Going Global: An Introduction to International Migration

From an offbeat area populated by a handful of scholars, international migration has become one of the fastest growing subfields in the social sciences. If phenomenon is hardly new, and indeed not very common – only 3% of the world’s population lives outside its country of origin – it nonetheless grabs newspaper headlines, affects the outcome of political elections, and molds the societies we live in today.  Extending from the demography and economics of migration through political science and mainstream sociological approaches to the ethnography and oral history of migrants, the field of migration studies is, by nature, an interdisciplinary process. This course will chart some of the dominant features of this scholarly territory by familiarizing students with key topics in immigration research. It introduces theories and approaches developed from the analysis of the North Atlantic, and investigates their application to empirical cases in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. To lend focus to this broad sweep, labor migration provides a pathway into the terrain.

Workload

• 1 hour lecture per week
• 1 hour tutorial per week

Method of assessment

Assignment 1: 35%

Assignment 2: Exam 65%

Disclaimer

Important notice regarding changes to programmes and modules