Marina Sharpe: Embracing the Complexity of Mixed Migration

What is “mixed migration,” and why does it matter in the international legal migration regime? Mixed migration can describe both the complex composition of migration flows – refugees and other migrants often travel together – as well as individuals’ mixed motivations for migration. In her article “Mixed Up: International Law and the Meaning(s) of ‘Mixed Migration’,” published in the Refugee Survey Quarterly on 29 January 2018, Marina Sharpe argues in favour of a complexity-based understanding of the concept of mixed migration that enhances the concept’s utility in international law. By contrast, understanding “mixed migration” solely as a description of migrants’ individual motivations would provide ground for populist, anti-immigration discourses to flourish.

Marina Sharpe is a 2011 Trudeau scholar and a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism of McGill University. Read her article here.