Volume 21, Issue 1 p. 3-17
Themed Section: Multinational Migrations

Studying multinational migrations, speaking back to migration theory

ANJU MARY PAUL

Corresponding Author

ANJU MARY PAUL

Division of Social Sciences, Yale-NUS College, 10 College Avenue West, #01-101, Singapore, 138609

(corresponding author) Division of Social Sciences, Yale-NUS College, 10 College Avenue West, #01-101, Singapore 138609 anju.paul@yale-nus.edu.sgSearch for more papers by this author
BRENDA S. A. YEOH

BRENDA S. A. YEOH

Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Asia Research Institute, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent, AS8#07-01, Singapore, 119260

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First published: 23 April 2020
Citations: 38

Abstract

A growing body of migration scholarship has highlighted the inadequacies of a single-origin-single-destination model for thinking about international migration in our globalizing world. Several terms – onward, stepwise, serial, secondary, triangular, multiple, and transit migration – have been coined to describe these multiple moves within a single migratory lifetime, but the lack of consensus on the terminology to describe these migrations is indicative of the lack of theoretical clarity on this emergent phenomenon. We therefore propose to introduce a new umbrella term, ‘multinational migrations', to capture the varied movements of international migrants across more than one overseas destination with significant time spent in each country. The articles presented here bring together researchers investigating multinational migrations across a range of migrant categories and between various migration hubs. They highlight how individual imaginations, aspirations, capabilities and subjectifications interact with multinational migration infrastructures (in the domains of education, tourism, labour, and citizenship) to lead to the adoption of complex multinational migration trajectories.

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