This document discusses the complexity of defining and understanding international migration. It notes that from an early scientific perspective, international migration has lacked definitional clarity and consensus. The phenomenon involves huge human flows globally from a variety of social, economic, political and cultural motivations that have been difficult to fully decipher and account for statistically. Over time, the nature and scale of human migration has increased in complexity with globalization. There remains no agreed upon definition of international migration among researchers or international organizations.
This document discusses the complexity of defining and understanding international migration. It notes that from an early scientific perspective, international migration has lacked definitional clarity and consensus. The phenomenon involves huge human flows globally from a variety of social, economic, political and cultural motivations that have been difficult to fully decipher and account for statistically. Over time, the nature and scale of human migration has increased in complexity with globalization. There remains no agreed upon definition of international migration among researchers or international organizations.
This document discusses the complexity of defining and understanding international migration. It notes that from an early scientific perspective, international migration has lacked definitional clarity and consensus. The phenomenon involves huge human flows globally from a variety of social, economic, political and cultural motivations that have been difficult to fully decipher and account for statistically. Over time, the nature and scale of human migration has increased in complexity with globalization. There remains no agreed upon definition of international migration among researchers or international organizations.
This document discusses the complexity of defining and understanding international migration. It notes that from an early scientific perspective, international migration has lacked definitional clarity and consensus. The phenomenon involves huge human flows globally from a variety of social, economic, political and cultural motivations that have been difficult to fully decipher and account for statistically. Over time, the nature and scale of human migration has increased in complexity with globalization. There remains no agreed upon definition of international migration among researchers or international organizations.
To misname things is to add to the misfortunes of this
world... ". This apocryphal quote attributed to Albert Camus profoundly reflects the aporia in which we find ourselves in the study of international migration. Indeed, international migration is a particularly complex issue. From an epistemological point of view, its legitimacy is fragile or even contested (Withol de Wenden 2016). Huge human flows sweep daily in the world World; from East to West, from North to South (CICRED, 1974; Kritz & al, 1992; Simon, 1995; Bauman, 1998; Withol de Wenden 2012) without it being possible to apprehend them rigorously (CICRED 1974: 11). The observation is that we have always strived to unsucceively decipher the social, economic, political and cultural springs that are the basis of their genesis, the motivations underlying their triggers, the dynamics and logics implemented, the residence strategies, the complete statistical data relating to them or the reliability of the classifications that some supporters of "migratology" boast (Domenach 1996)80 who do not all agree on what it is a migrant, a refugee, an asylum seeker, a stateless person, an internally displaced person, the diaspora, etc. In fact, if the migration phenomenon has become a banal subject because of psychedelic over- mediatization, it becomes highly twisted and formidable when you want to identify it scientifically (Simon, 1981). It is hardly an exaggeration, says Clairin (1988: 267), that international migration is not only the most complex and poorly known of human flows, but also that it is a major disruptive factor in the measurement and analysis of other demographic variables, structures and movements (Badie & Withol de Wenden, 1994). Valin's observation (1995: 42) on this phenomenon is even more demoralizing: "a difficult subject", whose study constitutes "a real challenge" with regard to population science. Because of this complexity, no definition of international migration seems sufficient today. No unanimity is made on the data collection methodology, on the typology, nor on the theories that try to explain them, or even on the epistemological prerequisites that are the definition (United Nations 1997:8; Clairin 1988: 267). According to the ACP Observatory on Migration, "the definition of migration is a particularly difficult task, no consensus on this term currently exists at the international level... However, "definitions are very important. A misinterpretation of this phenomenon may cause a lack of clarity about its characteristics and thus hinder both the protection of migrants and the adoption of effective and coherent policies" (ACP/OBS 2014). The complexity of the nature of human migration and much more, its internationalization has enriched the lexicons in recent years, making it possible to think about these processes and Contemporary phenomena in terms of "mobility", "traffic",
Of "field
Migratory",
Of "spaces
"Glocalization" etc... (Berthomière & Hily 2006)
which are so many words/expressions, come to the rescue of a very laborious understanding...
