Criss-Crossing Migration

The current perspective on the flow of people is almost exclusively focused on permanent migration from poorer to richer countries and on immigration policies in industrial countries. This perspective needs to cede to a broader one that challenges the basic conception of physical rootedness in industrial countries at every stage of the cradle-to-crematorium life-cycle—education, work, retirement, and perhaps even death. Accordingly, mobility should no longer be seen as a one-time event or one-way flow from South to North. We may need to address impediments to the movement of people at every stage in all countries.