Mapping the Theoretical Foundations of the Social Work–Migration Nexus

Abstract

This article revisits the social work–migration nexus by investigating the implications of the debate on mobility and transnationalism. The conceptual boundary between migration as single-directed movement and as an extended and multidirected process has been much discussed across the social sciences but not yet fully in social work. However, the dialectic of sedentarism versus mobility makes for a key challenge to the arrangements and the tacit assumptions of this field of research and practice. Building on an innovative analytical framework and on a variety of examples, we highlight the friction between sedentarism and mobility as central to social work with immigrants and their families.

KEYWORDS:

• Social work
• international migration
• mobility
• sedentarism
• transnationalism
• social protection

Notes

¹Some current estimates point to a threefold increase of international migrants in the last half century, up to approximately 232 million in 2013 (UNDESA, 2013). Although this increase might seem drastic, in relative terms international migrants still amount to no more than 3.2 percent of the world population. As a matter of fact, comparing today's migration with the transatlantic migration during the 19th century, the world appears less mobile today (Hoerder, 2002). It is against such insights that the period from the mid- to late 19th century has been denoted the age of mass migration, and the period after the Second World War as a period of constrained migration (Chiswick & Hatton, 2003).

²“New Global Definition of Social Work/Review of the Global Definition,” downloaded from IASSW website, http://www.iassw-aiets.org.