrants themselves? To what extent and how fruitfully has migration research integrated the field’s multidisciplinary nature? How have models and methods of doing research — new and mixed methodologies, interdisciplinary teams, community-based participatory research, international collaborations — changed over time, and what has the benefit been for migration theory-building and knowledge? What impacts has the field had on evidence-based policy and public opinion? social, demographic, cultural, economic, political, and environmental impacts of international migration on individuals, families, communities, and societies in places of origin and destination; irregular migration and the changing landscapes of nationality and citizenship, particularly the erosion of human rights and civil rights for those who are not recognized by a state, such as trafficked and stateless persons, asylum seekers, and undocumented migrants; recent surges in refugee and asylee populations globally and policy responses including pathways in protection, humanitarian assistance, and resettlement, as well as enforcement; international migration and public health crises, such as COVID-19, including epidemiological shifts, policy responses, and planning; impacts of climate change and environmental shifts on international migration patterns and migrants’ health and well-being, and policy responses for climate migration; new understandings of transnational migrant links and networks; and policy responses, legal issues, and migration governance, especially the changing role of the state and new responses in regional and global migration management and policies, as well as innovations in models and modes of immigrant integration and public opinion and attitudes.
At the same time, seven substantive domains of international migration inquiry provided, from our shared perspective, an inclusive invitation for contributions:
The present volume presents the creative and critical work of the authors — scholars and practitioners, established, innovative, and energetic. The role of external reviewers for these papers has been essential in the process of asking the challenging questions, encouraging and confronting. We profoundly appreciate the willingness of our peers throughout this process. We also thank Natasha Bluth, Nicholas Tinoco, and Jade Williford from the University of California-Los Angeles, for their excellent research assistance in preparing this introduction. They represent the next generation of migration scholars very well and promise confidence for an informed future. The enduring support of Bonnie Ip, Editorial Assistant at the Center for Migration Studies, throughout the production of this anniversary volume, and on behalf of IMR generally, should be applauded every day.
Before introducing authors and their contributions, we turn first to a summary analysis of the published content of IMR during the past 10 years since the 50th anniversary of IMR.
IMR During the First Decade of the Second Half of Its First Century
In 2014, Lee, Carling, and Orrenius observed and encouraged authorship of IMR papers to be increasingly global, that is, increasingly diverse geographically. They also identified how the original articles of IMR were engaging significant dimensions of international migration in the early twenty-first century (Lee, Carling, and Orrenius 2014).
Considering first the inclusion of scholars in the quarterly publication of IMR issues during the past decade, Table 1 presents the country of affiliation of IMR contributors for the past nine years, 2015–2023, in comparison to two earlier periods, thus bringing forward data presented in the 50th-anniversary volume. Data represent the proportion of research articles with at least one author from each country. The leap in the range of country affiliations is striking. Between 2005 and 2013, only 35 countries were represented among IMR authors; between the second half of 2014 and 2023, 49 countries were represented. The past decade has also continued the decline in the proportion of articles authored solely by persons affiliated with US institutions, from 61 percent of research papers published in 1995–2004 to less than half of that proportion, 30 percent, in 2014 through 2023. The case can be made that IMR continues to become increasingly global. Yet, at the same time, research papers published in IMR included authors from only one-quarter of the world’s nations, including only three countries in Africa and Central and South America, respectively. The current editorial board and team have much more work to do in this regard, and they are committed to increasing the geographic representation of research and researchers published in IMR.
Figures represent the proportion of articles in each period that have at least one author based in the respective country. Includes articles, research notes, and country reports.
See also Lee, Carling, and Orrenius (2014), Table 1.
Including only the second half of 2014.
Articles with only US authors.
In reflecting on the content of the last 10 years of IMR issues, we employ our own scholarly lens to identify how migration research has changed in the last decade. We identify seven broad trends and aspects of international population movements, migration, and the migrant experience, including mixed migration, access to asylum, climate migration, South-South models of integration and assistance, studies of legal and liminal status, and attitudes and national political response to immigrants. We illustrate the evolution of the scope and methods of international migration research in a selective review of recent IMR literature around each of these areas of migration scholarship.
