Introduction. Migration as a multi-sited phenomenon: Selectivity, transnationalism, and multiple comparisons in a growing field
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/ris.2025.83.4.1497Keywords:
multi-sited studies, selection, transnationalism, immigrants, integration, methodologyAbstract
As migration and ethnic diversity become fundamental aspects of our societies, there is a need to expand the perspectives and methodologies used to study the drivers, the outcomes, and the experiences of migration. Migration is a multi-sited phenomenon in which both origin and destination(s) play a fundamental role. This perspective, though intuitively central to the understanding of migration, has not often been the focus of empirical sociological research. The proposal brings together seven original articles and seventeen migration scholars who uniquely adopt a broadly defined multi-sited approach in their work. The articles address diverse geographic contexts and apply both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine topics such as migrant selection, comparisons between migrants and non-migrants, and transnational networks. Together, they demonstrate the value of adopting multi-sited perspectives to capture the diversity and complexity of migration dynamics..
Downloads
References
Alba, Richard and Victor Nee. 2003. Remaking the American Mainstream. Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Beauchemin, Cris. 2014. "A manifesto for quantitative multi-sited approaches to international migration." International Migration Review 48(4): 921-938. https://doi.org/10.1111/imre.12157
Boccagni, Paulo. 2020. Multi-sited ethnography. Sage Publications Limited.
Borjas, George. 1992. "Ethnic capital and intergenerational mobility." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 107(1): 123-150. https://doi.org/10.2307/2118325
Burgess, Ernest W. (Ed.). 1925. The urban community. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Drouhot, Lucas G. and Victor Nee. 2019. "Assimilation and the second generation in Europe and America: Blending and segregating social dynamics between immigrants and natives." Annual Review of Sociology 45(1): 177-199. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-073117-041335
Feliciano, Cynthia. 2005. "Educational selectivity in U.S. immigration: how do immigrants compare to those left behind?" Demography 42(1): 131-152. https://doi.org/10.1353/dem.2005.0001 PMid:15782899
Feliciano, Cynthia. 2005a. "Does selective migration matter? Explaining ethnic disparities in educational attainment among immigrants' children." International Migration Review 39(4): 841-871. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-7379.2005.tb00291.x
Feliciano, Cynthia. 2020. "Immigrant selectivity effects on health, labor market, and educational outcomes." Annual Review of Sociology 46(1): 315-334. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-121919-054639
Gordon, Milton M. 1964. Assimilation in American life: the role of race, religion, and national origins. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/3510186
Grasmuck, Sherri and Patricia R. Pessar. 1991. Between two islands: Dominican international migration. Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520910546
Guveli, Ayse, Ganzeboom, Harry B. G., Baykara-Krumme, Helen, Platt, Lucinda, Eroğlu, Şebnem, Spierings, Niels, Bayrakdar, Sait,
Nauck, Bernhard, and Sozeri, Efe K. (2017). "2,000 Families: identifying the research potential of an origins-of-migration study." Ethnic and Racial Studies 40(14): 2558-2576. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2016.1234628
Heath, Anthony and Sin Yi Cheung (Eds.). 2007. Unequal chances. Ethnic minorities in Western labour markets. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.5871/bacad/9780197263860.001.0001
Heath, Anthony and John Ridge. 1983. "Social mobility of ethnic minorities." Journal of Biosocial Science 15(Supplement 8): 169-184. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021932000024986
Heath, Anthony, Catherine Rothon, and Elina Kilpi. 2008. "The second generation in Western Europe: education, unemployment, and occupational attainment." Annual Review of Sociology 34(1): 211-235. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.34.040507.134728
Hujo, Katja and Nicola Piper. 2007. "South-South migration: challenges for development and social policy." Development 50(4): 19-25. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.development.1100419
Ichou, Mathieu. 2014. "Who they were there: immigrants' educational selectivity and their children's educational attainment." European Sociological Review 30(6): 750-765. https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcu071
Kim, D. Y. and V. S. Kulkarni. 2009. "The role of father's occupation on intergenerational educational and occupational mobility: the case of second-generation Chinese Americans in New York." Sociological Forum 24(1): 104-134. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1573-7861.2008.01088.x
King, Russell. 2018. "Context-based qualitative research and multi-sited migration studies in Europe." Pp. 35-56 in Qualitative Research in European migration studies edited by R. Zapata-Barrero and E. Yalaz. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76861-8_3
Kristen, Cornelia and Nadia Granato. 2007. "The educational attainment of the second generation in Germany: Social origins and ethnic inequality." Ethnicities 7(3): 343-366. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468796807080233
Li, Yaojun and Anthony Heath. 2016. "Class matters: a study of minority and majority social mobility in Britain, 1982-2011." American Journal of Sociology 122(1): 162-200. https://doi.org/10.1086/686696 PMid:29873460
Marcus, George E. 1995. "Ethnography in/of the world system: The emergence of multi-sited ethnography." Annual Review of Anthropology 24(1): 95-117. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.24.100195.000523
Marcus, George E. 2018. "Etnografía multisituada. Reacciones y potencialidades de un ethos del método antropológico durante las primeras décadas de 2000." Etnografías Contemporáneas, 4(7).
Oso, Laura and Laura Suárez-Grimalt. 2017. "Migración y estrategias intergeneracionales de movilidad social: retos teóricos y metodológicos." Migraciones. Publicación del Instituto Universitario de Estudios sobre Migraciones 42: 19-41. https://doi.org/10.14422/mig.i42.y2017.002
Oso, Laura, Ana López-Sala and Jacobo Muñoz Comet. 2023. Sociología de las Migraciones. Madrid: Síntesis.
Park, Robert E. and Ernest W. Burgess. 1969. Introduction to the science of sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Portes, Alejandro and Patricia Fernández-Kelly. 2008. "No margin for error: educational and occupational achievement among disadvantaged children of immigrants." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 620(1): 12-36. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716208322577
Schiller, Nina Glick, Linda Basch and Cristina Blanc-Szanton. 1992. "Transnationalism: A New Analytic Framework for Understanding Migration." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 645: 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1992.tb33484.x PMid:1497251
Shah, Bindi, Claire Dwyer and Tariq Modood. 2010. "Explaining educational achievement and career aspirations among young British Pakistanis: mobilizing 'ethnic capital'?" Sociology 44(6): 1109-1127. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038510381606
Sjaastad, Larry A. 1962. "The costs and returns of human migration." Journal of Political Economy 70(5): 80-93. https://doi.org/10.1086/258726
Zuccotti, Carolina V., Harry B. G. Ganzeboom and Ayse Guveli. 2017. "Has migration been beneficial for migrants and their children? Comparing social mobility of Turks in Western Europe, Turks in Turkey, and Western European natives." International Migration Review 51(1): 97-126. https://doi.org/10.1111/imre.12219
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
© CSIC. Manuscripts published in both the print and online versions of this journal are the property of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, and quoting this source is a requirement for any partial or full reproduction.
All contents of this electronic edition, except where otherwise noted, are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. You may read the basic information and the legal text of the licence. The indication of the CC BY 4.0 licence must be expressly stated in this way when necessary.
Self-archiving in repositories, personal webpages or similar, of any version other than the final version of the work produced by the publisher, is not allowed.
Funding data
Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades
Grant numbers RYC2023-045128-I
Agencia Estatal de Investigación
Grant numbers PID2024-160251NB-C22
