Migration between Africa and Europe (MAFE): Looking beyond Immigration to Understand International Migration

The fact that immigration is just one component of international migration might appear self-evident. Demographers know well that migration flows operate in more than one direction, and that they are reversible. Indeed, this is what makes the study of migration so complex. Yet the most commonly available data are those produced in destination countries, so research tends to focus on immigration rather than emigration. With statistical production limited to the data collected by immigrant receiving countries at their national borders, immigrants' subsequent movements - be they returns to the country of origin or onward migration to a new destination - have received little or no attention. In most cases, they are simply not measured. In fact, very few countries record departures from their territory (emigration flows), and the dispersion of their emigrants (expatriate nationals or departed immigrants) makes the counting of emigrant stocks difficult to say the least. The fact that sources and statistical studies focus so strongly on migration within nation-states has been conceptualized as a form of "methodological nationalism" (Beauchemin, 2014; Wimmer and Glick Schiller, 2003). This has a knock-on effect on attitudes to international migration, contributing to the general perception that immigration is a one-way process, and that newcomers' sole intention is to settle permanently in the host country. Graeme Hugo denounces what he calls "settlement bias" in the perception of migration, which consists in neglecting its reversibility (Hugo, 2014).