Mixed Migration
As international migration scholars increasingly explore the multiple and overlapping motivations of many migrant populations, IMR publications have contributed new insights to the literature on mixed migration underscoring the complexity of migrants’ motivations. Ruhe and Kuhnt (2023) use global survey data to analyze how peaceful versus conflict-affected sending contexts shape permanent emigration aspirations. While economic rationales lose salience in emigration aspirations for those living in conflict zones and conflict increases emigration aspirations among those less motivated to emigrate in times of peace, there is no marked increase in emigration aspirations in the context of armed conflict. Such studies, alongside others that advance new categories of analysis for migrants that move beyond the labels of “economic” or “political” (Luthra, Platt, and Salamońska 2018; Freier and Holloway 2019), highlight a growing need for tools that can assess the complexity of migratory motivations, including mixed migration flows. Napierała et al. (2022) take up this project, creating and testing a model to more effectively predict and help host states manage waves of asylum-seekers to Europe using “big data” (e.g., from mobile phones or social media) alongside traditional data used in migration studies (e.g., administrative records) and “scenario-based methods.” Despite how this scholarship helps complicate dominant ways of classifying why people migrate and the implications of mixed migration, other work suggests steep barriers to modifying categories of practice (Menjívar 2023).
(Lack of) Access to Asylum
The lack of access to asylum in many receiving countries across the globe remains a prominent concern among scholars. Single-country case studies highlight how hostile immigration environments have compelled migrants with precarious legal statuses to leave one country for another (see Smith 2023 on cross-border movement from the United States to Canada) and how high levels of discretion haphazardly arbitrate refugee status determination (see Liodden 2022 on asylum decisions in Norway and Vanto et al. 2022 on “collective discretion” in the Finnish immigration bureaucracy). A selection of studies also calls attention to protracted displacement due to restrictive immigration policies, illuminating how unrecognized refugees navigate their liminal position (see Sunam 2023 on the life projects of Rohingya and Hazara refugees in Malaysia), as well as the economic and health effects of nonrecognition for asylum-seekers (Jaschke and Kosyakova 2021; Kuhn 2023).
The implications of restrictive asylum access notwithstanding, macro-level and cross-national analyses indicated a liberalization of asylum policies in Latin America relative to restrictionism in refugee governance more broadly (Hammoud-Gallego 2022), a trend that shows signs of misalignments on the ground and even reversal to align with general patterns (Espinoza 2024). Results from de Haas, Natter, and Vezzoli (2018) go a step further to suggest that while immigration policies have become less restrictive over time on a global scale, policies toward asylum-seekers and refugees specifically have become more welcoming thanks to developments such as the “safe country” principle, the popularization of temporary protection, and the institutionalization of resettlement programs in more countries of reception (see also Khuu and Bean 2022). However, other work suggests that the uncertainty inherent in the expansion of temporary protections and “safe country” principles may have serious unintended consequences for processes of inclusion and producing precarity (Griffiths 2014; Biehl 2015; Atak 2018; van Kooy and Bowman 2018; Velásquez 2020; Menjívar, Agadjanian, and Oh 2022; Osso 2023).
Legal and Liminal Status
Scholars also remain deeply engaged in uncovering the production and implications of legal and liminal statuses. A range of studies approach this topic by analyzing processes of il/legalization. For example, Vickstrom (2014) details how immigration policies and migrant capital generate variable forms of irregular status, including no-visa entry, overstaying, and befallen irregularity. Likewise, Asad and Hwang (2019) find that immigrants from Indigenous communities in Mexico are more likely to enter the United States without documentation than their peers from non-Indigenous communities, holding migrants’ economic and social resources constant. Recent work has fine-tuned the variation of legal statuses away from binary classifications (Menjívar 2006), noting the differentiated effects and access to benefits that stratified legal statuses produce. Investigating processes of legalization, Del Real (2024) deploys the concept of “gradations of migrant legality” to assess how legal structure and bureaucracy at different organizational levels complicate immigrants’ transition to legal status, even among those with a clear pathway to citizenship.
Other work has explored legal statuses through a comparative frame — both along the continuum of legality to illegality and relative to other axes of inequality — sometimes with unexpected results. Vis-à-vis unauthorized Mexican migrant men in the United States, O’Neill (2022) determines that H-2A visa holders see no significant wage increase; despite their ability to find work in the formal sector, the latter group is also less likely to gain social capital or language proficiency in the receiving country. Studying the effects of the devolution of immigration enforcement in four US cities using survey data on Latinas/os with variable legal statuses, Simmons, Menjívar, and Valdez’s results depart from prior analyses of gendered il/legality. Latina respondents were equally likely to experience social isolation in their communities as Latino respondents — and levels of social isolation grew among those with children (2021).
