Aspiration, desire and drivers of migration

Figures & data

Table 1. Overview of articles in the special issue.

Author(s)	Title	Empirical foundations or illustrations	Theoretical thrust
Nicholas Van Hear, Oliver Bakewell and Katy Long	Push–pull plus: reconsidering the drivers of migration	Afghan migration to Iran and Pakistan; Somali migration to southern Africa	Generating a framework labelled ‘push–pull plus’ that is founded on the distinction between four types of drivers of migration
Jørgen Carling and Kerilyn Schewel	Revisiting aspiration and ability in international migration	Diverse case studies: global country-level data	Examining extensions and implications of the aspiration/ability model of migration and identifying ‘two-step’ approaches’ as an analytical class in migration theory
Francis Collins	Desire as a theory for migration studies: temporality, assemblage and becoming in the narratives of migrants	Migration from South East Asia to South Korea	Exploiting the analytical potential of ‘desire’ to examine the temporalities, assemblages and transformative potential of migration experience
Marta Bivand Erdal and Ceri Oeppen	Forced to leave? The discursive and analytical significance of describing migration as forced and voluntary	Afghan and Pakistani migration to Europe	Unsettling the forced–voluntary dichotomy through analysing stages of the migration process: leaving, journeying, arriving, settling and returning
Elisabeth Scheibelhofer	Shifting migration aspirations in second modernity	Austrian migrants in the United States	Using the concept of ‘second modernity’ to contextualise the changing meaning and content of aspirations within migratory projects
Peidong Yang	Desiring ‘foreign talent’: lack and Lacan in anti-immigrant sentiments in Singapore	High-skilled immigration to Singapore, especially from China	Drawing on the notion of desire in Lacanian psychoanalysis to examine immigration policy and discourse
Frank Meyer	Navigating aspirations and expectations: adolescents’ considerations of outmigration from rural eastern Germany	Outmigration of adolescents from rural eastern Germany	Locating adolescents’ migratory decision-making between a contested field of expectations and personal attempts of becoming

Table 2. Selected terms applied to analysis of potentiality in migration.

Term	Selected references
Aspiration	Carling and Schewel (2018), Meyer (2018), Scheibelhofer (2018)
Desire	Collins (2018), Hindman and Oppenheim (2014), Papadopoulos and Tsianos (2007)
Dream	Cairns et al. (2017)
Expectation	Benson and O'Reilly (2009), De Jong (2000), Meyer (2018)
Hope	Kleist (2016), Kleist and Thorsen (2016), Mar (2005)
Imaginaries	Fortier (2012), Salazar (2014)
Imagining	Koikkalainen and Kyle (2016), Thompson (2016), Vigh (2009)
Intention	De Jong et al. (1986)
Limbo	Brun and Fabos (2015), Richter (2016)
Prospects	Czaika (2015)
Risk	Hernandez-Carretero and Carling (2012), Williams and Baláž (2012)
Stuckness	Khan (2013), Stock (2012)
Uncertainty	Horst and Grabska (2015), Williams and Baláž (2012)
Waiting	Conlon (2011), Kwon (2015), Turner (2015)
Yearning	Bal (2014), Burman (2010)

Figure 1. Frequency of selected analytical terms in academic publications on migration. Source: Scopus.

Notes: Numbers refer to publications that use the respective term in their title, abstract or keywords. The denominator is the total number of publications that refer to migration. All numbers are restricted to publications in the social sciences. Graphs are based on sliding averages.

Carling, J., and K. Schewel. (2018) “Revisiting Aspiration and Ability in International Migration.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44 (6): 945–963. doi:10.1080/1369183X.2017.1384146.

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Meyer, F. (2018) “Navigating Aspirations and Expectations: Adolescents’ Considerations of Outmigration From Rural Eastern Germany.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44 (6): 1032–1049. doi:10.1080/1369183X.2017.1384163.

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