The first epistemological consequence that emerges is
the definitional torment that these international migrations cause on a daily basis and the endless antagonisms of Schools that they arouse in terms of its understanding within the scientific community. There is therefore no scientific consensus on what migrating means, since the first attempts at understanding as developed by the German-English geographer Ernst Georg Ravenstein (1889). Those developed and administered manu militari to the States of international society by international institutions such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the International Labour Organization (ILO) or the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the United Nations Population Division (UNES-UNE) and the research community (Domenach 2001), have hardly improved the cognitive and definitional blur in which we have been entangled since then.
This article has a dual objective: to show on the one
hand the ontological complexity of international migration in the light of the historicity of their mode of construction, and on the other hand, to present the problem related to their definition (Latifa 2011). It is fundamentally a question of getting rid of the illusion of the knowledge they induce and changing the too simplistic view that some researchers or international organizations show on the apparent evidence of its semantic burden. What is Is suggested in the end, it is the particular epistemological posture to adopt, given the complexity of a phenomenon that "far exceeds the simple question of number" (Barthomière 2009) and "the great diversity of factors at play, and the plurality of scales of analysis" that characterize it (Ambroestti & Tattlo 2008). Moreover, Ma Mung (2009) proposes, as part of the search for a definition and understanding of international migration, to take into account cumulatively, the situation and environment in which migration is carried out as well as external conditions, the examination, calculation, evaluation of these conditions carried out by the individual or collective as well as internal provisions... Given the immensity of the field to be prospected for Apprehend and properly define this phenomenon, we understand that it is a real challenge (De Gourcy 2005).
The ontological complexity...
The current demographic configuration of the world
cannot be better understood by ignoring its migratory component. Indeed, it structures from East to West and from South to North, its historical, social, cultural, economic and political field... While the international community's interest in international migration has very often been linked to the spectacular and tragic nature generated by these global demographic flows, it should be stressed that it is actually due to an old phenomenon, once considered minor on an international scale, but whose current changes and their consequences go far beyond the predictions of scientists and other politicians in this world.
An ancient phenomenon...
The first difficulty related to understanding the origins
of the migratory phenomenon remains its identification, identification and dating over time. This cognitive embarrassment ultimately refers to the thorny problem of man's advent on earth and the successive stages by which he gradually occupied land, sea and air spaces. This congenital difficulty significantly affects the level of scientificity necessary for a good understanding and definition of the phenomenon81.
Following the analyses of Hervé Domenach and
Michel Picouet (1995), it will be said that it has been a few tens of millions of years that the very first migrations of men resulting from the fracture of the Rift Valley have been observed. It is believed that the climate change that disrupted its environment would have led to the scarcity of vegetation and forced upper primates to migrate west of the Fracture, while the Australopitheques remained in the East. The period of Homo Habilis and Homo Erectus, which would have migrated 2 million years ago from Africa to Eurasia, was marked by sustainable settlement because of their ever-increasing number and needs. About 800,000 years ago, Homo Sapiens still from Africa settled in the Middle East, then in Papua, Australia (Laréné, NI)... According to genetic research, the mixtures resulting from these encounters would explain the appearance of new breeds that populate the world today (UNESCO 2021). Thus, it was nomadism and pastoral life that were the first modes of existence and it was rather sedentarization that constituted the rupture of the migration process, and not the other way around as has very often been widespread. Basically, three main modalities would be distinguished: capillary migrations, which are formed by a process of spreading people from one space to another by doses insensitive to demographic growth. Settlement migrations that are formed from territories of demographic expansion to less populated areas, according to a shorter periodicity than capillary migrations and shorter than invasive migrations, which correspond to a grabbing of living spaces, following warlike and annexation logics (Laréné). The discovery of the new world and colonial expansion have led to profound changes in space and time, and completely changed today's perception of international migration. To this end, it will be observed that the transfers of populations, whether voluntary or forced and that occurred during the colonial period, continue to have consequences to this day. According to estimates (UNESCO 1999), between the 16th and 19th centuries, 15 to 20 million Africans were transported to serve as slaves in North and South America. It should be noted later that a very tiny part of this population returned to Africa and founded the State of Liberia in 1847. But it was above all the strong migration of Europeans to overseas countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries that left the most traces on the current structures of migratory movements. This unique exodus in history covered nearly 50 million inhabitants and was the result of a very special combination of circumstances that attracted an overabundant workforce to the new world (Withol De Wenden 2016:10).
