Peer-Reviewed Journal Details
Mandatory Fields
Gray, Breda
2016
Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie (Austrian Journal of Sociology)
Beyind "Migration Studies": Locating human mobility in the context of social struggle and change
Published
()
Optional Fields
Sexed Sentiments: Interdisciplinary Perspectives On Gender And Emotion Migration • Transnational • Diaspora • Mobilities • ‘Autonomy of Migration’ • Social Struggle
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In migration scholarship, questions of social conflict and transformation

tend to be addressed as the backdrop rather than as central dynamics in changing

migration practices. This article calls for the integration of migration within

wider sociological analyses of social struggle and change. While it is true that the

emergence of interdisciplinary approaches, such as Transnational Studies, Diaspora

Studies and Mobility Studies, has moved migration studies in new directions, migration

continues to be addressed separately from scholarship on social conflict and

change. Nonetheless, these new domains challenge received sociological categories

and develop more nuanced accounts by identifying distinct experiences of migration

as shaped by contemporary mobilities and transnational processes. In this article

I review these approaches and consider their potential for opening up newdirections

for the study of migration as an aspect of wider social struggles. I also examine the

extent to which these fields of study work against the ‘capture’ of knowledge on

migration by those forces that attempt to control it. Given the limitations identified,

I argue that the ‘autonomy of migration’ approach provides important pointers for

how social struggle and the politics of knowledge production might be centred in

the study of migration.

10.1007/s11614-016-0230-x
Grant Details