Trajectories and imaginaries in migration : the migrant actor in transnational space

"This book draws attention to the various factors that characterise migrant flows and mobilities, calling into question familiar concepts such as push and pull, migration as a life project and socio-cultural integration. It highlights processes such as flexible migrant routes, temporary and return migration, mental aspects of migration processes and transnationalism. Organised around the themes of shaping trajectories, frictions in space, and the migrant mental framework, - it brings together work from scholars from Europe and beyond. The book suggests a different understanding of migration and mobility as relational, non-linear, and fluid social processes, characterised by instability in migrant life trajectories. Emphasising the flexibility of migrants and migration and advocating the importance of emotionally charged, individual perceptions as central to migrant decision-making, it will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology, politics and geography with interests in migration and diaspora studies. The contributions collected here put emphasis the social and mental processes that underpin the migratory process, which can be seen as the "soft-side" of migration. Too often, this side is neglected when the governance of migration is discussed. The novel ideas expressed here also help to overcome the mechanistic view of migration as a 'push-pull' event"--