Further details on core courses

1.  Interdisciplinary approaches to global migration

This course aims to introduce students to interdisciplinary approaches to migration, and core concepts.  The course will provide an overview of the field, discussing key ideas and debates in relation to:

1) migration flows and processes (including economic, demographic and ethnographic approaches)

2) state policy, legal and institutional frameworks (including approaches to the law, policy and its evasion)

3) and culture and identity (including approaches to integration, transnationalism and diaspora)

Students will develop their knowledge and understanding of key theoretical concepts in migration studies, and of diverse disciplinary approaches. This will provide them with the tools to critically analyse flows and processes, data sources, policy, politics, and to assess theoretical developments in the interdisciplinary field of migration. They will acquire transferable research skills in critical thinking, information collection and management, communication and presentation.

The course will involve contact time of 2 hours a week, comprising a mixture of lectures, seminars and discussion. Students will be expected to engage in independent reading, to make presentations to the group and engage in discussion.

Provisional course content:

Week 1: Introduction to theories of migration

Migration flows and processes:

Week 2: Critical approaches to migration data

Week 3: Economics and migration

Week 4: Ethnography and migrant social networks

Week 5: Forced migration and displacement

States, policy and institutional regimes

Week 6: Legal regimes

Week 7: UK/EU migration policy

Week 8: Irregular migration   
Integration, culture and identity

Week 9: Citizenship and integration

Week 10: The idea of transnationalism

Week 11: The idea of diaspora

Assessment: one course paper of 3000-5000 words.

2. Issues in Global Migration

This course aims to debate topical issues in migration studies, of global scope. The course will be flexible to reflect shifting contemporary concerns.  It may include topics such as: remittances and diaspora engagement, home town associations, migration and sexual health, reproducation and fertility, smuggling and trafficking, detention and deportation, global care chains, religious transnationalism, debates over representation of migrants.  The range of topics will be chosen to reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the MSc programme, and will complement and extend the approaches course, allowing key concepts to be applied to issues of current controversy.

Students will enhance their knowledge and understanding of contemporary issues in migration in a globalised world - economic, demographic, health-related, political, anthropological, cultural and historical – and the ways in which they have been debated.  This appreciation of the scope and nature of argument on key topics will develop critical and analytic skills with regard to the academic literature, policy documents, a wide range of empirical sources.Students will acquire transferable research skills in critical thinking, information collection and management, communication and presentation.

The course will involve contact time of 2 hours a week, comprising a mixture of lectures, seminars and discussion. Students will be expected to engage in independent reading, to make presentations to the group and engage in discussion.

Provisional list of potential topics for sessions:

• Migration and development: remittances
• Diaspora engagement
• Home town associations
• Migration and skills - health professionals
• Migration and sexual health
• Reproduction and fertility
• Residential segregation
• Detention and deportation
• Migration and visual culture
• Global care chains
• Transnational families
• Religious transnationalism

Assessment: one course paper of 3,000-5000 words

General Readings

• Al-Ali, N. and Koser, K. (eds) 2003  New Approaches to Migration,  London: Routledge.
• Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.
• Borjas, G. J. and Crisp, J. (eds) 2005 Poverty, International Migration and Asylum, Basingstoke: Palgrave.
• Castles, S. and Miller, M. (2009) The Age of Migration. Fourth edition. London: Macmillan.
• Castles, S.  and Davidson, A.  (2000) Citizenship and Migration: Globalization and the Politics of Belonging, London: Macmillan.
• Cohen, R. (ed) 1995. The Cambridge Survey of World Migration, Cambridge: CUP
• Cohen, R. (1997) Global Diasporas: An Introduction, London: Routledge.
• Hannerz, U. (1996) Transnational Connections. London: Routledge.
• Khagram, S. and P. Levitt (eds) (2007) The Transnational Reader: Intersections and Innovations. London: Routledge.
• Koser, K. (ed) 2003 New African Diasporas, London: Routledge.
• Massey, D. and Taylor, E. (eds) (2004) International Migration: Prospects and Policies in a Global Market, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Massey, D. Arango, J. Hugo, G. Kouaouci, A. Pellegrino, A. and Taylor, E. (2005) Worlds in Motion Understanding International Migration at the End of the Millennium, Oxford: Oxford University.
• Ong, A (1999) Flexible Citizenship: the Cultural Logics of Globalization, London, Duke University Presws.
• Papastergiadis, N.  (2000) The Turbulence of Migration: Globalization, Deterritorialization and Hybridity,  Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Sassen, S. (1988) The Mobility of Capital and Labour. Cambridge: CUP.
• Schuster (2003)  The Use and Abuse of Political Asylum in Britain and Germany.  London, Frank Cass.
• Smith, M. P.  (2001) Transnational Urbanism: Locating Globalization, Oxford: Blackwell.
• Smith, M.  P and L.  E.  Guarnizo (eds) (1998) Transnationalism from Below: Comparative Urban and Community Research,  New Brunswick N.J.: Transaction Publishers
• Wellman, B. (ed.) (1998) Networks in the Global Village: Life in Contemporary Communities, Boulder: Westview Press.
• Wills, J., K. Datta, Y.Evans,  J.Herbert, J. May, C. McIlwaine (2009) Global Cities at Work: New Migrant Divisions of Labour, Pluto, London

Some Useful Journals

• Ethnic and Racial Studies
• International Migration
• International Migration Review
• Global Networks
• Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (JEMS)
• Journal of Refugee Studies
• Population, Space and Place

Some Useful Websites

The websites of migration organizations, research and policy centres are excellent sources of information and analysis. They also provide access to a wealth of publications. See for example:

• COMPAS working papers: http:www.compas.ox.ac.uk
• Migration Policy Institute: http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/index_subject.php
• UNHCR http://www.unhcr.ch/
• IOM http://www.iom.int/jahia/jsp/index.jsp
• Global Commission on International Migration http://www.gcim.org/en/