When a Residence Is Not a House: Examining Residence-Based Migration Definitions

Traditional definitions of migration contain implicit assumptions: origin and destination places are fixed residences, households inhabit one residence at any given time, and dwelling units form the center of individual activity spaces. Though these assumptions hold for certain movers, they restrict migration studies to a narrow range of movement. It is argued here that such assumptions bias present notions of migrant behavior and selectivity. A more realistic appraisal might consider integration in sets of spatial networks rather than movement between two discrete points in space.