Paradigms in migration research: exploring "moorings" as a schema

Area of Science:

• Social Psychology
• Migration Studies
• Cultural Anthropology

Background:

• Current migration research often focuses on behavioral and cognitive approaches.
• There is a need for theoretical frameworks that link individual migration decisions to broader societal structures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a new theoretical framework for migration research.
• To integrate theories of human motivation and cultural influences in migration studies.
• To examine migration within a consistent cultural context.

Main Methods:

• Theoretical analysis and synthesis of existing literature.
• Focus on intra-national or intra-ethnic migration.
• Exclusion of intra-urban relocation and international migration from the proposed schema.

Main Results:

• Human motivation theories offer a progression beyond behavioral and cognitive models for migration research.
• Combining motivation theories with cultural influences can link personal migration drivers to institutional frameworks.
• The proposed framework is applicable to migrants within the same broad cultural context.

Conclusions:

• Human motivation theories, when combined with cultural influences, provide a robust framework for understanding migration.
• This integrated approach enhances the understanding of the interplay between individual agency and structural factors in migration.
• The framework offers new directions for migration research focusing on intra-cultural mobility.