Following Simmons et al. (2021), perhaps the greatest focus in this body of work centers on the effects of il/legal and liminal statuses in an unwelcoming host-country climate. Amuedo-Dorantes, Puttitanun, and Martinez-Donate (2019) find that while immigrants were likely to be arrested or deported for minor offenses as enforcement practices in the United States intensified beginning in the early 2000s, this trend softened in 2015 when the Department of Homeland Security shifted its strategy to target criminal offenders. This literature disaggregates classifications of legal status to consider how stratified legal statuses produce differentiated effects that shape family life (Cardoso et al. 2016; Del Real 2019; Desai, Su, and Adelman 2020; McConnell and Yellow Horse 2021), participation in public life and civic engagement (Lai 2021), education (Okura, Hsin, and Aptekar 2023; Waldman 2023), health and health care access (Sardadvar 2015; Cheong and Massey 2019; Zajdel 2023), and human capital formation, socioeconomic mobility, and occupational choices (Hall and Greenman 2015; Hsin and Reed 2020).
Climate Migration
With the effects of climate change becoming more pronounced, researchers examining environmental migration describe significant agentic and spatiotemporal variation among possible climate-related migration experiences. IMR publications have contributed to these debates in numerous ways, including calls for harmonizing migration theory with climate scenarios to avoid simplistic projections (Hunter and Simon 2023). Puente, Perez, and Gitter (2016) use satellite data to examine the effect of rainfall variability on Mexico-US migration. The authors conclude that cross-border migrations in this region can be influenced by changes in precipitation patterns, with the data suggesting an increase in migration by upward of 10 percent in response to a 20 percent reduction in rainfall. Smirnov et al. (2023) also explore drought-related migrations by constructing a simulation model that projects future trends. Importantly, the authors note that international policy is critical in shaping the trajectory of these flows, with their model suggesting that a breakdown of international cooperation corresponds with a significant spike in the potential for drought-related migrations by upward of 500 percent by the end of the century.
Building on studies of drought-related migration, another key area of scholarship examines the relationship between food insecurity and migration. Smith and Wesselbaum (2022) analyze global panel data and find a strong positive correlation between food insecurity and international migration — an association that they find to be stronger than the relationship between temperature fluctuations and migration alone. Similarly, Lindstrom, Randell, and Belachew (2023) argue that food insecurity is a key mechanism linking climate change to migration. Their findings suggest that households facing food insecurity and/or farm loss in Ethiopia are at a heightened risk for internal displacement. Importantly, the authors argue that the effects of food insecurity are additive — when additional shocks accompany food insecurity, the possibility for international migration increases. Finally, examining the reverberations of climate-related migrations, Kolstad et al. (2023) investigate if receiving communities’ attitudes toward migrants change if the moves were enacted in response to a climatic shock. In their research site in Bangladesh, they find no evidence of a warmer welcome for so-called “climate refugees,” arguing that narratives that offset the blame for migration on climate change are not associated with greater feelings of obligation to assist the displaced.
South-South Models of Integration and Assistance
Scholars increasingly recognize the frequency of South-South patterns of migration, which remain understudied due to the tendency of past scholarship to focus on migration to the Global North overwhelmingly. Examining several cases of migration management across the Global South, Adamson and Tsourapas (2020) develop a typology of management models that expands Global North theorizing. The authors argue that this typology can shed light on management models in the Global North. With a similar focus on migration governance in the Global South, Brumat and Espinoza (2024) analyze interviews with actors in migration governance, legal documents, and public declarations in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. They show how the different levels of bureaucracies and actors’ roles shape migration governance.
Social and economic remittances resulting from South-South migrations can transform sending communities and shape local development strategies (Montefrio, Ortiga, and Josol 2014). Lin (2014) develops the concept of “small pond migration strategy” to describe how Chinese migrants to South Africa pursue self-employment and the development of their social and economic capital to become “big fish” in a “small pond" — moves to a less-developed country are made in pursuit of greater economic independence. Zhou, Raja, and Wen (2023) note how Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs in Africa come to rely on close-knit, “primary group” networks, which can limit the prospects of deeper integration despite helping new arrivals launch their enterprises more swiftly. Difficulties in integration can also be found in intraregional moves where there is less cultural and ethnic distance between immigrants and hosts. Hwang and Choi (2024) study how immigration affects political populism in South America by analyzing regional survey data. They find a similar relationship between immigration and domestic politics in South America to that of antiimmigrant European populism. Hiemstra (2024) turns to a particular case study, that of Venezuelan migrants in Ecuador, to argue that the persistence of “illegality” of Venezuelans provides value to the Ecuadorian government and society — by both legitimating a government promoting restrictionism and obscuring everyday forms of inequality and exploitation within Ecuadorian society. Wang et al. (2024) point to Uruguay as an example of a state that has worked to craft sustainable immigration policies that more effectively promote social inclusion for intraregional migrants.
