MultiData – Multiple migrations: Quantitative data approach

 

MultiData is a research project which will aim to provide a fine-tuned picture of international movements, focusing on multiple migrations. Not every migrant moves once and for good. Migrants often engage in international movement repeatedly, at various points of their life courses. They can move to one place, or various places. I term people who move more than once and to more than one destination, multiple migrants. Migration research so far has given little evidence of such multiple migrations, beyond documenting individual and family life histories. These life histories give in-depth information on particular people, but they fail to provide a more general picture. MultiData will provide evidence on multiple migrations using a quantitative approach. To do so, the project will utilise two kinds of quantitative datasets. First, the evidence from social surveys carried out by academics will be used to examine the volume of multiple migrations and their geographies. The social survey data will also allow studying to what extent multiple migrants differ from other migrants, that is, do multiple migrants possess more or fewer resources than other migrants? What is more, while traditional data sources, such as registers and surveys, shed light on some aspects of multiple migrations, there are new data, which hold a potential to tell us a more comprehensive story about how the multiple migrants move between various places across time. The project will use big data on academics and footballers, to map the trajectories of international movement, return and settlement among the two professional groups. However, use of various data sources does not remain without challenges, and this is also a task for the MultiData, to assess these different data sources and to what extent various data can help us to understand the multiple migrations.

The project will be implemented in cooperation with scientists from Austria and France. The results of the MultiData project will be described in five journal articles regarding multiple migrations and migration research using quantitative methods. The project team will also present the project results at international conferences. In addition to academic publications, MultiData will provide material for public debates on migration, leading to a more diverse and realistic understanding of migration.

Duration

2021 - 2023

Source of funding

National Science Centre Poland - Opus 19