Reflections on migration, community, and place

This paper explores different conceptualisations of migration, community, and place as an introduction to a themed issue of this journal concerned with the contextualisation of migrants’ experiences across a range of nested scales. The purpose of this collection of papers is to draw out the spatial variability, contradictions, and ambiguities in migrant experiences and to explore conceptual frameworks for understanding the connections between migration, community, and place. The papers focus on local places of social encounter, particularly at the neighbourhood and city scale, but they also draw attention to the value of comparative research to tease out structural differences in opportunities, social context, and policy that underpin commonalities and differences in experience between localities.