Attitudes Toward Immigrants
Numerous IMR publications look to understand public attitudes toward immigrants in receiving countries along with the political implications of public opinion. Sana (2021) analyzes decades of survey data on Americans’ opinions of refugee admissions. They note the importance of contextualization in the framing of questions about refugees on the level of sympathy elicited. More contextualized questions about specific groups, either already in the United States or which US policies already aimed to support, received more favorable responses. Kudrnáč, Eger, and Hjerm (2024) analyze data from the Czech Household Panel Study to understand contextual variation in the scapegoating of immigrants by focusing on personal and professional domains and conclude that perceptions of misfortune and distrust of government are related to scapegoating. De Coninck (2023) compares differences in European attitudes toward the admission of Ukrainian refugees to the admission of Afghans fleeing their country after the Taliban returned to power. This study finds that Ukrainian refugees are perceived more positively and more deserving of aid than Afghans, as the Afghan identity continues to be perceived as a symbolic threat. Stockemer et al. (2020) also examine European survey data and find a relationship between antiimmigrant sentiment and Euroscepticism, though the intensity of both beliefs remained mostly stable during the so-called “refugee crisis” of the 2010s. Recent publications have begun to examine how the border restriction measure instituted in the early stages of COVID-19 might shape public opinion on immigration in the long term (O’Brien and Eger 2021; Dennison, Kustov, and Geddes 2023). With these findings from a range of surveys in mind, Savatic et al.’s (2024) interrogation into how migration statistics can be employed and manipulated to advance political narratives, including those of securitization and restrictionism, takes on greater importance.
IMR publications have also studied how attitudes shape integration strategies and outcomes. Askola (2021) tracks the proliferation of integration requirements in citizenship applications. Such proposals can often be interpreted as a way for policymakers to appease constituents in states with higher levels of antiimmigrant sentiment. For example, survey results suggest that attitudes toward admitting asylum-seekers in the United Kingdom became more favorable when integration policies required new arrivals to take English language classes (Neureiter 2022). Language acquisition is particularly impactful on host country attitudes. Schmaus and Kristen (2022) find that for Turkish job applicants in Germany, the presence of an accent proved a greater inhibitor to employment than a Turkish name alone.
The Authors and Papers
We are delighted to share 19 papers and sets of scholars in this anniversary issue. In addressing specific questions regarding “evolving models of migration research,” each set of scholars has also reflected on the literature of IMR in contributing to their current thinking, argument, and analysis and thus the papers complement the highlighted themes in the previous section.
In October 2023, we solicited extended abstracts from potential authors, seeking papers on evolving and emerging models of international migration research. We encouraged authors to self-reflect on the state of migration research and our contributions, both realized and aspirational, as researchers, scholars, and practitioners. We sought papers that not only reviewed, critiqued, and synthesized existing research, but also reflected on if, how, and to what extent that research has engaged with audiences and communities across disciplines and among scholarly and geographic spaces. We received far more excellent proposals than we could publish and, based on the quality of the abstracts, we invited authors to submit a full paper in early 2024. External review and revisions occurred during Spring and Summer 2024. Throughout the review process, authors have engaged with the generous comments and recommendations of the teams of external peer reviewers during the process of revising their manuscripts. The editorial team has also encouraged authors to reflect upon both the general and specific themes of the issue to connect cross-cutting analytical challenges to current and evolving international migration theory and research. We are convinced that this excellent collection of papers will serve as important references in the field of international migration research for years to come.
The collection of papers selected for this issue taps into dimensions of international migration that are current and emergent. Each of the papers seeks to reflect on how models and methods guiding research in their respective areas have changed and responded to patterns, causes, and consequences of international migration in the twenty-first century. The nineteen papers have been organized around six analytic and conceptual themes that form the subsections of the volume in which the final papers, discussed below, are placed: (i) knowledge, expertise, and policy; (ii) migration theory; (iii) methods and analysis; (iv) assimilation and transnationalism; (v) borders and bordering; (vi) legal statuses and in-between experiences; and (vii) migrant well-being and health.
