ABSTRACT:
Coping with immigration in a rapidly globalising environment is one of the policy issues facing many governments. This general issue has recently been described as “one of the last bastions of sovereign state power in an increasingly globalised world. Capital and information flow more or less freely across state borders. It is only when actual human bodies become involved that national drawbridges are raised”. South Africa is no exception, as will be clear from this book, in which it is attempted to place patterns, causes and policies regarding international migration, and specifically also regional and cross-border mobility, in their proper perspective.
Internal migration into metropolitan areas has also been a bone of contention for many decades. In a recent study on countries’ population policies by the United Nations it is reported that while many of the more developed countries have recently discarded their earlier policies to modify this flow, the governments of less developing countries are now more likely to intervene than in the past. The greater propensity among developing countries to intervene can probably be ascribed to the perceived detrimental consequences of the rapid urban population growth that is taking place. The patterns and causes of these trends are also discussed in this book.
Migration is a complex phenomenon that is difficult to unravel in terms of causes, processes and consequences. However, this book provides scholarly insights into the dynamics and determinants of migration in South and southern Africa, bringing together contributions by some prominent international migration scholars and a number of South African researchers. It is intended as a resource for those having to deal with migration-related policy and development planning issues, especially, but not exclusively, in South and southern Africa. It also serves as important reading for academics, researchers and students in migration and development-related fields of study such as planning, economics, demography, sociology, and development studies.
