The development of migration studies is also bound up with the growth in interdisciplinary pursuits which has resulted from the popularisation of postmodern thought in the past thirty years.
For example, in a 2017 paper Dr Michelle Keown discussed how US military imperialism and Marshallese migration affected the poetry of Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner.
[6] In 2020 article, Kasia Lech studied responses to Brexit by multilingual UK-based migrant theatre practitioners, Situating their work in "the paradox of simultaneous hyper- and in-visibility of immigrants in the UK" and argued that "the migrant perspective is crucial for the debate on Brexit as part of the broader European Union’s crisis of commonality and solidarity.".
[8] Some research has focused on novel topics including the internal economies of refugee camps,[9] the economics of human trafficking, and how employment law affects undocumented workers.
[10][11] Studies of migration demography take a statistical approach to the size, structure, and distribution of migrant populations.
Demographic studies of migration often consider issues such as migrant health, welfare, employment, and education in relation to the non-migrant population of a given society.
Migration scholars investigate migrant reception through surveying and studying how host populations understand and respond to immigration.
This might include feelings concerning refugee reception and support, considerations of multiculturalism and integration, and attitudes towards government policies.
In common with approaches found in critical border studies, many scholars consider how systems which govern migration construct illegality and thereby criminalize migrant populations.
Scholars focusing on refugee studies typically consider the experiences of people affected by transnational forced-migration processes.
A recent trend in migration studies scholarship has been to critically evaluate how humanitarian actors interact with immigrants, particularly in the context of conflict environments, disaster relief, and crises.
The refugee camp has become a significant point of interest for scholars working on the intersection of migration and humanitarianism, especially in relation to biopower.
In epidemiology, an "immigration study" is a method of understanding the relative importance of inherited genetics and environmental factor in medical conditions whose incidence varies around the world.
Migration studies is a relatively new specialism, consequently many universities and colleges have yet to develop degree programmes which formally address the topic.
[40][41] This represents teaching in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Latvia, and Spain.
Few African universities offer an explicit focus on migration studies, however programmes are available in South Africa, Egypt and Ghana.
[44] Universities and colleges in the United States have been slow to develop degree programmes which explicitly focus on migration studies and have lagged behind European institutions in this regard.
Migration studies are increasingly available as an undergraduate minor-subject, with the University of California San Diego among the first to offer such a minor.
[50][51] Similarly to the situation in the United States, Canadian universities frequently address the study of migration as a topic within other disciplines rather than as a field in its own right.
Thus, whilst there may be few programmes which explicitly address migration in their titles, there is still a broad range on research and teaching on the topic through other avenues.
In Mexico, Universidad Iberoamericana co-delivers a Master's programme with the University of San Francisco through an optional exchange semester.
Similarly, in Sri Lanka at the University of Colombo the graduate programs in demography give significant attention to the study of migration.
[56] National University of Singapore has a migration studies research cluster located in its Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, however, does not offer a degree programme on this topic.
[57] Similarly, the Chinese University of Hong Kong hosts a research centre on migration and mobility but does not operate a degree programme.