Mobilities – migratory experiences ethnographically connected. An Introduction

Migration studies and mobility studies have long inhabited different academic fields, creating their own discussions and conventions. In recent years, however, the mutual enrichment of the two fields in theory and method has inspired scholars of both fields. Rather than opposing the two terms, thereby risking essentialising the differences among its proponents, we argue that in starting from ethnographic cases, cross-fertilisation between migration and mobility studies is particularly productive in several respects. It promotes overcoming artificial distinctions into forms of spatially bounded mobilities (local, regional, international migration) and provides informative, empirically rich and theoretically fresh analyses of complex migratory configurations and resulting diversifications. This introduction highlights how the papers speak to each other, foregrounding the spatial, temporal, and social interconnections that emerge from the analyses of migratory experiences, which broaden and deepen the study of diversities as heterogeneous forms of social difference.