As a result of current capital globalization, migration has become an important social phenomenon around the world, affecting significant socio-cultural changes in both sending and receiving countries. Changes in the global labor market, the increasing number of migrant women, as well as hard conditions for adaptation in host societies are some of the structural factors that explain current migratory dynamics and their socio-cultural consequences. Based on ethnographic research, anthropologists are making significant contributions to studying migration by showing how migrants cross national borders and build transnational bridges connecting cultures and societies. Using anthropological theories and methods, they also apply knowledge and skills to try to solve social problems arising as a result of migration.

Taking into account these anthropology’s contributions to migration, this course will focus on theories, methods, and applications developed in social and cultural anthropology in migration fields. In doing so, the course offers students analytical frameworks for understanding contemporary migration in a globalized world, considering gender, generation, ethnicity, and transnationalism at different social levels (family, community, local, or national). Theoretical and practical implications will also be considered in areas such as public policy, health, community development, or social exclusion.

This course has been proposed in the Undergraduate Dregree in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the UNED within the field “Anthropological Training and Professional Practices” (Formación para la práctica profesional de la antropología) aiming to train students in cultural diversity in social migratory contexts focusing on theoretical and methodological frameworks as well as professional skills in migratory issues. Articulated with the other courses of this field, and especially with Migration (II), this course is a 5 ECT mandatory course in the First Semester of the Fourth Year.

Migration (I) assists students to achieve skills established in the Dregree of Social and Cultural Anthropology focusing on:

1. Theoretical frameworks in migration studies, allowing students to know and understand theoretical problems developed in social and cultural anthropology.
2. Ethnographical methodologies aiming to help students learn how they can produce, register, classified, and verified data drawn from ethnographic techniques.
3. Professional skills allowing students to learn how to apply theory and ethnographic techniques in order to define and solve social problems in the field of migration.

This course will also help students to achieve the general skills established in the Degree of Anthropology: Personal work, communication, information, scientific communication/ expression using correct technical language in academic fields, team work, and following ethical values established for professional practices in anthropology.