Allan M. Williams - Migration, Risk and Uncertainty

First published 2015
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ISBN: 978-0-415-65952-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-06901-1 (ebk)

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4 Risk and Complexity: Decision Making Under Different
Information Conditions

Risk and uncertainty are integral to migrationwhether in terms of shaping, or being shaped by, migration. Leaving a familiar setting, supportive networks of friends and kin, and moving to a new country that you have less knowledge of, perhaps not knowing its language or culture, and having very few or no close friends there, necessarily involves risk and uncertainty. So too does non-migration: not only when faced with known severe economic or political challenges in your home area, but also the uncertainties of the future in any area, or the risk that you will have foregone a chance of greater economic success, higher welfare, or happiness if you had moved. In addition to these risks for the individuals, there are also the risks for their familieswho move with them or who are left behindand for the communities and countries of origin and destination. Even where researchers have addressed the issues of risk and uncertainty in migration, they have often done so from diverse theoretical perspectives that are not always made explicit, or understood in terms of their limitations as well as their contributions to unravelling this nexus of relationships.