Migration in the Digital Age audio

Immigration used to involve packing an entire life into a suitcase and moving to a new country for good. Now, with modern communications and transport, it is far more fluid and dynamic. Modern migrants need not lose contact with their old homes; they can keep old ties refreshed; and families can span the globe. Children are schooled for periods abroad and migrants live across multiple worlds.

The old assumptions about immigration – the so-called Ellis Island model of arrival, settlement and assimilation – are dissolving fast. What does this mean for politics and policy? How is such mobility changing our attitudes to integration, identity and belonging? What does it mean for the economy, here and abroad? How can we tell this new story?

See an edited video of this event at the RSA here