This document summarizes key concepts about human migration from a university textbook. It defines different types of migration like international, internal, nomadic, emigration, immigration, and discusses reasons why people migrate such as for work, to escape conflicts or disasters, or to reunite with family. Push factors that induce people to leave places include poverty, persecution, and environmental conditions, while pull factors attracting people include job opportunities, family ties, and more tolerant political environments.

1. Session 5: Migration
1) Migration (Chapter 5: 5.1): What is migration?
2) Migration (Chapter 5: 5.2): Why do people
migrate?
Fouberg, E. H., Murphy, A. B., De Blij, H. J. and C. J. Nash (2012). Human Geography: People,
Place, and Culture. John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd., Mississauga.
February 6, 2015

2. Section 5.1 - What is Migration?
Migration: A change in residence intended to be permanent.
International migration: Human movement involving movement
across international boundaries.
Migrants as a percent of total population

3. Nomadism: Movement among a definite set of place – often cyclic
movement
Nomadic shelters (yurts) - Mongolia

4. Nomadic people can pose problems in terms of governments
because they are not easily classified, controlled, and accounted
for as easily.
Example mentioned in text: Roma people
• Several European countries have policies relating to Roma
• Often critiqued for being highly discriminatory
• Roma settlements are often destroyed and Roma people
may be expelled
• Often do not have the same rights as citizens of nations

5. Emigration: The act of leaving one location or place for another,
from the perspective of the beginning location.
Immigration: Human movement involving movements across
international boundaries.
Example: Canada
Canada
Other
country

6. Internal migration: Human movement within a nation-state, such
as ongoing westward and southward movements in Canada.
In Canada, migration is characterized by rural to urban movement,
but is also heavily influenced by economic factors relating to
natural resources.
Example: major shift from the Maritimes following fisheries
collapses and declines to provinces that were developing oil and
gas (mostly Alberta).

7. Migrant labour: A common type of periodic movement involving
tens of millions of workers worldwide who cross international
borders in search of employment and become immigrants, in
many instances.
• Occurs globally
• In some cases is very profitable and highly benefits the worker
• In other cases can be highly exploitative, and in some instances
can result in forms of modern day slavery
• Example: Migrant workers in Dubai (many from Bangladesh,
India and elsewhere) start off in debt and have their
passports detained upon arrival

8. Guest worker: Legal immigrant who has a work visa, usually short
term.
Remittance: Money migrants send back to family and friends in
their home countries, often in cash, forming an important part of
the economy in many poorer countries.

9. Global remittance

10. Remittance corridors from the US

11. Refugees: People who have fled their country because of political
persecution and seek asylum in another country.
United Nations Definition
“The 1951 Refugee Convention spells out that a refugee is
someone who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted
for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a
particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of
his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling
to avail himself of the protection of that country”

12. Individual countries interpret “well founded fear”
Refugees make up some of the most vulnerable populations in the
world
UNHCR – United Nations Refugee Agency
Internally displaced persons (IDPs): People who have been displaced
within their own countries and do not cross international borders as
they flee.
Asylum: Shelter and protection in one state for refugees from
another state.
• States can offer asylum to people from other states

13. Repatriation: A refugee or group of refugees returning to their
home country, usually with the assistance of government or a non-
governmental organization.
Example from text: Rwandans returning home after the disputes
between Hutus and Tutsis that resulted in genocide

14. Genocide: The deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or
in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.
Examples:
• Holocaust
• Rwandan Genocide
• Darfur: ethnic cleansing of non-Arabs
• Tasmanian Genocide
• Point of debate in Canada: Genocide inflicted by the Canadian
government against First Nations
• others throughout history

15. Section 5.2 - Why do people migrate?
Voluntary migration: Movement in which people relocate in
response to perceived opportunity, not because they are forced to
move.
Forced migration: Human migration flows in which the movers
have no choice but to relocate.
TED Ed Video: The Atlantic slave trade: What too few textbooks
told you – Anthony Hazard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NXC4Q_4JVg

16. At least 60 of the ships used by the British to transport slaves were
made in Canada
From 1628 to 1834, slavery was an institution in Canada.
Birchwood Nova Scotia was home to the largest population of free
Blacks outside of Africa in the late 1700s.