Technological developments in general, the rise of the
means of communication and transport in particular, have also played an important role in the spread of these migrations. This will result in a process of cumulative productivity growth, industrial diversification and continuous employment expansion, which will benefit the Both to emigrants and host countries as well as countries of origin. The United States of America, Canada, Europe, Australia, South Africa can be cited as illustrations of this phenomenon (UNESCO 2021). Careful observation of the world stage shows that the process was not only circumscribed in the Americas. As part of the same approach, many Asian colonies have recruited through this mechanism of massive displacement of peoples (UNESCO 2021).
We would like to say here that contrary to some
widespread images, it is the displacement of populations that has historically constituted the normal attitude of men. This means that in the end, we are all immigrants!... This formula applies to all human beings if we mean that no one can claim to be a pure native, according to the Greek word which means: "born from the ground" (Laréné). Moreover, the quota of populations with the appearance of the new world produced by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, did not stop this nomadism, which experienced a new acceleration with technological developments, climate change, economic crises, the outbreak of wars, etc. This globalization of migration "disrupts" and "returns" from top to bottom the international order established since 1648.
... Become a puzzle in the contemporary era
At the same time a phenomenon, issue and major
challenge of international relations at the beginning of the 21st century, international migration worries and disturbs states, questions and embarrasses scientists by the social, political, economic, cultural or paradigmatic turbulence it generates (Nkene 2000). What is fascinating in the current context is that the phenomenon is increasing and gives the impression of being inversely proportional to the square of dangers and other state barriers erected to circumscribe and limit them. The image today is that of states constantly lagging behind the migratory phenomenon82. A synoptic look at this phenomenon shows, on the side of Central Europe, countries brutally confronted since March 2022, with the surge of nearly 6 million Ukrainians fleeing the war unleashed by Russia. In the same vein, the question Migration was one of the strong axes of the April 2022 presidential campaign in France and objectively explains the spectacular rise of the Right (National Rally) in terms of election results. Just a few months before, it was Belarus that was facing the invasion of Afghans, Iranians, Iraqis in demand for passage for the European Union. Meanwhile, Great Britain and Rwanda signed a convention on the transfer of migrants from the first country to the second, pending the processing of their asylum applications.
For his part, French President Emmanuel Macron,
under strong migratory pressure from sub-Saharan Africa, had to urgently organize on August 29, 2017, a Sahel-European mini-migration summit, whose theme was "control and controlled management of migratory flows", followed by the establishment of "Hotspots"; a kind of extraterritorial "waiting areas" to quota migratory flows from Africa. Germany, for its part, has been plagued since 2015 by the massive influx of Syrian migrants driven out of their country by an endless war...
On the side of the United States of America, the
question has been raised with the same acuteness since the historic "rush to the Americas". Just a few days after taking the oath on Friday, January 20, 2017, President Donald Trump made "anti-immigration decrees", restricting access to U.S. territory to nationals of certain Muslim countries suspected to endorse or promote terrorism on American soil (Syria, Libya, Iran, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen), as well as refugees from around the world. The inclusion of Chad in September 2017 in this list created the indignation of this country, and made the African Union "perplexed". Similarly, the first official release of KAMALA Harris,
January 20, 2021
The migration crisis between the United States of
America and the
Mexico. The same file that Barack Obama entrusted to
Joe Biden when he was his Vice-President...
