Social Work & Society ▪▪▪ S.

Bonfanti: Towards a Migrant-Centred Perspective on International

Migration: The Contribution of Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach

Towards a Migrant-Centred Perspective on International Migration: The

Contribution of Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach
1

Sara Bonfanti, Marie-Curie Fellow ITN –“EDUWEL” at Umeå University/University of

Florence; Research Assistant at the Migration Policy Centre of the European University
Institute, Fiesole

1 Introduction
International migration, a phenomenon narrowly connected to the interrelated, more general
processes of capitalist accumulation, economic specialisation, urbanisation, post-colonial
expansion (Des Haas 2009), as well as demographic expansion, deep economic crises, climate
change, armed conflict and political repression (Campillo and Gasper 2010: 9; United Nations
Development Programme [UNDP] 2009), represents one of the most controversial aspects of
globalisation. This is due both to the stronger constraints human international mobility faces
compared to the circulation of goods and capitals (Stalker 2000; Bagchi 2008; Hanson 2010)
and to the variety of features that the relations between migrants and their home and host
society can assume (de Haas 2009).

The complex nature of such relations is partially explained by the need to take into account
that migrants, who differ from each other in a series of personal characteristics, decide to
move for a number of reasons and are backed by very diverse political, social and economic
conditions. As a result, migrants rely upon unequal emotional, financial, cultural and social
assets when they arrive in their receiving country. The latter, in turn, is characterized by
multiple combinations of economic conditions, welfare arrangements, prevailing ideologies
concerning migration and migrants and, therefore, by diverse policies regulating the entry and
the settlement of different kinds of people with a foreign background.

Several theories have been developed within different disciplines to explain and/or analyse
international migration. The literature on the economics of immigration has contributed to
such a scholarship by adopting both a macro and a micro perspective. The former sees
international migration as the consequence of geographic differences in the supply of and
demand for labour. The latter is characterized by a rational choice perspective which
identifies the individual as the unit of analysis and assumes that his/her decision to emigrate is
the outcome of a rational cost–benefit calculation, leading him/her to expect a positive net
return from movement (Borjas 1990).

Both micro and macro approaches have been criticized for their deterministic approach,
rationalism and ontological individualism (see, e.g., Massey et al. 1993; Samers 2010; Pessar
1999). Over the last decades, social scientists belonging to a range of different disciplines (for

1
Funding for this research and the here presented article has been provided the European Commission within the
framework of the FP7 Marie Curie ITN project “Education as Welfare—Enhancing Opportunities for Socially
Vulnerable Youth in Europe” (http://www.eduwel-eu.org).

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Social Work & Society ▪▪▪ S. Bonfanti: Towards a Migrant-Centred Perspective on International
Migration: The Contribution of Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach

a comprehensive and critical review of such a literature see Massey 1993; Boyle 1998,
Samers 2010) have developed a number of theories that deal with some of these problematic
issues. Some recent research - i.e. the 2009 Human Development Report (UNDP, 2009) and
the papers published by the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities in the 2010
Thematic Issue on Human Mobility – has shown that also the Human Development -
Capability Approach (HDCA) can contribute to meet the need for expanding the debate on
migration and development beyond a merely economic perspective by accounting for the
different characteristics of migrants, the multiple motives for which they decide to migrate, as
well as by overcoming the nation state approach.

This paper aims to contribute to the literature on international migration by proposing a

theoretical model which, taking advantage of the explanatory power provided by an integrated
reading of the main existing theories about international migration, is able to overcome some
of the pitfalls of the neo-classical economic approach to migration and to bring to the
forefront migration as a fundamental capability.

