GEOG3015

Dr JoAnn McGregor, Dr Claire Dwyer, Professor John Salt.

Unit value: 0.5 unit                                       
Year 3
Term  2

Brief Course Description
Analysis of contemporary patterns and processes of international migration.

Course Aims
The objective of this third year course is to cultivate an understanding of contemporary patterns and processes of international migration. It aims to develop analytical skills; to foster knowledge of data sources; to encourage the development of interdisciplinary skills; to discuss the relationship between analysis (methodology, data) and practice (policy); and to debate insights from diverse theoretical approaches.

Course content
The course will adopt a world-wide approach, focusing on the contemporary situation. The main themes will be:

• methodologies and concepts in an interdisciplinary field of study
• data sources and analysis
• current issues in international migration
• policy developments

Both quantitative and qualitative practical skills will be developed.

Method of Teaching
The teaching will be split between lectures and seminars, in which there will be opportunities for students to work together in small groups.

Form of Assessment
There will be one three-hour examination accounting for 100%.

Pre-requisites and Relationships with other courses
Students will normally have taken Population Geography in their second year, and the new course will build upon the international migration section there. Basic data-handling skills will be expected.

The course will progress from Population Geography in the second year, but will build also from material in most of the other second year courses. In the third year it will relate to most regional, human and techniques courses.

Suggested Reading
Al-Ali, N. and Koser, K (eds), New Approaches to Migration, Routledge, 2003.
Borjas G., Friends or Strangers, New York, 1990.
Borjas, G. J. and Crisp, J. (eds), Poverty, International Migration and Aslyum, Palgrave 2005.
Castles S. and Miller M., The Age of Migration, Basingstoke, 2nd edition 1998.
Cohen R. (ed), The Cambridge Survey of World Migration, Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Hannerz, U, Transnational Connections, Routledge, 1996.
Massey, D. Arango, J. Hugo, G. Kouaouci, A. Pellegrino and E. Taylor, Worlds in Motion. Understanding International Migration at the End of the Millenium, Oxford University Press, 2005.
International Organisation for Migration, Migrant Trafficking and Human Smuggling in Europe, 10m, Geneva 2000.
Papastergiadis, N, The Turbulence of Migration: Globalization, Deterritorialization and Hybridity, Cambridge University Pres, 2000