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Today’s world sees masses on the move: across the globe, there are almost one billion international and internal migrants; in the EU alone, there are 57 million residents living outside their country of birth, amounting to over 11% of the EU28 population. This unprecedented global situation requires serious political action. Yet this action will only be effective once the historical, cultural and social roots of migration are properly understood. It is this understanding that the ITN MOVES will provide.
The project’s chief objective is to undertake a comparative study of the social and cultural roots of mass mobility, and provide the urgently needed historical analysis that can address the so-called migration crisis of the present through an understanding of the population movements of the past. The network has been set up as an interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers in the Humanities and the Social Sciences who will approach migration as both a condition of modernity and one of its greatest challenges, placing the systematic confrontation of past and present forms of migration at the centre of their activities.
Through its innovative training programme, carried out in conjunction with 18 non-academic partners (including NGOs, charities, and the cultural and creative industries), MOVES will enable a new generation of experts gain the historical knowledge required to respond to future migration crises with innovative solutions.
The project will generate new knowledge about the shaping of the modern world and provide conceptual tools to avoid short-termism in migration management through its emphasis on enduring cultural patterns, historical context, and migration flows over the long term. The links between contemporary and historical migration that MOVES research will uncover can be used to improve educational provision, inform future policy, and counter the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment across the EU.
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