Futures in Motion: A Research Program for Transnational Migration Studies

• In Event: 2384 - Section on International Migration Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 17. Transnationalism

Abstract

It is now almost a cliché to say that migrants move with the future in mind, that migrants are hoping for a better life and that the ultimate goal of migration is to fulfill dreams. Notwithstanding the salience of transnational actors’ future imageries, students of migration have yet fully to explore the ways migrants and their collaborators construct future scenarios within the transits of transnational circulation. To meaningfully conceptualize actors’ transnational agency, this paper proposes that theorists and researchers give account for the many acts in which people imagine the future as a form of social action and motion. The paper begins by explaining why it is useful for migration studies to pay attention to human subjectivity as a way to understand migrants’ activities. Then, it suggests three research directions that can move migration studies closer to understanding the subjective processes of people’s future-oriented actions: 1) Imagining the future should be investigated as social action; 2) Imagining the future should be approached as a social and relational process, and 3) Imagining the future is characteristically active, constantly on the move. While not exhaustive, the concepts the paper presents aim to advance the research effort of migration scholarship to better understand transnational living. This paper draws from ethnographic research conducted with a number of Mexican transnational migrant families.

Author

• Maria Islas Lopez, University of Denver