Knowledge, Expertise, and Policy (with a Critical Angle)
Several papers in the volume consider issues of the production of knowledge, authority, and voice in relation to migration and migrant policy and interventions. In “Why has migration research so little impact? Examining knowledge practices in migration policymaking and migration studies,” Natter and Welfens confront the use and nonuse of international migration research within the policy process using multiple disciplinary perspectives on the barriers and opportunities for connections between social science and policy (Natter and Welfens 2024). Arias Cubas and Mudaliar tackle questions of agency in the research-policy-program nexus in “The glaring gap: Undervalued and unrecognized knowledges and expertise in international migration research,” in which they draw on evidence from the Red Cross Red Crescent Global Migration Lab regarding the role of national and local humanitarian workers in bringing the migrant experience into policy and program design (Arias Cubas and Mudaliar 2024). The authors embrace the scientific obligation of model-building and validity, both internal and external validity, to expand the nature of “evidence” in claims for evidence-based policy making. As they do so, they reflect on the exclusions of knowledge production from the Global South and call for the recognition of multiple sources of knowledge and expertise, as well as a commitment to inclusivity on the part of the intellectual circles in the Global North.
In “Imposed invisibility: Unraveling identities through negotiations of categories,” Cichocka adopts the case of descendants of Polish migrants in Germany to reveal the conceptual and empirical implications of reflexivity, and the lack thereof, for research on the migrant integration and the migrant experience, challenging the implicit assumption in research of “silent” or “invisible” integration of migrants in German society and public discourse (Cichocka 2024). In “Ain’t I a Migrant?: Global Blackness and the future of migration studies,” their piece on the sociology of racialized migration, Beaman and Clerge also challenge “neat categories” regarding research on immigrants and race and ethnicity. Placing their analysis within postcolonial cities, using the cases of Paris and New York, and drawing from critical race theory, Beaman and Clerge explore how global blackness and the migration of black populations expand our knowledge and understanding of interrelationships among migration, race, and ethnicity (Beaman and Clerge 2024).
Migration Theory
Related to issues of knowledge production, five papers explicitly address the coherence and completeness of migration theory and model building, thus enhancing the strong and long tradition of IMR. In “Overlap and interrelations between (im)mobility motivations,” Riosmena considers different perspectives on drivers of migration in this twenty-first century, hypothesizing that theories or their mechanisms are not mutually exclusive. Thus, migration theories may be in contest, independent, or interrelated (Riosmena 2024). Carling’s paper entitled “Why do people migrate? Fresh takes on the foundational question of migration studies,” is complementary and examines different and multiple approaches to explanation in migration theory as he considers why people migrate, “a question that seems, at once, trite and impossibly profound.” Carling examines eight answers to the question in relationship to both migration theory and the conduct of research (Carling 2024). In “Rethinking Queer migration: The case of skilled Chinese LGBTQ+ migrants in North America,” Yang weaves together bodies of research on LGBTQ+ migrants and movers to reveal the poor comprehension and completeness of conceptualizations of migration, gender, and sexuality, placing the empirically based revised model within both a historical and dynamic framework (Yang 2024). By evaluating migration theory's analytic assets and deficits vis-à-vis children, Galli and Garip’s analysis is in harmony with Yang’s analysis. “Bringing children to the center of migration theory” reveals much about household and family decision-making regarding migration and thus informs Carling’s analysis (Galli and Garip 2024). Thomas and Mara also demonstrate the significance of past, present, and emerging patterns of international migration within and beyond the African continent for theories of international migration and population movements and the scientific implications of failure to do so in their piece, “African migration at a crossroads: The social and theoretical implications of emerging international migration trends” (Thomas and Mara 2024).
Methods and Analysis
Nawyn and colleagues’ paper “Mapping the future of migration and climate change science” is both theoretical and methodological. The authors propose three sets of concepts and measures to effectively incorporate physical environmental processes into models of migration to test theories and frameworks more effectively. The analysis also yields broader implications of the model for other social outcomes, such as food security and health (Nawyn et al. 2024). DeWaard coordinates the presentation of “The Migration Intersections Grid (MIG): An organizing framework for migration research in and through the twenty-first century,” authored by an international team of migration scholars. The MIG provides a framework to provide accountability for migration scholarship going forward in this century with inclusivity, rigor, and impact. Six “vehicles” for advancing migration research are considered within the context of 10 dimensions of the research process that foster significance and inclusion: (1) agents, their attributes, and their interrelationships; (2) contexts and levels; (3) scales and dimensions; (4) the causes, characteristics, and consequences of migration; (5) operative pathways, mechanisms, and feedbacks involved, (6) approaches, data, and methods; (7) disciplines and areas; (8) key sectors, actors, and stakeholders; (9) ethics; and (10) impacts and change in the world (Maharjan et al. 2024). It is interesting to note that each of these two studies focusing on questions of measurement and indicators has been undertaken by international collaborations among migration and environmental scholars.