In the remainder of the paper, after presenting the main critical aspects of neo-classical
approaches to migration, I introduce my capability-based framework to migration. I conclude
with a brief discussion on the most suitable methods to operationalize such a model.
2
2 A critical overview of Neo-classical approaches to international migration
Originally developed to explain labor migration in the process of economic development,
macro-economic approaches (Lewis 1954; Ranis and Fei 1961; Harris and Todaro 1970;
Todaro 1976) identify geographic differences in the supply of and demand for labour as main
cause of international migration. Labour markets are the main drivers of international flows of
labour. Countries with a large labour supply relative to capital have a low equilibrium market
wage, while countries with a limited endowment of labour relative to capital are characterized
by a high market wage. The resulting differential in wages attracts workers from the low-
wage countries to high-wage ones. As a consequence of this movement, the supply of labour
decreases and wages rise in capital-poor countries, while the supply of labour increases and
wages fall in capital-rich countries, leading, at equilibrium, to an international wage
differential that reflects only the monetary and psychological costs of international movement.
Associated with the flow of workers from labour-abundant to labour-scarce countries is a
flow of investment capitals. The latter are attracted towards poor countries because they have
a higher rate of return in countries where they are relatively scarce. The movement of capital
also includes human capital, with highly skilled workers moving from capital-rich to capital-
poor countries in order to increase the returns on their skills in a human capital-scarce
environment. Due to the heterogeneity of immigrants in terms of skills, the international flow
of labour must be kept conceptually distinct from the associated international flow of human
capital.

Corresponding to the macroeconomic theories are microeconomic models (e.g. Sjaastad 1962;
Todaro 1969; 1976; 1989) which postulate that international movement stems from
international differentials in both earnings and employment rates. Migration occurs until
expected earnings have been equalized internationally. Individual rational actors decide to
migrate because a cost-benefit calculation leads them to expect a positive net return from
migration. Indeed potential migrants estimate the costs (e.g. the costs of travelling, the costs

2
This section is largely based on Massey (1993: 433-436).

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Social Work & Society ▪▪▪ S. Bonfanti: Towards a Migrant-Centred Perspective on International
Migration: The Contribution of Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach

of maintenance while moving and looking for work, the effort involved in learning a new
language and culture, the difficulty experienced in adapting to a new labour market, and the
psychological costs of cutting old ties and creating new ones) and benefits of moving to
alternative international locations and migrate where the expected discounted net returns are
greatest over some time horizon (Borjas 1990). Other things being equal, individual human
capital characteristics that increase the likely rate of remuneration or the probability of
employment in the destination relative to the sending country, as well as individual
characteristics, social conditions, or technologies that lower migration costs will increase the
likelihood of international movement.

Neo-classical theories have been object to a number of criticisms. Among others, Massey et
al. (1993), Pessar (1999), Samers (2010) have noticed how micro approaches representing
migrants as ahistorical rational economic actors who respond only to real or expected earning
differentials are not able to conceptualize migrants in an adequate way and to take into
account the actual mechanisms that explain migrants’ choices to leave. As far as the first
aspect is concerned, conceiving migrants as abstract subjects devoid of any personal attributes
prevents such theories to account for the impact that characteristics such as gender, age, class
and race have on migration. As for the latter aspect, neo-classical approaches fail to
acknowledge that the economic motive is only one of the possible reasons why migrants
decide to leave and that such a decision is rarely taken in isolation, away from the influence of
external forces and processes of transformation. As a matter of fact, migrants do not always
move to regions characterized by higher wages or more work opportunities (Massey et al.
1998). Certainly this is not the case for those migrants, such as asylum-seekers, who are
mostly hosted in the low/medium- income countries neighbouring those from which they
leave. On the other hand, neo-classical macro-approaches depict migrants as factors of
production and/or as puppets at the mercy of economic forces rather than as human beings
endowed with agency. In sum, both versions of the neo-classical theory suffer from three
main pitfalls, i.e. a deterministic approach, rationalism and ontological individualism.

Over time several other theories have been developed to explain international migration.
Samers (2010) groups these approaches into two big sets, i.e. a group of more determinist
theories (i.e. theories that on their own determine migration, behaviour and patterns), and a
group of more integrative approaches, i.e. theories that combine different theoretical and
conceptual propositions. The former set includes, in addition to neo-classical approaches,
behaviouralist theories (e.g. Clark 1986; Wolpert 1965), new economics approaches (see, for
instance, Stark and Bloom 1985; Taylor 1986) and structuralist approaches (e.g. dependency
theory, articulation of modes of production theory, world systems theory, globalization
arguments, global city arguments, neo-liberalism, the idea of migration-development nexus,
institutional theory - for a review of these approaches see Samers 2010: 67-85; Massey et al.
1993: 444-448). The group of integrative approaches encompasses the network theory (see,
among others, Massey 1990; Gurak and Caces 1992; Orrenius 1999; Orrenius and Zavodny
2005; Dolfin and Genicot 2010), transnational studies (see, e.g., Basch, Glick-Schiller and
Blanc (1994); Vertovec 1999; Portes, Guarnizo and Landolt, 1999; Faist, 2008); feminist and
gender-sensitive literature on international migration (for reviews of this scholarship see e.g.
Kelson and Da Laet, 1999; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1994; Pessar and Mahler, 2003; Silvey, 2004)
and structurationist theories (see e.g. Goss and Linquist, 1995; Halfacree, 1995). Thanks to
their abundance and multidisciplinary character, these theories are able to illuminate
international migration from very different angles. However, with the exception of some

