INTELLECTUAL MIGRATION(S)

This chapter examines how the two disciplines of history and sociology have, respectively, defined and approached intellectual migration. On the historiographical side, it highlights the reductive nature of many intellectual migration histories, which have placed intellectuals within a traditionally Eurocentric migration history that foregrounds forced migration and political exile. The chapter juxtaposes histories of exile communities and émigré intellectual biographies with more recent approaches that conceptualize migration as an intellectual process and consider other, less irregular forms of mobility within and beyond Europe. On the sociological side, it focuses on biographical approaches to contemporary migration. Gauging the effect of migratory trajectories on intellectual activities through the lens of production, practices, and networks, the chapter discusses both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, including interviews, trajectory and life story analysis, and prosopography. Intellectual historians have largely reduced their field of inquiry in this realm to the dynamics of intellectual reception, assimilation, and confrontation in the cross-cultural encounter between intellectual guests and host society.