Assimilation and Transnationalism in Conversation
Two papers put assimilation and transnationalism in “conversation.” In “Assimilation theories in the twenty-first century: appraising accomplishments and future challenges,” Drouhot draws on evidence throughout Europe to illustrate the weaknesses of extant assimilation theories and transnational processes. Challenges include race and racial inequalities, cultural differences among migrant streams, and conceptualizations of the social mobilities among descendants of migrants (thus complementing the Beaman and Clerge, and Cichocka papers). Drouhot also gives close attention to the critical importance of research design, underscoring issues of migrant selectivity and measurement in generating empirical results to inform theories of assimilation and integration of migrants effectively (Drouhot 2024). Scholarship on political integration and mobilization processes within far-right political engagement and organizations has received little attention in migration studies. In their paper entitled, “Immigrants in the transnational far right: Integration through racisms and negotiating white supremacy,” Garapich, Jochymek, and Soborski observe Polish immigrants in Canada and the United Kingdom to consider, through the lens of the construction of whiteness and transnational dimensions of far-right political movements, the political engagement of migrants and their descendants (Garapich, Jochymek, and Soborski 2024).
Borders and Bordering
Transnational issues bridge to questions of borders, bordering, and geo- and biopolitics as engaged by Benson and Sigona, and Bautista-Chavez, Castañeda Pérez, Chan, and Mitra. “Reimagining, rebordering, repositioning: intersections of the biopolitical and geopolitical in the United Kingdom’s post-Brexit migration regime,” by Benson and Sigona reconsiders processes of migration in Europe and the United Kingdom in the post-Brexit era within broader contexts of global and regional political processes of rupture and realignment, and very importantly, reveal implications for international migration scholarship more generally (Benson and Sigona 2024). In “Hierarchy in the politics of migration: Revisiting race, ethnicity, and power in the migration state,” which examines how ethnoracial hierarchies structure relations between the state and immigration, immigrants, and local publics, Bautista-Chavez, Castañeda Pérez, Chan, and Mitra raise important questions around migration governance and bordering processes. In so doing, these authors put into relief the critical role of research and, perhaps more importantly, the social and racial hierarchies embedded in migration scholarship in shaping extant knowledge about the politics of migration (Bautista-Chavez, Castaneda Perez, Chan, and Mitra 2024).
Legal Statuses and In-Between Legality
Legal status and in-between legality are critical issues addressed by several papers in the volume, most notably by Connor and Cruz-Pineiro and colleagues. Connor considers the changing composition of the undocumented population in the United States in relation to protection, vulnerabilities, and entitlements in his paper, “Protected, yet undocumented: The U.S. case of growing liminal immigration status and the theoretical, advocacy, and policy implications for the United States and beyond,” Connor accounts for the heterogeneity of status — both statutory and executive — in his demographic analyses and challenges migration policy making to engage in the complexity of the undocumented experience within the United States (Connor 2024). In “Commodifying passage: Ethnographic insights into migration, markets, and digital mediation at the Darién Gap and Mexico-Guatemala border,” Cruz-Piñeiro, Hernández, and Ibarra seek to understand these and other related questions within the geographies of Central America. Using ethnographic methods, this research team engages the lived experience of migrants to understand the implication of changes in national migrant and asylum protocols. The authors advocate for more inclusive research methods to generate knowledge that is both more grounded and empathetic (Cruz-Pineiro, Hernandez, and Ibarra 2024).
Migrant Well-Being and Health
Turning to the health and well-being of migrants, Jolivet presents a new conceptualization of the interrelationships between migration and welfare, in which welfare is considered as a structural context, a process, and an experience. In “Subjectivity in welfare mobilities: Rethinking welfare as a structure, a process, and an experience,” Jolivet implements a multi-sited analysis to empirically assess a comprehensive welfare and migration framework that integrates migration and welfare theory across several scales of analysis, and in so doing, the framework nests migrant well-being within social structures (Jolivet 2024). Drawing on national and international cases, Dondero and Altman focus on the “structural turn” in scholarship on migrant well-being and health and consider the implications of racism and othering for health and welfare outcomes and experiences of migrants and employ both the “toll of exclusion” and migrant resilience and agency as centering concepts. Dondero and Altman’s paper, “The toll of exclusion on immigrants’ health across the life course: Research advances and future directions,” outlines specific implications for migration research that resonate well with questions posed for this volume including the effective communication of research results to practitioners and policymakers (Dondero and Altman 2024).