49th Vice-President of the United States,
Started from the
Concerned the management
Diplomatic
In Asia and the Pacific, thousands of people flee their
country every day for economic, security or reasons
Related to climate change
The detention centers in which they are concentrated (
. These migrations are a source of stories
Dramatic on the roads, the boats that exiles use or in
Australia
Indonesia
Thailand
), sometimes in defiance of any respect for the rights of
Man (International Mail, NI). One of the striking
symbols of these
Migration is what was designated by Boat-peoples
around the 1980s, who are migrants fleeing Vietnam on overloaded and drifting boats. In Burma, has arisen since August 2017, the Problem of ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslim community, nearly one million of whose members have taken refuge in disaster in neighboring Bangladesh, causing social and political turmoil in a country whose political stability is constantly threatened. In Africa (Pérouse de Montclos 1994), at the beginning of 2004, there were 4.2 million refugees and about 12.5 million displaced persons, i.e. refugees in their own country. In West Africa, the Biafra civil war in 1967 forced 2 million people to leave their homes; and nearly one million people between 2015 and 2022 to North Cameroon, due to the Islamist terrorist groups of Boko Haram. The Liberian war in 1989 pushed 2.4 million people on the roads and to neighboring countries. In the Horn of Africa and East Africa, internal conflicts have caused considerable migratory flows for several years. In 1994, Sudan had on its soil more than 700,000 refugees driven out by conflict in the Horn of Africa; Tanzania welcomed nearly 900,000 people fleeing the wars in Burundi and Rwanda. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), it was estimated in 2003 that 3.4 million people had been displaced by the war since 1997. In Cameroon meanwhile, a
This means that from a demographic point of view,
Africa is a continent that also moves in all
The senses (Nkene 2000; 2004),
Therefore, overwhelmed by more and more and ever
more elusive human waves, the states of international society are laboriously trying to curb the phenomenon. Individual state attempts, heterogeneous or let's say disorganized, global or regional mechanisms are opposed to no more effective than the former. Thus, "Great Replacement", "Regularization", "Selection", "Expulsion", "Repatriation", "Great Disturbance" have become familiar in the vocabulary of foreign public policies in many countries, and attest to a real problem that is opposed in most cases to false solutions. Their production and recurrence in differentiated spaces and following a rhythm without tempo, reflect the disarray faced by a world order permanently plagued by the dizzying and independent mobility of individuals.
131
New declaration calling for better concerted action to
help nearly 1.4 million uprooted Central Africans was signed on Wednesday, April 27, 2022 at the end of a key regional conference organized by the Cameroonian government and UNHCR, the United Nations Agency
For Refugees (UN, NI
The problem even takes on tragic appearances as we
saw a few years ago in Dover, with the tragedy of nearly 60 Chinese discovered dead asphyxiated in the hindquarters of a truck in transit for Great Britain. The images, which have become innocuous and domestic, of violence based on the construction of the immigrant threat in the Maghreb or South Africa countries, the "pateras" and their contents of African emigrants ballooned and stranded off the Canary Islands in Spain or Lampedusa in Italy, Mexican "coyotes" found electrocuted on the barbed wire Premature from a journey to a dream Europe, America or Persian Gulf. The moving and dramatic images of a sick and dying Cameroonian emigrant being abandoned by other Cameroonians in the Sahara desert, therush of Cameroonians to Chad in search of refuge following interethnic clashes between Mousgoum and Arab Choa in recent days, perfectly illustrate the fact that alongside the global health crisis related to COVID-19, there is another, older and permanent, pernic In the words of the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan (2005), a few years ago, this is "a very serious problem, a very hot subject" that reflects this embarrassment of States, taken by surprise by the vitality and pugnacity of these turbulent and independent demographic flows.
In these psychedelic conditions, their identification,
identification, measurement and understanding become highly complex, while their definition becomes highly unlikely.
... The not found definition
The extraordinary intensification of human flows and
their increasing complexity on the international scene make their understanding difficult, due to an inextricable tangle of migratory events. At the same time, they explain the proliferation of definitions as numerous as they are heuristically insufficient.
Between heterogeneity and inextricable tangle of
facts...
In its 2009 annual report, which remains topical, the
United Nations Development Programme writes: "It is Easy for a politician to count the international movements of shoes or mobile phones as well as those of nurses or construction workers."
