Migrants in Europe: The Role of Family, Labor, and Politics.

Abstract

The 12 articles in this collection document migration fields which are social systems that include the places or origin and destination of migrants. In such systems social political and economic changes that take place in one point in the field have an immediate impact on other parts of the same field. Government policies regarding migration in both sender and host countries as well as specific treaties between countries may regulate movements within such fields. But migration fields have dynamics of their own which sometimes run in opposition to the wishes of bureaucrats and lawmakers. These integrative mechanisms include chain migration; clandestine networks that facilitate illegal movements between countries; the periodic return of migrants to their places of origin; migrant remittances to parts of families who remained behind; payments to boarding schools in the home country where the children of migrants have been sent; and investment in land construction and small businesses in the home country.