Introduction: preparing the way for qualitative research in migration studies

Abstract

Migration is not only transforming sending, transit, and receiving countries, but also social scientific studies. The expansions of human mobility, profound demographic transformations, and their diverse social, political and economic consequences have brought unprecedented theoretical and empirical attention to the phenomenon. While migration research has relatively longer and more established tradition in US academia, its growth in European scholarship in the last three decades has been remarkable. An increasing number of scholars and journals devote their work to understanding causes and consequences, current situations, changes and continuities of migration-related issues in Europe. Moreover, the expansion of research centres and networks, undergraduate and graduate programs, conference meetings, winter and summer schools demonstrate increasing institutional visibility of migration research. For instance, IMISCOE (International Migration, Integration, and Social Cohesion), which is currently Europe’s largest network of scholars in the area of migration and integration, has grown from 19 founding member institutes in 2004 (Brus 2014) to 39 member institutes in 2017 and over 500 individual members. On the other hand, what is less evident is the systematic attention to the methodological issues in European migration studies. This edited volume presents an effort to address this gap, through the collaboration of migration scholars from diverse disciplines. It is a unique volume as it brings together a multidisciplinary perspective as well as illustrations of different issues derived from the research experience of the recognized authors.