Migration definitions are political constructs, not objective facts

Evidence

Such variations highlight the fact that there is nothing objective about definitions of migration: they are the result of state policies, introduced in response to political and economic goals and public attitudes. International migration arises in a world divided up into nation-states, in which remaining in the country of birth is still seen as a norm and moving to another country as a deviation. That is why migration tends to be regarded as problematic: something to be controlled and even curbed, because it may impinge on state sovereignty. Problems of comparison arise not just because statistical categories differ, but because such differences reflect real variations in the social meaning of migration in differing contexts. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3810

Categorization

• DEFINE: Reframes ‘migration’ as a state-policy construct rather than a natural category, one where birth-residence is the assumed norm.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that sedentariness itself — staying in one’s country of birth — is constructed as the norm, making any mobility ‘deviation’ to be curbed, is a genuinely paradigm-shifting frame worth sitting with.
• XREF: connects to: Migration status only becomes a problem when others choose to treat it as one — Sivamohan Valluvan, Conviviality and Multiculture: A…, 32