Trend of Migration Studies in Sociocultural Anthropology: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

Migration studies have always found their unique place in anthropology since the birth of anthropology in India under colonial rule. From the formative phase, anthropology of migration has grown multifold. In the present time when the Indian diaspora is the largest in the whole world, the process of migration has affected the lives of all individuals and has become an important area of research. The present article examines the growth of this field in sociocultural anthropology in India and is based on secondary data. Work of renowned Indian anthropologists like M. N. Srinivas, Moni Nag, L. P. Vidyarthi, Amitav Ghosh and others like R. K. Jain, Ashish Bose, etc. on migration has been discussed in the present article. Migration studies in India have found and sustained a key place in the anthropology curriculum report since the first time of its release by the University Grants Commission, New Delhi. Migration studies have grown from studying mobility among the tribals to the movement of people from rural to urban areas and then to international migration. New areas like displacement and refugee movements, literature and art, diaspora studies, urbanism, labour migration and many more are emerging as important topics in the landscape of migration studies.