Migrations
I’ve been thinking about migrations. I’m away from home right now on a brief, annual migration of sorts, and it’s left me wondering how to reconcile the fact of animal migrations with the quest for place attachment. Time in place being the primary indicator of place attachment, it serves one, at least in this regard, not to leave. Do I have that right?
To foundation this line of inquiry I first went in search of a basic understanding of migration that repaid me in delight after delight. For instance, some migrating seabirds, turtles, and amphibians have magnetite (a magnetic, ferrous mineral) integrated in the sensory tissues of their heads which serves to literally pull them along their migratory pathways [note 1]. Also, arctic terns’ ceaseless pursuit of summer leaves them on the wing nearly constantly, covering somewhere in the mind bending range of 25,000-50,000 miles a year, the longest migratory pathway of any animal [note 2]. And perhaps the most illuminating—scientists have identified a gene variation, carried in about 20 percent of people, that seems to make its carriers more adventurous, restless, even, and willing to take risks. This gene might offer an explanation, or part of the explanation, for voluntary migration [note 3].
But one inconsistency stuck in my craw and I haven’t been able to work it out in any satisfactory way. It seems migration means two different things: one if you’re talking about the human animal, and another if you’re talking about any other kind of animal.
When I searched for a simple definition of migration, the first two pages of results were definitions of human migration. The minutiae of these definitions changed from one to the next but ultimately each definition communicated what this one, from the online educational resource Khan Academy, did: “Human migration is the movement of people from one place to another with the intention of settling in the new location” [note 4].
The last clause—with the intention of settling in the new location—contrasted sharply with the definition of animal migration, also pulled from an online teaching resource from National Geographic: “Migration is a pattern of behavior in which animals travel from one habitat to another in search of food, better conditions, or reproductive needs. There are two important factors that make migration different from other types of animal movement: first, migration happens seasonally, and second, migration involves a return journey” [note 2].
I went back to the Khan lesson defining human migrations. At the end of the lesson, a multiple choice question reinforced the definition of human migration a final time:
Stop and consider: What is human migration? Choose 1 answer:
(Choice A) Temporary movement that follows seasonal weather patterns
(Choice B) Movement to a new region with the intent to settle there
(Choice C) Continuous movement to follow resources
The correct answer being choice B—and more to the point, not choice A or choice C, each of which specifically describes animal migrations. The human migration definition stands alone—movement in one direction with the intention of staying—and in contrast in this one critical way, to animal migration.
I can’t change the definitions we give to words like migration, so instead I am resolved to pay closer attention. To be vigilant with how I use language and cognizant of these semantic incongruities, the way meanings change as subjects do, and the way they serve as wedges between humans and other forms of life.
Words are important and language is alive. As a language maker, I feel compelled to examine the ways language serves to perpetuate our separation from nature. It’s this idea—that we’re fundamentally different from and above nature—that leaves us in a crisis of disconnection from our places. They deteriorate as a result, along with our sense of attachment to them and the belonging that comes with it.
Deconstructing the story starts with deconstructing the language used to tell it. Are we unique, save our peculiar similarities, as different definitions for human migration and animal migration suggest? Or are we the same, save our peculiar uniquenesses? What happens when we start with the assumption of sameness?
The more I read about the expressions of migrations, the more I fail to see a difference in the reasons for movement, in a single or cyclical direction, across the animal kingdom. Our means of modern migration might be the biggest differentiator between human and other species, but we’re all essentially doing the same thing and for the same reasons; we’re the same, save our peculiar uniquenesses.
Some humans, like some animals, make annual migrations. Home oriented as I am, I go and return again, each year at this time, in search of favorable, temporal (snow) conditions (for an annual ski trip). I don’t mean to suggest that the luxury of travel that I am now enjoying is owing to some sort of inborn survival instinct and not simply an indicator of privilege; I won’t die if I fail to leave home next year at this time on this trip (although my husband might insist he would). I only mean to point out that this pattern of movement, of leaving one place for the resources to be found in another with the intention of returning again, is something we share across the animal kingdom.
One way migrations with the intention of settling in the new location, like my own move from the Midwest to the Northwest, also seem to happen across the animal kingdom. Some are aided by physiology, by a genetically coded curiosity, or the function of specialized means of navigation. Changing conditions and resource scarcity pushed humans from the Horn of Africa 60,000 years ago; these same factors influence the dispersal of other animals across the globe.
Might it have been some inborn instinct that led me home? Some particularity of my physiology that drew me like a magnet to my place? That pushes me from it, from time to time, looking for another experience in another place, but then draws me back again, and quite powerfully, just, it seems, to remind me, and bodily, where my place is? Is the viscerality of homesickness a physiological guarantee that I make my way back again and again? I don’t know, but I love to wonder.
And, as it happens, migrations—that is in the cyclical sense, with a return implied—don’t seem to be contraindicated with a deep sense of place attachment. It seems, in fact, that the act of being away from home long enough to miss it galvanizes a sense of belonging to place [note 5]. Homesickness is an indicator of place attachment and is not felt by people for whom deep attachment to place is not felt.
There is a point at which being away diminishes one’s sense of place attachment. Leaving for an entire season, for instance, would naturally limit one’s sense of place and therefore attachment to it. But we’re migratory animals who have always roamed and homed again; there’s room for me to hold onto home as a tether from which to search for temporary favorable conditions elsewhere, returning again and again to nurture myself in the belonging available in place. Just as there’s room for language to change, to broaden along with our thinking, to let go of its insistence on separating humans from the rest of the animal kingdom.
Notes:
Lennox, R. J., Chapman, J.M., Souliere, C.M., Tudorache, C., Wikelski, M., Metcalfe, J.D., Cooke, S.J. Conservation physiology of animal migration. February 29, 2016. Accessed on January 20, 2024. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4772791/
National Geographic Society. Nature’s Most Impressive Animal Migrations. Updated October 29, 2023. Accessed on January 20, 2024. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/natures-most-impressive-animal-migrations/
Micalizio, C.S. and S.P. O’Connor. Global Human Journey. National Geographic Society. Updated October 29, 2023. Accessed on January 20, 2024. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/global-human-journey/
Schroeder, S. Causes and Effects of Human Migration. Khan Academy. Accessed on January 20, 2024. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/world-history/medieval-times/migration/a/migration-focus-block#:~:text=Human%20migration%20is%20the%20movement,what%20impacts%20their%20movements%20had
Scannell, L. and R. Gifford. “The Psychology of Place Attachment.” Environmental Psychology: Principles and Practice, 5 ed. January 2014. Accessed on January 20, 2024. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279718543_The_psychology_of_place_attachment