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Social Work & Society ▪▪▪ S. Bonfanti: Towards a Migrant-Centred Perspective on International
Migration: The Contribution of Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach

structurationist and gender-sensitive studies, each approach overcomes only one or few of the
flaws that characterize neo-classical theories.

In the next paragraph I aim to contribute to the literature of integrative approaches by

proposing an analytical and normative framework which, resorting to the theoretical tools
provided by the CA, overcome these limits in a comprehensive way.

3 Cross-border migration: a Capability Approach perspective

Several intellectual traditions of classical philosophy have identified the ability to change
one’s place of residence as a fundamental component of human freedom (UNDP 2009:15). In
recent times Martha Nussbaum (2006: 76) has included mobility in her list of 10 fundamental
capabilities. Resting upon this choice, the 2009 Human Development Report has defined
human mobility as ‘the ability of individuals, families or groups of people to choose their
place of residence’, whereas human movement (i.e. its related functioning) is the act of
changing one’s place of residence. Figure 1 represents the capability framework as visualized
by Robeyns (2005a) and adapted in order to account for migrant’s peculiarities. It shows
that the ability to choose where to leave is conditioned, as any other capability, to both the
capacity of the individual to access a certain bundle of goods and services and to the existence
of enabling factors that allow him/her to convert such resources into the actual opportunity to
move or stay in one’s selected location. An act of choice is necessary in order to transform
the capability to move into migration. Such decision is exposed to a range of personal and
socio-cultural influences.

Migration can enhance migrants’ well-being both through its intrinsic and its instrumental
value. The former refers to the value of migration as a freedom experience per se; the latter
depends on the effect that movement produces on other relevant dimensions of migrants’
capability set. More specifically, the 2009 HDR contends that human mobility is likely to
affect four main dimensions of human development – that is, i) livelihoods, ii) health, iii)
education, iv) empowerment, civic rights and participation. As observed by de Haas and
Rodriguez (2010), a direct and positive impact of migration on the overall well-being of
individual migrants and their capabilities cannot be taken for granted. If migration results
from trafficking, slavery, insecurity or other kinds of coercions, it does not represent an
expansion of people’s well-being. On the contrary, by negatively affecting the process aspect
of freedom (2002: 585) i.e. “whether the person was free to choose herself, whether others
intruded or obstructed, and so on.” (Sen 2002:10), such constraints are likely to impact
negatively also on other dimensions of migrants’ capability set. Under certain circumstances,
enhanced mobility might therefore consist of the freedom to stay in one’s selected location
(de Haas 2009).

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Social Work & Society ▪▪▪ S. Bonfanti: Towards a Migrant-Centred Perspective on International
Migration: The Contribution of Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach

Figure 1: A Capability Approach to migration

Source: Adapted from Robeyns (2005a)

In what follows I unpack the set of resources and factors which, interacting with would-be
migrants agency, determine an expansion or a reduction of the capability to move and
influence their decision to move or to stay. The capability framework is particularly suitable
to carry out this task for two reasons. First, due to its nature of open paradigm (Robeyns
2005a), it is possible to explore such resources and factors taking advantage of the different
theories on international migration, thus rejecting any univocal and deterministic explanation
of migration. Second, as pointed out by Biggeri et al. (2010) the capability framework enables
one to articulate the analysis of such resources and factors distinguishing between three levels
of analysis - i.e. the micro, the meso and the macro one. The former corresponds to individual
migrants, the second to their households and networks, while the macro level consists of
national governments and political, economic, financial supra-national institutions.

