New framework challenges how researchers study migration and place
Researchers propose rethinking how migration scholars study movement and settlement, moving beyond outdated models that treat places as static or purely interconnected. The shift could reshape migration policy and regional development strategies that currently rely on incomplete spatial assumptions.
Originaltitel: Placing migration: towards more‐than‐relational geographical migration studies
<p>This paper critically engages with the spatial assumptions that underpin migration studies, highlighting a shift from an absolute view of space to a relational spatial perspective, influenced by transnational and translocal migration studies. While the latter emphasises the interconnectedness of migrants across borders and the fleeting translocal links involved in the production of places, this paper argues that a timeplace perspective, which sees places as products of temporally entangled, partially inertial and plastic connectivities, material objects, and discursive practices, can contribute to overcome dichotomies between process and product in migration studies. Using the case of Åsele municipality in northern Sweden, the paper illustrates how a timeplace perspective can enrich the understanding of migration dynamics, and potentially reconcile tensions between essentialist and fluid worldviews in migration scholarship. Ultimately, it suggests that a plastic and contextual understanding of space might be the next logical step for migration studies. </p>