I happily accepted the invitation to write this preface in my capacity as a migration studies specialist focusing on Franco-British and wider European comparisons, with particular emphasis on integration, immigration, minority communities, and on the various modes of migrant inclusion, ranging from French Republican integration to multiculturalism. Migration studies constitute an interdisciplinary field par excellence, drawing on a wide range of disciplines, such as history, geography, politics, economics, law, sociology, anthropology or more recently postcolonial studies.
Migration studies took shape in the early 20th century, most notably with the publication of the five volumes of The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (1918–1920) by W. I. Thomas and F. Znaniecki, a study of a human group in transition (Polish immigrants and their families in this particular case) for the purpose of which the authors devised specific fieldwork methods, and made an extensive use of personal documents.
In the second half of the 20th century, immigrants were mostly studied through two perspectives. First, they were considered as workers. This approach obviously lent itself to Marxist analytical grids but also reflected a long-lasting trend in certain countries, notably in Germany and France, where post-war governments considered immigrants exclusively in relation to their contribution to the economy, hence the durable use of the expressions Gastarbeiter and travailleurs immigrés as a way to label immigrants, which had the effect of emphasising their being kept at a distance from German and French societies during the thirty years of sustained growth that followed the end of WW2.
Immigrants were also seen and studied through the prism of their assimilation (whether absolute or comparative) into the host society. In English-speaking countries, the interest in assimilation was gradually supplanted by a new interest in ethnicity, a trend that came later in France, given the peculiar place occupied by immigrants between the end of the war and the first oil shock.
The religious dimension to migration studies was added more recently, over the past three decades, when for the first time, certain migrants in the west started positioning themselves as religious groups and being recognised as such, notably by governments. This was notably the case in Britain, where the Rushdie Affair (1989) led certain groups from the Indian subcontinent to present themselves as “Muslims” or indeed as “the Muslim community,” thus supplanting previous distinctions based on national or ethnic origin.
Since 9/11, all major immigration nations have devised stricter immigration and integration rules, leading certain analysts to talk about “neo-assimilationism,” even when the actual framework for integrating migrants remained, as in the UK, by and large influenced by multiculturalism. In the UK, this has led to ever tougher rules for overseas students from developing countries, often suspected of trying to enter the country for economic rather than for academic reasons. It has also engendered a new emphasis on the mastery of English, now clearly seen as a prerequisite for integration and naturalisation.
Immigration, higher education and language are therefore intertwined and central to contemporary debates, notably in Britain. Marie-Agnès Détourbe’s enlightening volume and careful editing shows how consistent the whole picture is and gives substance to a fascinating survey, where the question of migration intersects with access to higher education, while the crucial role played by language is duly considered and investigated.
This book’s eight chapters tackle a wide array of migration situations (e.g., student and teaching staff mobility; the impact of tightened immigration controls on the recruitment of international students; language-related challenges for qualified workers born and trained overseas; the burning and contentious issue of refugees’ access to universities, to name a few), cover a variety of geographic areas (e.g., France, England, Canada, US, Germany, Switzerland, and Japan) and rely on diverse research methods (e.g., international comparisons, qualitative methods, social network analysis, autobiographical narratives).
There lies the originality of this truly interdisciplinary volume, whose impressive scope will be of great interest to academics from a wide range of disciplines (e.g., migration and integration studies, area studies, pedagogy, contemporary history, sociology), advanced students and decision-makers.