A utopian imagination in migration's terra incognita? acknowledging the non‐economic worlds of migration decision‐making

Abstract This paper calls for us to show greater appreciation of the ‘non‐economic’ issues that inform much migration behaviour, balancing rather than replacing work done within the economic tradition. Drawing primarily on material concerned with internal migration within the so‐called developed world, attention is given to the enculturation of both migration theory and research as an entry point to work on this non‐economic dimension. From this springboard, the paper focuses on three lessons that can be learnt from ongoing research into migration ‘beyond’ the economic. Firstly, it notes a danger that this work assumes something of a separate and, arguably, subordinate status to that still being done on the crucial economic dimensions of migration. Secondly, and this time more positively, this non‐economic work challenges the existence of any economic reductionism within our understanding of migration. Thirdly, and most controversially, it is suggested that the non‐economic worlds of migration revealed through a culturally‐aware lens can facilitate the glimpsing of a more utopic imagination, critiquing key elements of our dominant socio‐economic and cultural institutionalised practices. Work on counterurbanisation and gendered tied migration is used to illustrate these three lessons. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.