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Notes:


Where do you come from? - This question underlies much of the way that we interpret migration. Where you ‘come from’ may be prompt a spatial answer – a place, or may be interpreted in cultural terms. If seen as a spatial term, there are a range of responses that reflect the way in which migration data are collected. It may be a current residential address, or it may be answered from a birthplace perspective. The level of precision may also vary: asking someone in the same country will probably generate the name of a specific town or city, whereas asking someone from overseas will likely generate the name of a country, or a region of country. Specific locations may only be mentioned if they are major international cities.

This paper looks at questions of migration and mobility – i.e. other forms of movement. The split between these two should not be dichotomous: whilst migration may be interpreted as a specific event from data processing perspectives (i.e. you either are ‘a migrant’ or you are not), reality is more blurred. However, over-precision is in the nature of census of data – census forms by necessity tend to ask closed questions (‘tick one box only’) because they would be unworkable if every question was vague and asked for a written response.