Editorial introduction: European migration: Flows, structures and regulation

It is now widely accepted, and commented on, that both within Europe and beyond, not only are millions on the move, but there have been fundamental changes in the very nature of migration and mobility. The large-scale uprooting of people leading to forced migration, the rapid increase of legal and illegal migration of skilled and unskilled people to the growth poles of the global economy, the rapid increase in temporary mobility of both manual labour and service providers, and the growing significance of consumption-led migration are all intimately linked to the processes of globalisation and restructuring in global and European political, economic, social and cultural relations since the late 1980s/early 1990s. It is not only the geography of flows which has been and is being transformed, but also the channels and structures - what Urry (2000) terms the 'scapes' - which mediate and are reshaped by these flows. The 'scapes' are being recast in part by technological changes in transport and communication, opening up new ways of travel and working, but they are also part of and subject to the systems which regulate migration and mobility. In part these are defined by national and supranational systems of regulation, including both the barriers to flows and the rights of permanent residence and citizenship. But they are also conditioned by the creation and renewal of informal migrant networks across space, and the 'grey' area of regulation constituted by the role of organised crime in the trafficking in people. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd