Migrations et migrants dans une prespective historique : permanences et innovations

Abstract

Migrations have recently returned as a major challenge to the developed nation-states of the West, particularly in Europe. The dramatic increase of migratory flows is caused by a complex conjunction of push and pull factors: the demise of the Soviet empire and of communist multinational states, and an escalation of third-world misery and tribal warfare, are among the major push factors; on the pull side, the world has become a smaller and traversable place, as electronic images and cultural icons of first-world riches reach far into the non-Western hinterlands, transnational corporations set up dependencies in Asia and Africa, and airline tickets are casier to get, thus lowering the barriers for trying one's luck in the headquarters of a globalized world. A characteristic of such push-pull migrations is the breakdown of neat categorization: economic migrations, which have become synonymous with "immigration", can no longer be easily distinguished from ethnic homeland migrations, in which whole categories of people are forced to move because of violent regime changes, war, or conquest.