Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
migrants have escaped from large cities and rural areas
to move to medium-sized cities for retirement or fam-
ily-friendly lifestyles; and wealthy individuals who seek
solace and space have moved into environmentally
attractive rural areas, trying to keep the area “rural,”
while pushing out farmers.
Mobility within the U.S. depends on the country's
economy. After decades of increasing levels of mobil-
ity, the U.S. population had the “least mobile period in
postwar American society” following the downturn in
the economy between 2007 and 2008. The mortgage cri-
sis and higher unemployment rates led to a pronounced
reduction in the long-distance moves, according to a
study by the Brookings Institute. Would-be movers
“were unable to fi nd fi nancing to buy a new home, buy-
ers for their existing homes, or a new job in more desir-
able areas.”
International migrants also migrate internally
within their destination country. Since the 1940s, mil-
lions of migrants from Latin America have migrated to
the American Southwest and Florida. Most migrants
have stayed in these same basic regions, perhaps
migrating part of the year to work in agricultural fi elds.
In 1986, the U.S. government passed the Immigration
Reform and Control Act (IRCA), legislation that
gave amnesty and permanent residence to 2.6 million
migrants who had been living in the United States for
a long period of time. The newly legal migrants under
IRCA could move anywhere, and during the 1990s,
many moved to the Great Plains and Midwest and
also to the South (Fig. 3.5). Migrants found the South
attractive for the same reasons other Americans did.
The warm climate and available jobs in the Sunbelt
attracted migrants during the 1990s.
In Peru, which is a less mobile society than the
U.S. society, the pattern of internal migration is gener-
ally from rural to urban. Migrants have left rural areas
and moved to Lima, the capital. Global and national
investment capital is concentrated in Lima. The capi-
tal represents the major focus of economic opportunity
for the rural population. Lima receives the vast major-
ity of Peru's migrants, regardless of age, gender, or
marital status.
WHY DO PEOPLE MIGRATE?
Migration can be the result of a voluntary action,
a conscious decision to move from one place to the
next. It can also be the result of an involuntary action,
a forced movement chosen by one group of people for
another group of people.
Forced migration
involves
the imposition of authority or power, producing invol-
untary migration movements that cannot be understood
based on theories of choice.
Voluntary migration
occurs after a migrant weighs options and choices, even
if desperately or not so rationally, and can be analyzed
and understood as a series of options or choices that
result in movement.
The distinction between forced and volun-
tary migration is not always clear-cut. The enormous
European migration to the United States during the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is often cited as
a prime example of voluntary migration. However, some
European migration can be construed as forced. The
British treatment of the Irish during their colonial rule
over Ireland can be seen as political persecution, which
is a cause for forced migration. During British colonial-
ism in Ireland, the British took control of nearly all of
the Irish Catholic lands and discouraged the operation of
the Catholic Church in Ireland. Until 1829, the British
enforced penal laws preventing Irish Catholics from
buying land, voting, or carrying weapons. The mass exo-
dus of migrants from Ireland to North America in the
mid-1800s can be seen as forced, both because of the
British treatment of the Irish and because of the potato
famine, but it can also be seen as voluntary in that the
Irish chose to go to North America.
At the scale of an individual region or country, we
can question whether a decision to migrate is forced or
voluntary. At the scale of the household, the decision to
migrate is all the more complex. For certain members of
a migrating household, the move may be under duress,
and for others, the move may be a preferred choice.
The neutral title “migrant” veils the complexities of
decision making at the household scale. Geographic
studies of gender in migration demonstrate that at
the household scale, power relationships, divisions of
labor, and gender identities all factor into migration
flows. At the household scale, decisions are made, in
geographer Victoria Lawson's terms, in a “cooperative
conflict bargaining process.” Who has a say in this pro-
cess and how much of a say each individual has depend
on gendered power relationships and responsibilities in
the household.
Studies of gender and migration fi nd that, in
many regions, men are more mobile than women and
men migrate farther than women. Generally, men have
more choices of employment than women, and women
Choose one type of cyclic or periodic movement and then
think of a specifi c example of the kind of movement you
chose. Now, determine how this movement changes both
the home and the destination as a result of this cyclic or
period movement.
