GLOBALMIGRANTS · Globalisation, Trans-national Migrants and Cultural Reconstructions

Since the 1990s, there has been a massive development of new forms of migration. The spaces constituted on one hand by Europe and the areas to its south, and on the other by the United States and its Latin American and Caribbean neighbours, are major scenes of this dimension of globalisation. It is not only of interest but indeed urgent to compare these new forms of migration, as has been pointed out by many specialists and decision-makers. However to date no systematic study of this type has been undertaken. Our objective is to begin to meet this need and to bring a documented contribution to the debate about migration policy in Europe and the US GLOBALMIGRANTS aims to study the experience of the migrants themselves, the changes they contribute to forms of collective action, gender relations, intercultural relations as well as their expectations as regards the political sphere. The increasingly feminine character of migration necessitates a concentration on the question of gender. GLOBALMIGRANTS comes within the continuity of a comparative study about migrants in the US and in France that the applicant is coordinating and that was selected in 2006 by the France-Berkeley Fund (FFB) GLOBALMIGRANTS pursues a) a concrete objective: to add inquiries on trans-national migrants in the UK to those already made in the US as well as in Spain and France within the FFB programme; b) a comparative and theoretical objective: to point out the common traits and differences between migrations in those different areas, but also to put categories of analysis and theoretical approaches to the test in this comparison (a synthetic and collective book about new forms of trans-national migrations will be produced).