International Migration and Rural Areas

While immigrants are still predominantly choosing urban areas to locate to, there is now increasing evidence of immigration to rural areas; a development which can benefit rural areas in many ways, not least by contributing to the survival of communities afflicted by depopulation trends. At the same time, rural immigration poses challenges, for example, relating to the scarcity of high quality jobs in rural areas and to the provision of public and private services. Addressing the shortcomings in current research on the relationship between immigrants and rural areas, this book employs an innovative approach by exploring this relationship from a cross-national comparative, global perspective, drawing lessons from case studies across a range of geographical and political contexts, including Canada, the USA, Ireland, Scotland, Greece and Russia. It is thus concerned with the experiences of both new and well-established countries of immigration. Through a thematic analysis of immigrants' engagement with social, economic, cultural and familial processes, and the consequences for immigrants and rural communities, this volume examines those factors in rural localities which attract international migrants and support them in integration processes, as well as those factors which affect the opposite. Bringing together migration experts from a range of academic disciplines, "International Migration and Rural Areas" contributes to conceptual developments, especially with regard to the concept of integration and its meaning in a rural context. It also identifies policy concerns which can be pursued at national, sub-national and supra-national levels. As such, it will appeal to policy makers, as well as scholars across of a range of disciplines, including geography, politics, demography, social policy, sociology and anthropology.