Taking Stock and Going Forward
The papers included in this volume, as well as those published during the past decade, speak well to the issues raised by our colleagues in 2014, notably the recognition of new forms of international mobility and mixed migrations in response to more comprehensive perspectives and models of migration drivers, the significance of race, racial hierarchies and inequalities in structuring migration, the migrant experience and community and national response to migrants, issues of gender (and age) in migration processes and experience, and the conceptualization of descendants of migrants in international migration studies (Lee, Carling, and Orrenius 2014). Authors addressing themes and priorities in international migration scholarship draw from a wider geographic range than in previous eras of the journal. However, for all the intellectual and educational benefits of national and cultural diversities, we echo our colleagues’ advocacy for the inclusion of contributions from more scholars working in the global south. We are grateful to the many authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members, and editorial office staff for their important and careful work in making this special issue possible. Research is always a collaborative enterprise, and the creation of this issue made clear the vital importance of that collaboration.
In taking stock, there are indeed continuities among the anniversary issues of IMR. For example, Tomasi, Tomasi, and Miller (1989), editors of the 25th anniversary issue, advocated for expanded scholarship in areas of the world beyond North America and the United States. Editors of the Golden Anniversary issue responded and demonstrated that research in Asia, Africa, South America, and the Arab region had expanded, as exemplified in the various papers in the special issue (Lee, Carling, and Orrenius 2014). Papers in this special issue illustrate that research on these areas has continued to increase. In addition, the journal has shared more migration research produced in those regions, as exemplified in the country composition in Table 1. This new development has generated insights into migration experiences in other areas and more in-depth knowledge about different migration governance regimes across the globe. We have encouraged authors in this present volume to do just this — draw comparisons in migration processes and dynamics between and among contexts. We urge scholars to continue in this direction and build new avenues of work, identify collaborations on comparative cross-national projects, enhance our theoretical models, and enrich policy discussions.
The 50th-anniversary issue editors noted the significant growth in scholarly interest in pluralism and multiculturalism (Lee, Carling, and Orrenius 2014). In the current issue, we observe a continuation of attention, theoretical and empirical, to changes in the political contexts of immigration, including attention to attitudes toward immigrants in major receiving countries, issues of discrimination, racism, and antiimmigrant sentiment, especially from a comparative perspective (see, e.g., Bautista-Chavez et al. 2024; Beaman and Clerge 2024; Benson and Sigona 2024; Yang 2024).
The benefits of multidisciplinarity, also recognized in the 50th-anniversary volume as a “de facto” characteristic of international migration research, are also evident among papers in this current volume. The expansion of multidisciplinary research is also reflected in the past 10 years of the journal and the contributions to the 60th-anniversary special issue. Here, we see even broader interdisciplinarity, especially around climate change and migration, where migration scholars are expanding collaborations with climate scientists to more fully grasp the migration-climate change relationship and inform policy more accurately (see, e.g., Maharjan, et al. 2024; Nawyn et al. 2024).
IMR’s record of the past 10 years speaks to the four areas of international migration dynamics that the 50th issue editors identified as meriting further research: (1) Scholarship focusing on destinations outside the United States has grown significantly, as evident in the past 10 years of research and within this special issue. (2) Theoretical and empirical attention to new dimensions of migration processes have been shared in IMR, especially regarding new bureaucratic structures, classification systems, asylum policies, and the multiplication of temporary legal statuses. We would argue that developments in governance at the national, regional, and global scales warrant even more scholarly attention going forward. (3) Intersections between migration and inequalities — a perennial question that remains central to migration research and is increasingly recognized as dynamic interrelationships through the life course and within communities and populations. And, (4) Lee, Carling, and Orrenius identified the significance of gender as an axis of inequality in migration processes (Lee, Carling, and Orrenius 2014). As noted earlier, in this introduction, papers published in IMR in the past decade demonstrate the centrality of gender and sexuality for understanding migration. We have encouraged authors in this present issue to draw out the implications of gender and identity in their respective analyses, for example, to address gendered experiences and the role of gender identity at different stages of the migration process.