From the outset, their main characteristic is
heterogeneity: in contrast to natural demographic movements, international migration has a number of specificities that generate as many theoretical, methodological, epistemological problems as
Practical. Indeed, diverse in their morphology, they
almost never present a homogeneous shape... In terms of temporalities, they are repetitive and discontinuous insofar as an unlimited number of times can be migrated at your convenience and without it being possible to predict with certainty how this migratory route will end. In terms of spatialities, they involve several places/localities without any predetermined order and above all of extreme variability in terms of their volume... (Hily & Ma Mung 2003).
The inextricable tangle of quantitative and qualitative
data that constitute them and the consubstantial unpredictability that characterizes them, as seen in 2015 with the massive and uncontrollable influx of tens of thousands of Syrians into Europe and its procession of legal, political and social framework problems, lead to taking this object by nature fluid and evan In more detail, this IOM (2007) finding makes the problem more explicit:
There is broad agreement that the extent and pace of
international migration are difficult to accurately predict, as they are closely linked to critical events (great instability, economic crisis or conflict), as well as long-term trends (demographic change, economic development, advances in communication technologies and access to means of transport) (IOM 2020). The variability and especially the fluctuation of the figures between 2000 and 2020 are the expression of this complexity. Indeed, international migration shows diversity both in terms of its form, sustainability, and how they invest spaces and that cannot be exhaustively identified or identified. The mobility underlying this phenomenon shows through time and space a variability punctuated by displacements characterized sometimes by their spontaneity, sometimes by their organization, sometimes by their form, motivations, causes, goals, etc.
It can be said that the growth gaps observed in the
world today are partly linked to a past legacy, where emigration and immigration occupy a prominent place. Secondly, that this displacement of men tends to accentuate the imbalance of the world population, according to its geographical distribution. This is because industrial labor markets attract migratory flows to already overcrowded regions, where the economic situation is conducive to a very rapid development of the economy. Sometimes, labor demand tends to involve a certain selective emigration of migrants as can be observed in Africa or Asia with the brain drain (brain-drain). In contrast to previous periods, today's international migration is less definitive, more dispersed and more dependent on the skills of emigrants. As before, they no longer turn to unique centers of attraction such as the industrial regions of Western Europe, the United States. They cover South America as well as Australia, Africa, etc. In addition, country-to-country migration seems to outweigh transcontinental migration, taking volume into account. This is also the case in Africa where huge human flows sweep daily from West to East, from North to South without, in our opinion, the attention they deserve (Sindjoun 2002; 2004).
Moreover, migrations are beyond an arithmetic of life
and death83. They certainly include figures, but also questions of perception, representation, motivation, business logic or individual logic. At the spatial level, they integrate the issues of distribution/investment, networking, territoriality. Temporally, they take into account issues of periodicity and rhythmicity, etc. Human mobility will
83 Mr. William L. Swing Director General of IOM will
emphasize not without relevance to this end that we are living in a time of great tragedy and uncertainty... IOM's approach to encourage Member States to more humane and orderly migration for the benefit of all, where the human beings behind the figures are taken into account... ” Increasing and population movements are even more flexible, while official statistics persist in underestimating actual data, as they refer to a restrictive definition of migration based on statistical traceability. The proliferation of the senses that international migration holds today is only one consequence of this.
.... And proliferation of the senses
Most of the reference works on international migration
in recent years do not give a precise definition of the phenomenon (Lelio, 2002; Appleyard, 1989; 1998; Adepoju & Hammar, 1996). What is observed is rather a conglomerate of definitional essays as numerous as they are diverse, referring more to questions than to clear and precise framing (German & al. 2004).
First, there is the block of Euro-centered definitions
developed by the specialized agencies of the United Nations and the OECD, which have as their priority sampling base the geographical area of Western countries (Europe, United States) and which are different from each other, at least it can be said.
