Migration - Human Geography: People, Place and Culture - page 83

Delaware, West Virginia, and central Virginia. By airplane,
commuters arrive at work in Washington, D.C. from New
York City. Others, such as members of Congress, com-
mute from their home state, keeping houses there and
apartments in the Washington, D.C. area.
Another form of cyclic movement is seasonal move-
ment. Every autumn, hundreds of thousands of travelers
leave their homes in Canada and the northern parts of the
United States and seek the winter sun in Florida and other
“Sunbelt” States, returning in the spring. This seasonal
transfer has huge economic consequences (and electoral
signifi cance) in depopulated Northern towns and bur-
geoning tourist centers in the South.
This kind of seasonal movement is a luxury. Another
type of cyclic movement, nomadism , is a matter of survival,
culture, and tradition. Nomadism is dwindling across the
world, but it can still be found in parts of Asia and Africa.
Westerners often envision nomadism as an aimless wan-
dering across steppe and desert by small groups of rootless
roamers, people who claim no territory and do not behave
territorially. In reality, nomads need to know their territory
well in order to fi nd water, food, and shelter in their cyclic
movements. Nomadic movement is purposeful and takes
place along long-familiar routes repeated time and again.
The nomads move their animals to visit water sources and
pastures that have served their ancestors for centuries.
Weather conditions may affect the timing of their route,
but barring obstacles such as fenced international borders
or the privatization of long-used open country, nomads
engage in cyclic movement.

Periodic movement takes on other forms as well. If
you leave home to attend a college far away, you are liv-
ing away from home for four (or more) years. Although
you may retain a home address in your place of origin, you
now spend the great majority of your time in your new
abode (traveling home only for breaks), and your mobility
cannot be categorized as cyclic.
Military service is another form of periodic move-
ment. In a given year, as many as 10 million U.S. citizens,
including military personnel and their families, are moved
to new locations where they will spend tours of duty that
can last several years.

Migration
When movement results in permanent relocation across
signifi cant distances, it is classifi ed as migration . The pro-
cess of migration involves the long-term relocation of an
individual, a household, or larger group to a new locale
outside the community of origin.
International migration , movement across coun-
try borders, is also called transnational migration. When a
migrant leaves the home country, he or she is classifi ed as an
emigrant (one who migrates out) of the home country. When
the same migrant enters a new country, he or she is classifi ed
as an immigrant (one who migrates in) of the new country.
Emigration subtracts from the total population of a country,
and immigration adds to the total population of a country.
Countries also experience internal migration—
migration that occurs within a single country's borders.
Mapping internal migration routes reveals patterns of
well-defi ned streams of migrants that change over time.
Early in the twentieth century, a major migration stream
took tens of thousands of African American families from
the South of the United States to the industrializing cit-
ies of the Northeast and Midwest (Fig. 3.4). The advent and
diffusion of mechanical cotton pickers resulted in fewer
employment opportunities in the South. Southern states,
where slavery was legal before the Civil War, enacted Jim
Crow laws separating blacks and whites in schools, hospi-
tals, public spaces, public transportation, and even cem-
eteries. It is estimated that 5 million to 8 million African
Americans migrated from the South to industrialized
Northern cities between 1900 and 1970. Newly emanci-
pated African Americans fl ed the segregated South and
headed north to the growing industrial cities of Chicago,
Detroit, and Baltimore.
Internal migration varies according to the mobility
of the population. In mobile societies, internal migra-
tion over long distances is common. In the United
States, the fl ow of internal migration is not as simple
as rural to urban. Rather, in the past few decades, inter-
nal migrants have fl ocked to the economically dynamic
regions of the Sunbelt and Far West (Fig. 3.5). Internal

Periodic Movement
Periodic movement, like cyclic movement, involves return-
ing home. Periodic movement involves a longer period of
time away from the home base than cyclic movement. One
common type of periodic movement is migrant labor ,
which involves millions of workers in the United States and
tens of millions worldwide. The need for migrant labor in
the farm fi elds of California, Florida, and other parts of the
United States creates a large fl ow of cross-border movers,
many of whom eventually become immigrants.
A specialized form of periodic movement is trans-
humance , which is a system of pastoral farming where
ranchers move livestock according to the seasonal avail-
ability of pastures. This is a periodic form of movement
because, unlike classic nomadism, it involves a long period
of residential relocation. In Switzerland, for example,
farmers drive cattle up mountain slopes to high, fresh
pastures during the summer, and farm families follow the
herds, taking up residence in cottages that are abandoned
during the cold winter. In the “Horn” of Northeast Africa,
hundreds of thousands of people follow their livestock
from highland to lowland and back in search of pastures
renewed by seasonal rainfall.