Scales of Analyzing Migration in the Work of Marlou Schrover and Leo Lucassen

Abstract

Studies of migration have expanded in recent decades, deepening the inevitable interaction of their analysis. This essay focuses on the issue of scale in the interpretation of migration history, where scale is geographic, temporal, and topical. The analysis compares the work of two outstanding migration historians with each other and with a wider field of migration scholars, asking: How does the interpretation and validity of an analysis in migration vary with the scale of its structure? What are the conclusions on patterns of migrant behavior and migrant reception at each scale? Marlou Schrover and Leo Lucassen have each published at multiple scales, especially on migration within the Netherlands and Europe, but have also published at community, national, continental, and global scopes. In community and national studies, they are able to rely on well-organized empirical data. Is their global analysis carried out as an extension of national analysis, or are there distinctive data, hypotheses, or conclusions at global or extra-European levels? This review suggests that, for these scholars, studies at extra-European and global scales combine national-level approaches with global-level innovations, so that the full array of migration studies shows changing patterns of migration at varying scales of aggregation. Thus, the overall discipline of migration studies may be evolving toward developing interpretations that vary at different scales.