According to the International Labour Office (ILO),
migration is considered to be any movement of people crossing a certain limit in order to establish a new Population Reference Bureau 1980 residence elsewhere). This definition does not take into account the reversibility, i.e. the back and forth (pendulum movements) observed in the context of modern mobility, and does not clearly specify the space that takes migration into account. In addition, the concept of a new residence, which appears to be one of the essential dimensions of this definition, shows some evolution. Until recently, this practice, observe Hervé Domenach and Michel Picouet (1995), referred to the notion of residence-cottage, that is, the place where the individual is used to live. The study of migration with all its territorial, legal, land, socio-economic, cultural, etc. implications was based on the criterion of single residence. Migration was then considered a transfer of residence from a place of origin or place of departure to a place of destination or place of arrival. Only one aspect of mobility was taken into account in this definition, largely overtaken by contemporary forms of mobility. This has significantly reduced the importance of the single residence criterion. From now on, we talk about primary, secondary, multiple residence, occasional residence that are induced by professional mobility. More specifically, in the jargon instituted in the matter, we talk about space Of life or "life area", "life cycle" or "density of residence" to reflect the delimitation of the portion of the space in which an individual carries out all his activities. Two types of travel could also be considered: those that take place within space without modifying it, such as daily or temporary travel in the different places constituting this space, and those that modify the usual space through the investment of it by a radical change in the living area.
International migration occurs when a person who lives
in one country moves to another. However, not every person who crossed an international border is an international migrant. It is necessary to set criteria to differentiate international migrant from the generality of international travelers. Duration of stay in the country of destination can be used to make such distinction, but some tourists may stay longer than persons admitted to undertake seasonal work or undergo training, consideration of duration of stay may not be sufficient (UN 1997: 8).
The definition of the United Nations Department of
Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA 1999)84 is different: "any person who changes country and habitual residence is considered an international migrant". In practice here, it should be noted that a long-term migrant is a person who travels to a country other than his habitual residence for a period of at least one year. A short-term migrant is a person who travels to a country other than his habitual residence for a period of at least three months but less than one year, except in cases where the trip to that country is made for leisure, holidays, visits to friends or family, business, medical treatment or religious pilgrimage. If this definition has the advantage of its pragmatism, since the one-year threshold usually used to measure demographic change in developed countries coincides with this period, it should nevertheless be said that it suffers from a huge bias. In fact, the difficulty arises when it comes to pragmatically setting a limit below which a person will be considered simply "absent" or "displacement" and non-migrant. Such a limit is necessarily arbitrary and must be set according to the socio-economic and cultural specificities of the environment concerned (Clairin 1988:269). Undoubtedly at the heart of any migration project, however, duration is understood in this definition too strictly, that is to say without taking into account the variability of rules or measures in different countries. It gives the impression of a "straitjacket of Force" in which all countries are supposed to live, even if their "constitutions" as James Rosenau (1990) could have said, look at things differently. However, depending on their history, States have been led to pay more or less attention to international migration and their strategies have evolved. The objectives may have focused on the facilitation or retention of migratory flows, their intensity or direction, the incorporation of the migrant into the host society or its recovery in some form by the society of origin (Lelio 2002),
In the event that it is the national interest of each State
that guides its migration policy, it becomes risky to set, through exogenous criteria, the durations of entry, stay, exit. Georges Lemaître (2005) rightly notes that in the United Nations design, the nature of the measure (whether it is the expected length of stay, the period of validity of the permit granted on entry into the country or the actual duration of stay in the host country) and the duration is not specified. In addition, this definition does not take into account the reasons/motivations that constitute a necessary element for understanding international migration. Quite rightly, migration can take place for the purpose of establishment, employment, family reunification, or to flee persecution. This is where an additional criterion comes in, which is intentionality. The intention, even if it is controversial (Clairin 1988: 269) cannot be totally excluded from the definition of migration, which is above all a project, a desire, an intention that precedes the act of going elsewhere, staying or returning. The notion of "root causes" drawn from history makes it possible to trace the explanatory and determining causes that are the basis of migration and likely to give some definition of it.
