Studying multinational migrations, speaking back to migration theory

Abstract

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.