17. Diaspora: From the Greek “to disperse”, a term describing forceful
or voluntary dispersal of a people from their homeland to a new
place. Originally denoting the dispersal of Jews, it is increasingly
applied to other population dispersals, such as the involuntary
relocation of Black peoples during the slave trade or Chinese
peoples outside of Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

18. 2.8 million Canadian diaspora worldwide
Top 8 places for Canadian diaspora
1. United States = 1,062,640 Canadian citizens
2. Hong Kong = 300,000
3. United Kingdom = 73,000
4. Lebanon = 45,000
5. Australia = 27, 289
6. Mainland China = 19,990
7. South Korea = 14,210
8. Germany = 13, 290

19. Voluntary Migration
Laws of migration: Developed by British demographer Ernst
Ravenstein, five laws that predict the flow of migrants.
1. Every migration flow generates a return or counter-migration.
2. The majority of migrants move a short distance.
3. Migrants who move longer distances tend to choose big-city
destinations.
4. Urban residents are less migratory than inhabitants of rural areas.
5. Families are less likely to make international moves than young adults.

20. Voluntary Migration
Gravity model: A mathematical prediction of the interaction of
places, the interaction being a function of population size of the
respective places and the distance between them.
Essentially, is the inverse relationship between the volume of
migration and the distance between source and destination…
or put much more simply…
…the number of migrants to a destination declines as the distance
they must travel increases.

21. Push and Pull Factors Influencing Migration
Push factor: Negative conditions and perceptions that induce people
to leave their abode and migrate to a new locale.
Pull factor: Positive conditions and perceptions that effectively
attract people to new locales from other area.
Question:
What are some of the push and pull factors for Winnipeg,
Manitoba, Canada?

22. Push and Pull Factors Influencing Migration
Step migration: Migration to a distant destination that occurs in
stages; for example, from farm to nearby village, and later to town
and city.
Intervening opportunity: The presence of a nearer opportunity that
greatly diminishes the attractiveness of sites farther away.

23. Legal Status
Deportation: The act of a government sending a migrant out of its
country and back to the migrant’s home country.
• usually because the migrant is “illegal” or “undocumented”
• may also occur if the migrant breaks the law of the nation in
which they have settled
Example:
Refugees that come over as youth (typically with their families) and
commit crimes (through gang involvement or otherwise) can be
deported to their home countries even after living in Canada for
years.

24. Economic Conditions
Poverty is a major factor in migration – as is the case with migrant
workers
United Nations Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All
Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families
Nations signed to the convention:
https://treaties.un.org/pages/viewdetails.aspx?src=treaty&mtdsg_n
o=iv-13&chapter=4&lang=en
Power Relationships

25. Power Relationships
Factors: gender, ethnicity, race, money, class…
Example in text:
Middle Eastern women hiring Southeast Asian women as
housekeepers and nannies
The cultural difference is used to set them apart and establish
authority
Other examples of this:
Many nannies from Mexico in the USA; Many nannies in Canada
from the Philippines

26. Political Circumstances
Example: Homosexual couples moving to places that are more
tolerant and where same sex marriage is legal
Video – Al Jazeera news: Ugandan president signs anti-gay bill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcBhOJY1Cb8

27. Armed Conflict and Civil War
• Armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia drove 3 million
people from their homes
• 3 million refugees have fled to neighboring countries, and 6.3
million are internally displaced
Environmental Conditions
• can be environmental disasters or conditions resulting in lost
production of food crops
Culture and Traditions
• Populations will leave during transitions in they fear that their
traditions will not be maintained

28. Kinship Links: Types of push factors or pull factors that influence a
migrant’s decision to go where family or friends have already found
success.
Chain migration: Pattern of migration that develops when migrants
move along and through kinship links (i.e., one migrant settles in a
place and then writes, calls, or communicates through others to
describe this place to family and friends who in turn then migrate
there).
Immigration wave: Phenomenon whereby different patterns of
chain migration build upon one another to create a swell in
migration from one origin to the same destination.