The subtlety of the definition of the International
Organization for Migration (IOM 2019) provides a small clarification, despite its evanescent character: "any movement of people leaving their place of habitual residence, either within the same country or beyond an international border... or any person outside the State of which he has nationality or citizenship or, in the case of stateless persons, his country of birth or habitual residence. This term includes people who plan to migrate on a permanent or temporary basis, those who migrate regularly or have the required documents, as well as irregular migrants". Certainly more inclusive and closer to reality, however, this definition does not escape the fundamental criticism of the difficulty in measuring international migration, even if it is increasingly identified (Badie & al. 2008).
Another important level of the definitional torment of
international migration is related to the introduction of what is being called transnational migration (Glick- Schiller & al. 1994; Colonomos & al. 1995; Constantin 1994; Faist 2000). Obviously, we are witnessing in filigree the emergence and pugnacity of new networks of migrants or diasporas that increase and significantly determine the relevance of mobility in the world (Tarrius 1989; Bruneau 2004). This category of demographic flows not yet well defined, but indicative of the impotence of states, are characterized as "transnational" (Faret, 2003). In their vocations they could have the effect of:
Connect places and people all over the world by
promoting the emergence of a "transnational migratory space". This goes beyond the geographical space within which migrants go back and forth between places that have become familiar to them. In addition to physical movements, the flow of information, transfers of skills and repatriations of funds complete the picture of this "transnational migratory area". Thus, the distinction between "geographical area" and "migration area" is gradually disappearing, with the consequences in the definition of international migration (Tarrius 1993: 50-60).
This transnationalist perspective on international
migration (Vertovec 2001), (Rosenau 1990), (Portes & al. 2001), (Glick & al. 1992), (Portes 1999a; 1999b; Peter 1994; Levitt & Glick 2003), is reflected in the emergence of new migratory forms discovered during the 1980s in Europe, characterized by the constitution of underground international economies of products of lawful and illicit use, and which have further complicated attempts to define international migration (Gildas 2006). In fact, the historical territorial form of the nation-state, entirely meshed by major political, economic and social institutions, is renegotiated by collectives of migrants designated as ethnic; they develop, from a distance, codes, laws and regulations of international economic exchanges, large-scale collective trade initiatives. The strong solidarities that precede and allow these deployments reverse the problems of globalization and suggest the existence of another globalization process where strong social ties are not second (Tarrius 2001; Granovetter 1993; Nkene 2004).
Moreover, the globalization of the global space and the
end of the internal-external divide in the international field induces from an epistemological point of view another mortgage on the definition of migration International. In their dynamics, they would result from social and economic relations, complex policies that continuously or discontinuously radiate the international scene without taking into account state borders (Knafou & al. 1998; Adepoju 1988: 38; Stern 1988: 30; Constantin 1994). If indeed there is no longer a distinction between internal and international as hammered by the transnationalist perspective of international relations, how can we continue to talk about internal migration or international migration? The reflection initiated by these authors is not unfounded in a global context of weakening states and a continuum of flows of all kinds (Rosenau 1990; Glick-Schiller Nina et al, 1994). But, it cannot be fully valid for the simple reason that its premise, i.e. the collapse of states (Zartman 1995) cannot itself be validated without caution, the state continuing to resist in several cases, despite all the threats it faces (Rétaillé 1996: 21-40; Flory 1996: 251-265; Merle: 289-309; Cohen 2005 The general lack of information, the inaccuracy of data on this type of migration, the series of synonymic terms to translate a reality "with fluid contours" and ultimately elusive is very evocative of the difficulties encountered85.
