Chair:
Theresa Reidy
International migration has increased in volume even if it remains small overall. It has multiplied and diversified in terms of directions (countries of origin and destination). It has become more fragmented than linear and may involve multiple returns and new departures or multiple destinations. Migrants are more connected with both the homeland and the destination society and with global diasporas thanks to communication and transport technologies. This lecture connects the main processes of socio-economic and geopolitical transformation of the last 40 years with evolutions in international migration and its governance, highlighting what are emerging challenges and opportunities as well as new trends, and reviewing critically our conceptual frameworks. The presentation will offer a division into four periods: starting with 1989 and the end of the Cold War, then considering the rise of international terrorism and the related securitisation of migration governance; the global financial crisis in 2008 and a world of hyper-migration in the 2010s decade, and then the pandemic and post-pandemic world.
