Charlotta HEDBERG, Umeå University, Sweden
Linn AXELSSON, Uppsala University, Sweden
This paper engages with the spatial assumptions that migration studies are resting upon. By definition, human migration is producing relations that are intersecting and constructing space and place, and has in recent years often been conceptualized in transnational, and to some extent also translocal, terms. While these notions often are based on a relational view on space, we argue that it is central to further acknowledge and theorise how migratory relations are constructed, their spatial embeddedness in place and how they are producing places. We relate the analysis to the scholarly discussion within human geography, which is challenging the dominant view on a relational production of space. Instead, a ‘more than relational geography’ is being suggested, which considers the qualities of relations, and the contextual, temporal inertia of a place. As such, historical, economic and political practices occurring in a place over time are producing spaces of possibilities, which migration flows are intersecting with. This implies that migration processes, such as a transnational social field, are not only relations producing space, but they are meeting distinct contextual relations. By relating migration to spatial theory, we mean to bring forward a deeper understanding of place and contextual relations in migration studies, particularly but not exclusively in transnational/translocal approaches. As such, the discussion touches upon the request in migration studies to deconstruct the dichotomy of process and product, that is, to acknowledge and analyse how mobility flows are deeply intertwined with their consequences in places.
Mots clés : Spatial theory|translocal/transnational migration|contextual relations|historical inertia
A103003CH