Homo Emigraturus: Exploring the Collective Yearning for Migration, The Case of Iran
Date
2024-03-12
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Abstract
This study addresses the implications of unrealized international migration aspirations for the lives of various groups in a population, including those who want to migrate, those who prefer to stay, emigrants, and return migrants. The central argument of the study is that the unique combination of a high desire for migration and a low chance of its realization of actual migration reshapes the social landscape in profound ways. This impact extends to the lifestyles, social engagements, political attitudes, and behaviours of individuals in any of the four above-mentioned groups. Some of the concepts that have emerged out of empirical data of this study include the Homo Emigraturus (those ‘about to leave’) who experience ‘imagined migration’; the Anti-Emigraturus (those decidedly avoiding migration) and their ‘anti-migration narrative’; a high-migration-desire society and its ‘culture of migration.’ In this multimethod study, I have utilized two sets of data: a) semi-structured in-depth interviews and b) an analysis of the contents of the online data from the social media debates among Iranians on the issue of migration on Twitter, as well as the Google Trends data. The former is based on 71 interviews with Iranian adults, and the latter is based on a thematic analysis of more than 200,000 tweets in Farsi utilizing recent developments in Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning techniques. The findings demonstrate how a culture of migration in a mobility-restricted population society can significantly reorientate its sociopolitical and cultural landscape, economic dynamics, and civic engagements. The study provides valuable insights into the changing landscape of international migration in a world where the longing to migrate is a prevailing force, even in the absence of substantial actual emigration.
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Involuntary Immobility, Culture of Migration, Homo Emigraturus, Imagined Migration, Deliberately Non-migrants, Middle East, Iran, Sending environment, Emigration, Migration Aspiration, Desire to Migrate, Global South, Social Movement, Return Migration, Anti Emigraturus
Citation
Asayesh, O. (2024). Homo Emigraturus: exploring the collective yearning for migration, the case of Iran (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.