What's wrong with migration scholarship? A critique and a way forward

Abstract

Several problems plague migration scholarship. Much work continues to use specific national (and sometimes regional) frames to analyse migration in other contexts or to find general properties based on particular national experiences. It assumes that boundedness, rootedness and membership in a single national, ethnic or religious group are the natural order of things. And it doesn't take culture seriously enough, whether it be the different cultures of knowledge production which drive our work, the different culturally infused categories we use or the role of cultural institutions in imagining and changing the nation. This article expands on these critiques and suggests ways to move scholarship forward.

Keywords:

• migration
• immigration
• transnational
• culture
• religion
• critique