Sets of Resources in Migratory Processes

The first issue to be examined concerns the resources that are instrumentally necessary to
migrants for getting the capability to move. Figure 1 shows that at the meso level they derive
from would-be migrant’s households and consists of its income, assets and debts. Indeed, as
pointed out by new economic approaches, migration decisions are usually taken by families or
households. As a consequence resources deriving from households are crucial endowments

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Social Work & Society ▪▪▪ S. Bonfanti: Towards a Migrant-Centred Perspective on International
Migration: The Contribution of Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach

for migrants. Another important kind of resource belonging to the meso level is represented
by the social capital made available by migration networks. The economic literature on the
role of migrants’ networks (e.g. Bertoli 2010) shows that this kind of capital can compensate
for the scarceness of educational and financial resources of future migrants. At the macro
level, resources available to would-be migrants are represented by the infrastructures, state-
provided services (notably the educational system), labour, insurance and credit markets
available in the country of origin.

The possibility to transform such goods and services into a valued capability depends on two
sets of factors: i) factors that affect a person’s ability to establish a command over such
resources; ii) enabling conversion factors. Although in some cases these two sets of factors
overlap, both from an analytical and policy perspective it is important to distinguish between
them. Indeed, only such a distinction allows understanding whether the principal source of
disparities in well-being freedom lies in a curtailment of the person’s agency (Iversen
2003:105) or in unequal abilities to convert goods into capabilities.

Set of factors affecting migrants’ access to resources

As discussed above, the new economics of migration and the network theory have identified
two crucial sources of endowments for migrants. However, none of them has considered how
some personal characteristics, most notably gender and age, affect the capacity of the different
members of households and networks to negotiate the access to the available resources. The
new economics school fails to consider how household’s cost-benefit calculations may also
be affected by what Pessar’s defines as the “household political economy”(1999: 57),
thus neglecting that households are places where pervasive cooperation often coexists with
extensive conflict (Sen 1990).

Likewise, except for few exceptions (e.g. Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994), network theorists have
treated migrants as genderless subjects (Taylor 1986). As a result, network scholars have
largely overlooked that women are often excluded by the social capital provided by
traditionally male networks. Conversely, such an obstacle might encourage them to use their
agency to establish alternative networks through which they might escape the patriarchal
vigilance and control that characterize traditional family networks (Pessar 1999: 61). Also
access to goods and services provided by national governments of origin countries, for
instance education, can be limited on the basis of a person’s gender or race either by the
state legislation or by other household’s members.

Although it would go beyond the scope of this paper to analyse how power relations based on
gender, race or class limit would-be migrants access to household, network and national
goods and services, it is important to point out that the open nature of the CA allows for
incorporating in its framework appropriate theories to examine power dynamics. For instance,
Iversen (2003) employs the new literature on household behaviour with a bargaining or game
theoretic foundation to examine economic and non-economic sources of power and their
impact on the opportunities for women and others to enhance their well-being within the
household. At a macro level, institutional racism (e.g. Dominelli 1988; 1991) might provide
the right tools to investigate how minorities are denied the possibility to access education or
other state-provided services which would provide them with the inputs necessary to get the
capability to move.

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Conversion Factors to realise the freedom of movement

Macro level

The various strands of structuralist approaches provide a comprehensive picture of the

processes and conversion factors that affect the capability to move at the macro level.
According to the dependency theory, the articulation of modes of production theory, and the
world systems theory, migration is a natural consequence of disruptions and dislocations
produced by the process of capitalist development. As land, raw materials, and labour within
peripheral regions come under the influence and control of markets, migration flows are
inevitably generated (Massey 1989). Although some of the people displaced by the process of
market penetration move to cities, thus leading to the urbanization of developing societies,
many are pushed abroad because of the material and ideological links created by the
globalization. Indeed, the globalization approach point to the role of transports and
communication, as well as of ideological and cultural links in facilitating and promoting
migration. Such links, which reflect a colonial past and/or a current neo-colonial domination,
reduce or give the impression to reduce the material, psychological, intellectual costs of
movement along certain international pathways, thus functioning as powerful enabling
conversion factors for would-be migrants. The global city argument connects migration flows
with the development of the world economy around a relatively small number of urban
centres in which banking, finance, administration, professional services, and high-tech
production tend to be concentrated (Castells 1989; Sassen 1991). The concentration of wealth
and highly educated workforce within these global cities generates a strong demand for
services from unskilled workers. The institutional theory (Massey 1993) point out how the
demand of workforce can favour the establishment of ad hoc recruitment programmes from
the side of governments, employers’ organizations and trade unions in rich or emerging
countries, thus fostering the continuation and intensification of migration flow along
determined routes. Finally, another strand of structuralist approaches see migrations from both
poorer and richer countries as one of the by-products of strategies and regulations imposed by
international organizations, e.g. the structural adjustment programmes implemented by the
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, or the rules governing international trade
established by the World Trade Organizations.