Conclusion
The difficulty in making international migration more
understandable and developing a more precise corpus for its definition is therefore real. Moreover, the panic of international organizations and the wave of chain protests of the international community in the face of these human surgers or the erratic measures to limit the freedom to come and go enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, constitute, if necessary, irrefutable proof that human migration is a disruptive phenomenon of the order of states in the world, and undoubtedly It necessarily follows that they lend themselves very badly to the use of models. This also explains in large part why demography researchers and decision-makers have deserted this sector to take refuge on more obvious and reassuring issues such as birth rate, mortality, stocks, etc... This attitude has been largely Counterproductive for the control of this phenomenon; since on a daily basis migration problems arise with the same acuteness throughout the world (Tarrius 2001), causing here and there "turbulence" and "returning" here and there the world, following expressions instituted in the field of new international relations (Badie and Smouts 1999). We would like to say, following Bertrand Badie and Marie- Claude Smouts (1996), that the migration process disturbs and becomes a source of anomie from the moment it bypasses the state, contributes to undoing citizen allegiances, creating spaces beyond political control, sometimes erecting the individual or networks of individuals into micro social actors... "An important elements of transnational flows, migration is probably the most rebellious part because it is the least reducible to collective choices, therefore the most prone to unpredictability and hazards... (Badie & Smouts 1992; Badie & Withol de Wenden 1994; Badie & Smouts 1999; Badie & al. 2008). Complexity and unpredictability are inscribed in their DNA... The suddenness of their modes of constitution and the disparities in their modes of construction combined with the unexpected consequences they generate require great caution, as regards their understanding and definition.
However, efforts to decomplex the understanding and
mature the definitions of international migration, both within the scientific community and within the international organizations concerned, should continue, due to the importance of this global phenomenon and the daily disruptions they induce, as can be observed these days with the Russian-Ukrainian crisis86.
Taking into account the heuristic limits identified here
and there, we could with great modesty risk a definition of this phenomenon, very on the edge of that proposed by IOM. International migration could then mean a displacement of the living space of individuals who have left their country to live or settle in another, and for a minimum period of time. It would include, in addition to voluntary or forced migration, organized migration and transnational migration despite the immigration restrictions that have emerged in many countries. Crossing an international border, with a change of habitual residence, differentiates international migration from internal migration that takes place within a state's borders. The concept of migrant (emigrant, immigrant) would also be based on a geographical criterion (Space travel) and should not be confused with that of a foreigner, based on a legal criterion (Gildas, 2002: 4). It is an event that is not always linear in the sense that it can be sometimes renewable or irreversible, sometimes of a subjective nature linked to each individual's own perception. It is also the product of collective action as can be observed in organized migration or forced displacement or sometimes marked by cultural elements. Arjun Appaduraï describes this type of flow as "ethnoscape". This neologism is part of a transnational sociology/anthropology and refers to "groups that migrate, gather in new places, rebuild their history and reconfigure their ethnic project" (Appaduraï 2001). The ever-increasing migratory flows would thus respond to an evolution of social imaginations and multifaceted identities, a new order of instability in the creation of modern subjectivities constituting the existence of new figures of migrants locked in their little bubble (Girard 1994; Appaduraï 1996). In this perspective, it could be said that the emigrant is any individual who has left his country of origin and is on his way to another, regardless of the reasons for his departure: political, economic, cultural or environmental reasons, etc. When this route is in accordance with laws and regulations, we would speak of regular emigration. On the other hand, when this route is carried out on the margins of legislation/regulation, we would speak of illegal emigration or irregular emigration. This individual becomes an immigrant when he settles permanently in a third country. To this end, two types will be distinguished: internal migration that takes place within the same country and which is agreed to be referred to as "displacement", and international migration that refers to the movement of people from one country to another. From the installation, a plethora of types of migration will be available, either according to the activities carried out or according to the specific motivations and objectives of individuals. We could thus find ourselves faced with labor migration, permanent migration, pendulum migration, circular migration, tourism or student migration, related terms such as mobility or diaspora; indicating that these migrations can very well combine or alternate without predetermined or definitive spatiality and temporality...
Obviously, the sedimentation of contributions relating
to their definitions has not really made it possible to devote anything since Ravenstein. These difficulties in accurately measuring and identifying international migration have led scientists and international organizations to more epistemological compromises than to understanding and Consensus definition of this phenomenon. Therefore, the current usual meanings and definitions are ultimately only a worst-case scenario, paradigmatic constructions that soothe more by their pragmatism more than they convince.
And even if we have come out of this skein, we should
also actively and seriously prepare for the landing on the thorny and throbbing problem of international migration theories (Piguet 2013; Piché 2001), which is no less matter. From Charybde to Scylla?