Introducing the Anthropology of Migration. Crossing Borders investigates classical and contemporary debates around migration, flight, resettlement and ethnic community formation. Some of the key questions the course will pose include: What are the key dynamics driving migration in the era of globalisation? Which are the new migrant sending and receiving countries and why? Why do people migrate and how have their migrations produced racially plural and culturally diverse societies virtually throughout the developed world? In a context of cheap and fast global transport and communications, are migrants developing new ways of "being at home" in their adopted lands? Is migration any longer a final move, or is it part of an ongoing process? How do host nation populations react to the presence of refugees, labour migrants and transnational citizens in their midst? How are recent demographic trends and the spectre of global climate change already affecting migration flows and regulatory regimes? We will explore these issues and others using detailed case studies from Australia, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

By the end of the course you should be able to:

1. Identify and distinguish between different kinds of migration and migrant identity.
2. Apply concepts learnt in the course to actual case studies of migration.
3. Formulate arguments about specific instances of migration in a way that engages with contemporary debates among migration theorists.
4. Recognise and critique stereotypes and myths about migrants.
5. Conceptualise migration as a complex process involving individual and family decisions made in a broader social, cultural, political and economic context.
6. Place migration in the broader context of contemporary globalisation.

By negotiation: 6,000 words

Two hours of lectures and one hour of tutorial per week