“We asked for workers. We got people instead.” Max Frisch
Currently, migration is often taken as a politically divisive issue. Unlike travel, it doesn’t seem to have any positive connotations. And although academic migration is more or less part of the business, even this kind of migration has come under pressure. So I surprised even myself a bit when, in a heated conversation, I found myself saying that migration is a form of freedom. The sentence tumbled out before I could make clear sense of it. For better or worse, my interlocutor left it at that, indicating without scrutiny that something worth pondering on further had been uttered. What on earth did I mean?
As I write this, I have just returned to Germany after working and living for twelve years in the Netherlands.* I didn’t plan to return when I moved abroad initially, and I currently wonder what returning will turn out to be like. Of course, there were and are moments of recognition and alienation on either side of the border. But I don’t yet understand my experience very well. Thinking about my own life in terms of moving around, nothing has been as transformative as my first move to Budapest in 1994, where I stayed for just over one and a half years. Why “transformative”? Because I think it turned me into a different kind of person and it changed my view on my country of origin. It’s this change I think of as freedom. It seems to have provided a (mental) space I couldn’t otherwise inhabit.
Admittedly, given that the reasons for migration are often political persecution, poverty or other more or less forced forms of mobility, it might sound cynical to speak of migration as freedom. Moreover, taking my own case of chosen migration, the position of privilege from which I reason might flatten my voice from the outset. Nevertheless, my assumption is that at least certain aspects of migration cut across very different motivations and experiences.
Do you know this sense of half-conscious recognition when meeting a stranger abroad who happens to originate from your home region or close by? It might just be some give-away accent or funny turn of phrase that you instantly recognise. There seems to be a similar sense of recognition pertaining to those who have lived abroad or migrated. While it’s a common thing in academia, then, it still seems possible to recognise people who share this kind of experience.
What is it that is being shared? The conceptions we have of ourselves and of our countries of origin as well as of our linguistic and social certainties are seriously challenged when we have to orient ourselves in a new environment. In this sense, I like to think of migration as what philosophers call transformative experiences, i.e. “experiences that radically change the experiencer in both an epistemic and personal way”. I guess it’s a common experience that learning a second language deepens your understanding of your first language. Likewise, moving to a different country will change your outlook on your country of origin. Among other things, it’s for this reason that coming of age, apprenticeship and higher education are often related to times of itinerancy and migration. The Erasmus programme of the European Union bears testimony to this.
Now if this is correct, then it’s close to an aberration that political communities focus so much, if not only, on the negative aspects of migration. Shouldn’t we think that we have quite a lot to learn from people who share this kind of experience? Seeing how governments and even institutions of higher learning capitalise on both migration as well as xenophobia, this question sounds hopelessly naïve to my ears. But the point remains, migration is a good thing. In some of the following posts, I hope to spell out why that is the case.
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* By the way, as I write this, I also realise that this blog has now been up and running for six years. A huge thank you to all of you for reading and thinking along!
Handling Ideas 
Hi Martin,
Thank you for this thought-provoking and insightful post.
I don’t believe the popular knee-jerk reaction to migration necessarily originates in that people believe humanity, as a whole, is not entitled to freedom of mobility.
I believe its the sheer, unregulated and legally-questionable volume and intensity of migration that most “natives” find alarming.
As a multi-national migrant myself, a native of Costa Rica, US citizen and back in Costa Rica, I can relate to your experience of discovering yourself, your language and culture better by the advantage of contrast.
Also, to your point, it’s important to be empathetic with the fact that most migration, in modern times, is people fleeing truly catastrophic conditions in search of greener pastures for themselves and their progeny.
All this said, there’s a time, a place, and an established order to migrating lawfully. And when these norms are scuttled, that’s when the opportunistic, populist movements of the world successfully turn migrants into the Boogey Man.
Humbly yours,
Luis Herrera
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Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Luis. I have to agree, also with your last point. I don’t think there aren’t vital issues that require appropriate responses from governments. It’s just that I’d like to shift priorities and would like to *start* from the idea that migration is, by and large, a good and in many ways a natural thing, before zooming in on problems. This strange focus on the negative side becomes perhaps more apparent when we look at other phenomena like, say, communication. It’s almost as if everyone were to say human communication is a bad thing because it often involves lying and other vices.
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Hi Martin, great points and agree. Once again, thanks for this interesting and enlightened post.
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