All these processes and factors certainly represent powerful conversion factors which enhance
or obstruct the development of the capability to move or stay in one desired location.
However, as observed by Samers (2010: 114), the role played by globalization and supra-
national economic processes of transformation risks to be overestimated. Indeed, ideological
and transportation links have decreased but not eliminate the costs of movement, which
remain unaffordable for vast segments of populations. Moreover, supra-national/national laws
regulating the right of settlement of different kinds of migrants in destination countries, as
well as physical barriers such as walls and fences, built by a number of states to secure their
borders, can make very difficult for low income individuals to migrate to the richer countries
without facing major obstacles.

Conversion factors operating at the meso level: households and migration networks

The material and emotional support provided to would-be migrants by family and network
ties represent not only a form of asset but also an important conversion of other kind of
resources. For instance, the absence of other family members who remain at home to take care
of children and elders, or of ongoing economic activities would reduce the capability to

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choose where to live also of a person endowed with financial resources and/or with a high
educational level. By decreasing the psychological costs of moving, facilitating access to the
job market at destination, and helping would be migrants to cover the monetary costs of
migration through the transfer of remittances (Bertoli 2010: 261), networks based on kinship
or friendship in the receiving community represent powerful conversion factors in so far as
they enable migrants to fully capitalize the education they have received, the monetary
resources accumulated within the household etc...

Conversion factors operating at the micro level

Conversion factors operating at the micro level consist of personal characteristics such as
physical condition, sex, literacy and numeracy skills, intelligence, etc...Taking into
consideration such factors restore migrants the humanity that neo-classical approaches had
neglected by depicting them as rational economic agents. For instance, if a person is in a bad
physical condition, the fact of living in a community where many people have already
experienced migration is of limited help to enable his/her act of movement. Sex represents a
crucial conversion factor in so far as it interacts with conversion factors belonging to the
macro-level. Indeed, as observed by Samers (2010), governments encourage differential types
of migration among men and women. Moreover, since the late XX century, being a woman
has represented a powerful enabling factor of the capability to move. This has been the
consequence of the increased demand for female workers in the caring, cleaning and catering
sectors which has been triggered by the development of the global cities described above and
the transformation occurred in the labour markets of industrialized countries.

Set of factors shaping would-be migrants’ choice to move

The third issue to be inquired concerns the factors influencing would-be migrants’ choice to
transform the capability to move into its related functioning, i.e. migration. As a liberal
philosophical framework, the capability approach respects people’s different ideas of the
good life while recognizing that such ideas are profoundly influenced by a number of factors.
As observed by Robeyns (2005a) little can be said about the constraints experienced by
would-be migrants in general terms as they are closely interwoven with people’s own
history and personality (micro level), as well as with the context in which they live (i.e. their
community and households) and with the reality they will face in their countries of destination
(macro level).

The notion of social remittances, introduced by Levitt (1998) to describe local-level,

migration-driven forms of cultural diffusion, is useful in conceptualizing the factors that
impact on migrants’ preferences at the meso level. Social remittances are the ideas,
behaviours and identities that flow from receiving countries to sending communities. They
contribute to explain the higher propensity to emigrate characterising sending communities,
not only among the people who have already migrated once, but also among the other
members. Indeed migration and the values associated with it become part of the repertoire of
people’s behaviours and of the community’s shared values, creating what Massey (1993:
452) defines ‘cultures of migration’ At the macro level, such preferences might be
influenced by the rhetoric and stereotypes that prevail around migrants and/or some specific
groups of migrants in destination countries (Pessar 1999: 60). For instance Chan (1991)
shows how the sexist precepts of the 1875 Page Law of the Chinese Exclusion Act
represented a strong deterrent for would-be Chinese immigrant women to transform their

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capability to move into migration as these propositions depicted them as potential prostitutes,
vehicles of venereal diseases and drug addiction in the USA.

