Knowledge, human interests and migration studies
pp. 265-270
in: Rein Vihalemm (ed), Estonian studies in the history and philosophy of science, Berlin, Springer, 2001Abstract
The birth of modern migration studies could be associated with the German British scholar Earnst Georg Ravenstein (Lee, 1966: 47; Grigg, 1977: 41). His studies, (Ravenstein, 1885; 1889) published at the end of the 19th century, were the first where migration processes in Europe and North America were thoroughly analysed and the importance of discovering the laws governing human migration was emphasised. The role of Ravenstein in the history of migration studies is impossible to underestimate. His desire to discover "the laws of migration" which would enable us to predict migration, not just describe and explain it, has been the central methodological imperative in the history of migration studies, inducing many studies. Thus, each new generation of migration researchers has aspired towards a comprehensive migration theory, which could be used to restore the migration history of humanity and to look into the future. The search for the "laws of migration" and, what is more important, the search for the knowledge necessary for controlling and predicting the phenomenon, justify referring to the natural scientific approach, naturalism, as the governing force in the short history of migration studies.