Developing a new master’s program in International Migration Studies in New York City

Abstract

Global migration continues to define our times, with 258 million individuals living outside their country of birth in 2017, including nearly 44 million in the United States alone.2 These immigrants (and their children) are reshaping the economic, social, cultural, and political life of their host societies, as well as creating unprecedented levels of ethnic, racial, and religious diversity in the nations and communities where they live. Now more than before, with xenophobia and anti-immigrant and anti-refugee politicking on the rise in the United States and many European countries, there is a need and demand to better understand the causes and consequences of international migration. These demographic and political realities are helping to inspire new graduate programs focused on international migration, refugees and forced migration, and diasporic, ethnic, and multicultural relations. A quick online search turned up more than 40 master’s programs and a few doctoral programs in these areas, the majority at European and Canadian universities and many created in recent years. These programs are interdisciplinary in nature, drawing on theories, research methods, and empirical data from different academic disciplines.