{"id":49,"date":"2016-10-23T21:51:01","date_gmt":"2016-10-23T19:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/migrationstolatinamerica\/?p=49"},"modified":"2016-10-23T21:51:01","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T19:51:01","slug":"week-2-theory-continued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/migrationstolatinamerica\/2016\/10\/23\/week-2-theory-continued\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 2 – Theory Continued"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty-First-Century Migration as a Challenge to Sociology<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although this article deals specifically with Sociology, I think it is relevant to many of the related social sciences such as Anthropology and Human Geography.<\/p>\n

The author sets out to explain 7 points, and how they have changed, shifted, or need to change in order for Sociology to stay relevant. I would argue that many of these points could be utilized in other social sciences; because with the exception of Anthropology (maybe), the majority of social sciences, for the most part still work solely with the nation-state as it only referent, and not one of the many spatial scales that we now live with under globalizations.<\/p>\n

I would like to hear your thoughts on the article whether they are theory related or how you view global migrations, or any other way you think is relevant to the discussion.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s take a look at each one:<\/p>\n

1. How do globalization and transnationalism change the conditions and objectives<\/strong>
\n of sociological research on migration?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Castles states that international migration at its core obviously transcends borders; yet why is it that much of the study of this phenomenon does not take that into consideration?
\nHe goes further into this within the other points, but I think one that we should note is that for many (people, organizations, governments), migration is thought of as ending and beginning at the border. It is not \u2018our\u2019 issue, problem, obligation, or what have you to view migration beyond our borders. We can study it side-by-side with other countries, but it really is of no concern till they cross our borders. Much of that can be seen today in refugee movements from the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa towards Europe and the Central American migration towards the United States where policies, chatter, and other ideas concentrate on how to keep people out.<\/p>\n

Although, we talk about transnational migration within the walls of academia, the world \u2018out there\u2019 still works with the view of migration as a problem to be dealt with.<\/p>\n

2. Should migration research generally be interdisciplinary?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The issue of interdiscplinarity is an important one, especially for us since we do our work at the LAI as an interdisciplinary institution, which is great, but I think it is still one of the few institutes to consciously go this way.<\/p>\n

I do agree with Castles that we should not blend the disciplines all into one, but rather develop ways to layer how disciplines work with migration. For example, although globalization is nothing new, we have begun to look at the world though different spatial lenses. We now view cities, regions, countries, and continents at once and at the same tie separate. Some view cities as outside the nation-state such as London, Tokyo, New York, Singapore, Hong Kong where people have more in common with each other than the country or region they may be physically located. This means that geography, as much as it is physical, is also social and cultural.<\/p>\n

3. What are the specific topics and analytical tasks of migration sociology?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Migration through a sociological lens has been troubled with this discipline\u2019s over focus on national societies, it s borders, cultures, and everything within this container as thought to be \u2018unique\u2019 or \u2018original\u2019 without any \u2018disruptions\u2019 from other places. This of course has never happened, but it is a discourse that is very alive when it comes to the discussions of migration and society.
\nCastles states that Sociology needs to address society as a whole. Does he mean global society, or again does he revert back to the society in the container that is the nation-state?<\/p>\n

4. If the roots of sociology lie in the development of national industrial societies,<\/strong>
\n what effects has this had on the development of the sociology of migration?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is Sociology a relevant discipline today in an ear of globalization? Is it relevant since it was designed specifically to contend with the issues of the nation-building processes on the late 19th and early 20th Centuries? If not, then how does Sociology allow for theories and methodologies developed for another time to grow, adapt, or go to the dustbin?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m interested in reading some of your comments on this matter. I studied Sociology in my undergrad, and am ambivalent whether the discipline continues to grow, and becomes outdated.<\/p>\n

5. How can sociologists of migration move beyond the fixation on the nation-state to<\/strong>
\n conceptualise processes of global integration and social transformation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

How to do this with the existing tools having been created for that specific purpose, to study the nation-state?
\nIn the age when 54% of the world\u2019s population now currently resides in urban centres, does it make sense to concentrate solely on the nation-state? When regional blocks such as the EU exist, is the nation-state still the ultimate geography?<\/p>\n

Well, with the Euro crisis, Brexit, and the refugee migration, the nation-state has once again been brought out and defended against \u2018disruptive\u2019 forces trying to \u2018destroy\u2019 it. This however, does not take away from the importance that cities, not just global cities, but urban centres throughout the globe that are more connected to each other than to the lands, state, or province bordering it.<\/p>\n

Can a Sociology of Migration take into account the different scales that people are currently living in?<\/p>\n

6. To what extent has the sociology of migration been driven by the influence of<\/strong>
\n politics and policy on the research enterprise, and the corresponding imperative of<\/strong>
\n \u2018policy-relevance\u2019?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s no secret that in order to stay relevant, researchers need to receive grants and other forms of funds to carry-out research; and since many funding bodies are connected to national governments, the focus that they are willing to fund remains a nation-state centred approach. Of course there are exceptions, but these are limited.<\/p>\n

I agree with Castles that policy is driven by the immediate, the temporary need for some \u2018fix\u2019 in order to get re-elected. This paces a strain on taking a look at historical accounts and narratives that can teach and contribute to contemporary debates on migration, because although the percentage of global migrants in currently 4%, it was 6% in the 1880s. Migration is nothing new, and many of the tool that are used today were in use in the 19th century.<\/p>\n

7. What theoretical, methodological and organisational principles are needed for a<\/em>
\n critical and socio-politically engaged sociology of migration?<\/em><\/p>\n

Castles argues for the need to include the nation-state within a larger spatial scale, where we can move back and forth without having to be stuck on one or the other. Within this argument, I concur with him that there is no one single theory of migration, rather different theoretical approaches to be taken depending on the situation, meso-theories like Merton stated.
\nI hope this will bring out some other questions in you for your contributions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twenty-First-Century Migration as a Challenge to Sociology Although this article deals specifically with Sociology, I think it is relevant to many of the related social sciences such as Anthropology and Human Geography. The author sets out to explain 7 points, and how they have changed, shifted, or need to change in order for Sociology to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1761,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allgemein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/migrationstolatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/migrationstolatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/migrationstolatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/migrationstolatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1761"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/migrationstolatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/migrationstolatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/migrationstolatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/50"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/migrationstolatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/migrationstolatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/migrationstolatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}