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Overview
The EUMAGINE project studied how Europe is perceived from outside the EU, and how these perceptions affect migration aspirations and decisions. The project, which brought together researchers from a consortium of eight institutions, including COMPAS, focused on how people’s perceptions of democracy and human rights – in relation to their regions and countries of origin as well as places abroad – affect their perceptions of and attitudes to migration.
It also investigated how perceptions of human rights and democracy interact with other determinants of migration aspirations, to what extent migration is perceived as a valuable life project, and how potential migrants compare Europe to other migration destinations such as the US, Russia, Canada and Australia. EUMAGINE studied migration-related perceptions among people aged 18-39 in four countries of origin and transit: Morocco, Senegal, Turkey and Ukraine. COMPAS researchers were responsible for developing the conceptual and theoretical framework of the EUMAGINE project, and for compiling within country analysis and project reports for Ukraine.
The project systematically analysed migration aspirations and decisions, following a case-study approach: it compared and contrasted a diversity of important international emigration countries; various types of regions within these countries; several modes of migration; various types of influential discourses; and different profiles of potential migrants. This allowed for analytical generalizations to be made about how migration-related perceptions, aspirations and decisions are formed. The project used a multidisciplinary approach and combined the varied disciplinary background of its researchers: sociology, law, anthropology, economics, human geography and political science.
The field research followed a mixed-method approach with three main methodological components: 1) ethnographic fieldwork in the community, 2) a large-scale quantitative survey, and 3) semi-structured qualitative interviews with selected survey respondents, directed by an interview guide. The research used between- as well as within-method triangulation. Between-method triangulation was achieved by combining qualitative as well as quantitative research methodologies. For within-method triangulation, two types of qualitative research, namely in-depth interviews and observation in communities, were used.
In each country, fieldwork was undertaken in four diverse regions, selected on the basis of the following model: 1) An area characterized by high emigration rates; 2) A second, comparable socio-economic area with low emigration; 3) A comparable area with a strong immigration history; and 4) A location with a specific human rights situation.
Centre of Sociological Research (CSR) Ternopil, Ukraine
International Migration Institute (IMI) Oxford, United Kingdom
Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) Oslo, Norway
Koç University Istanbul, Turkey
Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar (UCAD) Dakar, Senegal
Université Mohammed V-Agdal Rabat, Morocco
Centre for Migration and Intercultural Studies (CeMIS) Antwerp, Belgium
PB-2013-OS-EUMAGINE_Ukraine_Policy
Project briefing
A full list of papers compiled by the project is available on the EUMAGINE website.
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