Gender, age, class and age represent key drivers of would-be migrants’ choice to move.
Their role can be analysed from two perspectives. On one side, ideas about gender, age, class
and race hierarchies existing in destination countries are constitutive elements of social
remittances, thus shaping and influencing the unconscious of would-be migrants (Pessar
1999). On the other, as pointed out by some gender-sensitive migration literature (e.g.
Grasmuck and Pessar 1991; Hondagneu-Sotetlo 1994), they are at the basis of power relations
within families, networks and states which mould would be migrants’ preferences.

4 Operationalizing the capability-based model to international migration: some

preliminary reflections
The capability approach has been mainly operationalized using quantitative methods (Verd
and Lopez 2011). However, the kind of intensive information that is necessary to perform a
thorough analysis of the factors that at the micro, meso and macro levels lead the actor to
make a particular choice - e.g. the decision to leave- can hardly be captured using solely a
quantitative operationalization (Farvaque 2008:70;Verd and Lopez 2011). Indeed, Robeyns
(2005b:194) has highlighted how a qualitative approach is useful for dealing with "behaviour
that might appear irrational according to traditional economic analysis, or revealing layers of
complexities that a quantitative analysis can rarely capture." As a result, I deem that, in order
to operationalize the theoretical model I have proposed in this article, it would be necessary to
adopt a mixed method approach. Qualitative methods that use life stories as the main
empirical material place the individuals and their practices and experiences (along with all
relevant contexts) at the centre of the analysis (Verd and Lopez 2011). Such technique can
therefore be used to investigate the decision-making process and, in particular, to collect in-
depth information regarding the factors operating at the micro and meso levels. Though, the
use of life stories seems less appropriate to grasp information about processes and
circumstances that are beyond the knowledge or subjectivity of persons, such as the factors
belonging to the macro level. The latter can be better explored using secondary data which
might consist of both quantitative and qualitative data, such as large scale statistical data,
historical and geographic data.

5 Conclusions
In this paper I have proposed a capability-based framework to international migration. It
conceptualises human mobility as a fundamental capability and migration as its related
functioning, whose impact on migrants’ well-being depends on the interaction between
migrants’ agency and a range of multi-layered structural factors.

This model seems to be able to overcome the main limits of neo-classical economic theories,
i.e. a deterministic approach, rationalism and ontological individualism.

It is an integrative approach which refuses any univocal and deterministic explanation of

human movement in so far as it integrates the variety of perspectives, levels, and assumptions
provided by the host of theories dealing with international migration into a comprehensive
model.

By identifying individual migrants as the units of moral concern, while at the same time
acknowledging their social embeddedness, it overcomes ontological individualism and
rationalism. Although individual migrants as a subject endowed with agency represent the

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unit of analysis and the normative reference of this framework, the latter is able to encompass
the different sets of factors that influence would-be migrants’ agency (which is understood
both as ability to establish command over resources and has capacity to take the decision to
move) and ability to convert a certain bundle of goods and services into the capability to
move. Such factors have been conceptualized as belonging to different levels of analysis
which include structural-macro forces, mediating units such as families and networks,
individual influences, and transversal factors, the latter consisting of power relations based
on gender, race, class and age.

A mixed method approach and, in particular, an approach which combines life stories
techniques with the analysis of secondary data seems the most adequate to operationalize this
theoretical model. Indeed a mixed approach would allow integrating the intensive information
collected through life stories techniques about the micro and meso factors that intervene on
would-be migrants’ decision making process with geographical, historical and political data
providing information on the national and supra-national processes that influence human
mobility.

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Postcolonial Predicaments, and Deterritorialized Nation-States. New York: Gordon and Breach.

Bertoli, S. (2010). Networks, Sorting and Self-Selection of Ecuadorian Migrants. Annals of Economics and
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Author´s Address:
Sara Bonfanti
Research Assistant at Migration Policy Center
[email protected]
Tel: +39 055 4685 537
[email protected]

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