International Migration Review emerged in the 1960s from a need for a dedicated space for scholarship on international migration and population movements, a critical gap in social scientific scholarship. Like our colleagues in previous celebratory issues, we conclude by looking forward to reflect on spaces that need further filling and additional scholarly contribution by the journal, if not the field. We prioritize theoretical development that truly incorporates the full range of international moves and migration, reflecting a more comprehensive perspective on causes and correlates of mobility, including environmentally-induced migrations and forced displacement. Existing theoretical frames must be revisited considering more complex and interactive drivers of human movements and migrations; new models of the role of mobility and migration in social and economic change at different social scales should be encouraged. Much good theoretical and conceptual scholarship has been produced concerning the voluntary–involuntary migration nexus and the integration of refugee and forced migration studies (see, e.g., FitzGerald and Arar 2018; Zetter 2018). What seems to be an acceleration in the effects of climate and environmental change on continuing and emerging processes of migration and mobility also puts into relief the need for dedicated and innovative attention to migration theory that rises to high level explanation and followed by constructive and creative criticism among migration scholars.
Second, we argue for increased attention to the process of inquiry and knowledge generation regarding international migration and mobilities. The revisiting of theory and models needs processes of scholarly exchange and collaboration informed by research reflective of a wider swath of disciplines, methodologies, researchers, and participants. Each of these nouns — disciplines, methodologies, researchers, and participants — is worthy of significant scholarly and institutional consideration. Take the theme of interdisciplinarity of international migration scholarship, a signature of IMR: what do we understand as interdisciplinary analysis of migration, or multidisciplinary analysis? Have the relative benefits of inter- or multi–unidisciplinary analysis been assessed? How is it conducted, and how are the interdisciplinary social sciences related to national and cultural diversity among scholars and researchers? Is there a place for the arts and humanities within inter- and multidisciplinary scholarship on migration and mobilities?
Third, it is worthwhile to raise analogous questions regarding methodological approaches to empirical analysis — different perspectives on research design (case studies, multisited, and estimation), the meaning of multimethods, and the integration of qualitative and quantitative measurement.
The fourth and last (but not final) set of questions and issues we might raise here concerns the peopling of scholarship, research, and communication regarding international migration. Should the field, should IMR, give close(r) and critical attention to the role of collaboration in international migration scholarship? The IMR authorship metrics highlight the journal's challenge to foster and invite more diverse participation in its scope. Collaboration among scholars and stakeholders in producing knowledge regarding international migration may serve as an effective route to foster global and institutional inclusion.
Objective 23 of the Global Compact for Safe Orderly and Regularly Migration, adopted (2018) by the UN General Assembly during this decade of IMR scrutiny, seeks to promote international cooperation and global partnerships for safe, orderly, and regular migration, in the form of a commitment: We commit to support each other in the realization of the objectives and commitments laid out in this Global Compact through enhanced international cooperation, a revitalized global partnership, and in the spirit of solidarity, reaffirming the centrality of a comprehensive and integrated approach to facilitate safe, orderly and regular migration, and recognizing that we are all countries of origin, transit, and destination. (United Nations 2018, para 39)
This objective expresses the significance of practices of collaboration in promoting secure and just migration and, we would argue, also in the generation of knowledge about migration. Encouraging diversity and difference within collaborations among scholars and institutions in the North and South will yield more comprehensive sets of questions, enrich theorizing, and promote a more global approach to many pressing issues in the field, such as climate-induced migration, transnational connections, and intersections among gender, equity, and human rights.
Accordingly, how might IMR provide additional leadership in promoting conversation among migration scholars, identifying points of commonality and differences in research processes? Conversations on screens, round tables, and in print may provide innovative routes to bring migration scholars together, perhaps even migration journals, to encourage the exchange of ideas, challenges, and solutions and the building of relationships. Should IMR be doing more to foster community among a (more comprehensive range) of stakeholders in migration studies and scholarship? Should the journal pursue a specific initiative to engage actors in international migration governance and policy within its outreach and communications? Building effective bridges between migration research and policy is arguably consistent with international migration research as policy-driven and policy-relevant.
These questions are posed with intent. We invite readers of IMR and migration scholars, students, advocates, and activists to answer. The journal welcomes perspectives on promoting community and collaboration within the field of international migration studies. Our scholarly project seeks ideas, critiques, and recommendations regarding priorities and paths that might be followed in the generation of knowledge about international migration, mobilities, and population movements in these coming decades.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
