Are there new form of migrations (individual rationales)?
New forms of migration are emerging, straddling several countries. They are generating new economic, spatial and identity dynamics. As Catherine Wihtol de Wenden writes: "migrants’ living space and knowledge have expanded and diversified. As global and transnational players, they represent a source of enrichment for the societies where they settle". The expansion of migration spaces is also one of the effects of tourism-related "mobilities". Another form of mobility that could disrupt the old paradigms of international migrations, the emigrant also becomes a migrant, in other words a “player”, more interested in mobility than settling.
More expansive living spaces
So some types of migration are referred to as "pendular" or "circular", which assumes that the migrant benefits from certain conditions, notably of a legal nature: being a privileged resident, having a multiple-entry residence permit, having dual nationality… These types of status offer migrants the possibility of circulating between their homeland and the destination country, or between several countries. This is the case for the Poles, Romanians or Ukrainians who have settled in Germany, Belgium or Italy and who, between seasonal work, cross-border work or new life style, travel between two societies, looking less to settle than to ensure that their families back home enjoy the fruits of their work, which may include the creation of new businesses and other activities. As Mirjana Morokvasic writes: “initially, migration constitutes a strategy for staying home, so an alternative to emigration” (Migrations Société, 2015/2 (No. 158).
"Diasporas" are these communities of migrants, of the same national or ethnic origin, established in several countries. These residents, scattered across the same continent or several, weave bonds between each other through a myriad of family, non-profit, professional, economic or cultural networks. The long-established diasporas (Chinese or Indian) have been joined by new ones like the Turkish diaspora (5 million in Europe) – mostly settled in Germany but also present in France, Switzerland or Austria – or the Moroccan diaspora in France, Spain or the Netherlands.
Tourism-related mobilities
Tourist flows represent the biggest human displacements on the planet: the number of international tourists went from 25 million in 1950 to 457 million in 1990 to reach 980 million in 2011, 1.4 billion in 2019. In 2020, due to the health crisis, this number fell to 398 million. The 4% increase recorded in 2021 has not (yet) brought a return to the pre-pandemic levels.
The regions or countries that recorded the biggest growth in tourism were, in 2019: North Africa (+9% cf. 2018), the Middle East (+8%), Asia-Pacific (+5%). France, with 91 million tourists in 2019 (42 million in 2020) remains the world’s leading tourist destination, followed by Spain, the USA, China and Italy, then by Turkey, Mexico, Thailand, Germany and the United Kingdom. 50% of income from global tourism goes to these 10 destinations.
These tourism-related mobilities could constitute new migration flows, generate investments and job-creation locally, create spaces in which several forms of mobility converge, and where several migration rationales overlap: search for a better quality of life, putting skills to optimal use, financial advantages, more places of residence (retired people with dual residence), extending and repeating stays, or even proceeding with the partial or total transfer of your activity, return of emigrants... Not forgetting the ebb and flow of retired people: British citizens living in Normandy, Brittany or Aquitaine (known as “Britishland”), German or British pensioners in Spain, French or British in Portugal, French in Greece, Morocco, Tunisia or Senegal. The same applies to US and Canadian pensioners in the Caribbean. Countries like Bulgaria are placing themselves on this market in which the rationales behind migration and tourism converge.
Sources of new connections between regions or countries, the new mobilities emerging from tourism are also helping to alter social perception of our relationship with space (by multiplying our places of residence) and definitions of identities.
Mustapha Harzoune, 2022
