Rethinking Anthropological Perspectives on Migration

Introduction. Migration in Anthropology: Where We Stand

Introduction Migration in Anthropology Where We Stand Graciela S. Cabana and Jeffery J. Clark As anthropologists we pride ourselves on our holistic approach to studying culture and society, past and present; we explore the human condition from multiple perspectives using a variety of data sources. Unfortunately this strength is also a weakness, as this multivariate approach can also lead to fragmentation, dispute, and reductionism. What keeps us together, then? We know that being human involves biology, culture, language, and so forth. Is it possible to consider all these human facets within one methodology, theory, or paradigm? To stitch our fragmented subdisciplines together and realize our holistic aspirations in the context of migration studies we start with two basic questions: What is migration and why is it important? Why Do We Care? Migration is a fundamental part of being human. While movement is not exclusive to humans, we are unique from other species in the way we migrate and how we adapt to our new settings. Human migration is not merely physical movement from point A to point B but also entails a complex swirl of biological, sociocultural, and linguistic activities. Human migration, past and present, is important to what it is to be human. Yet myriad behaviors influence human behavior, and not every one is deemed to be an important research domain. So really, why do we care? Those of us interested in prehistoric1 migrations study changes in the distributions of various traits and attributes with the goal of reconstructing “history” in the absence of written documents. From the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth, anthropologists used migrations as pivotal points in history, seeing various racial, cultural, and/or linguistic groups ebbing and flowing across the landscape. They associated 4 Graciela S. Cabana and Jeffery J. Clark these groups “with various genes, material items, and languages.” Who was where when became the essential research question. Migration and the subsequent replacement of one group by another was the universal explanation for change. At the mid-twentieth century, the culture-historical approach was supplanted by the neo-evolutionary paradigm. Elucidating universal processes that explained both stasis and change became the primary goal in anthropology . With this theoretical shift, researchers viewed both cultures and societies as self-contained systems, thereby focusing attention on internal change and adaptation at the expense of “external” forces, not realizing that “internal” and “external” are simply matters of scale. Migration was deemed an external historical accident that was unpredictable and hence uninteresting. However, the pendulum has swung back toward migration during the past two decades. We now see population movement in a new light as a process with predictable motivations and outcomes. At the same time, new methodologies have been developed within the various anthropological subdisciplines to reliably track migrations and identify immigrants among indigenous populations at high resolution. If migration is considered both a process and an agent of change in each anthropological subdiscipline, then we have identified a research domain that is worth studying from as many angles as possible. From a contemporary perspective, a glance at the daily headlines reminds us why we should study migration. Migration is pervasive in our globalized and multicultural world. Depending on context and referent group, we see it as either an ominous threat or a great opportunity. Heightened attention to migration issues has forced us to both reconsider and push the boundaries of anthropology beyond its focus on traditional societies. Past migrations have relevance in the modern world, but in an age when new transportation and communication technologies have exponentially increased interaction and interconnnectivity, we are forced to ask how they are relevant. In this context, as anthropologists interested in migration we want to know the answers to these questions: What are alternative ways of viewing and characterizing migration? Who moves, how do they move, and what motivates them? How does movement impact individuals and groups as well as their cultures and languages in both homeland and destination areas? How do these variables play out in the short and long term? Are there interesting aspects of human movement that have not yet been explored by anthropologists? Migration: A Minimal Definition During the multidisciplinary discussions leading up to this volume, it became apparent that at this early stage, the various researchers could not readily agree Migration in Anthropology 5 on a common definition of migration. Rather, we reached a consensus on having an open perspective on migration...