ABSTRACT
The migration of people is an age-old phenomenon. Few countries would have reached their current state of social and economic advancement without having acted as host to individuals seeking to escape poverty or violence or seeking merely to expand their knowledge of the world. Indeed, one can hardly conceive of constructs such as country, state or border absent the activity of migration, nor can one speak meaningfully of any distinction between nation and the international sphere. Such constructs flow from the many so-called voyages or journeys of discovery that shaped the modern world. Not surprisingly, the phenomenon of migration has been accompanied by an extensive literature, spanning a host of disciplines but particularly marked within the various sub-disciplines of the social sciences: sociology, economics, anthropology and law. This literature has produced statistics on migration flows, accounts of the experience of migration, and theories concerning the factors that encourage or compel individuals to migrate (see, for example, Bhabba and Shutter 1994, Indra 1999, Kofman 2000).
