Introduction

Various traditional conceptions within different disciplines have presented a certain image of population movements generally and of the labour migration of specific groups in particular. Geographers generally describe the movement of groups of people as a geographic or spatial phenomenon, and also describe its potential consequences for changing urbanization rates and levels, the growth of cities in a spatial sense, demographic characteristics of migrants, etc. Meanwhile, economists dwell on the advantages and disadvantages (or costs and benefits) of population movements for the individuals concerned, concentrating in particular on the economic ‘rationality’ of such movements for individual migrants. Arrighi and Saul (1973: 183) have been especially critical of the latter types of analyses, particularly pointing out their unfounded concentration on the ‘spontaneity’ of the market forces (i.e. the free and ‘rational’ choice of individuals in the market place) with little or no role given to open or concealed forms of compulsion.

The point remains that both these traditional conceptions tend to neglect crucial aspects of the reality of population movements, notably:

1. That population movements are much more than simple spatial or economic phenomena ultimately produced and shaped by the specific historical developments and changes in the systems of economic production in the areas where they occur.

2. Population movements relate to the differential position of groups within the entire social formation, and are, consequently, a factor of these differential placings rather than being subject to the prerogatives of individual choice or principles of economically rational behaviour, as the latter is defined within the capitalist system. […]