Attitudes Towards Migration in the Global South: Issues, Measurement and Implications

Public attitudes towards migration in the Global South remain understudied, despite these regions being central to contemporary migration dynamics as countries of origin, transit, and destination. This workshop brings together interdisciplinary perspectives to examine how attitudes towards migrants and migration are formed, expressed, and measured across diverse socio-political contexts in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. It addresses key conceptual and methodological challenges, including the limits of survey instruments developed in the Global North, the role of informal discourse and local narratives, and the impact of context-specific factors such as economic precarity, internal displacement, and state capacity.

Participants will explore innovative approaches to measuring public opinion, including experimental techniques. The workshop also considers how attitudes influence, and are influenced by, policy frameworks, governance practices, and public debates, with implications for social cohesion, development, and regional mobility regimes. By foregrounding voices and cases from the Global South, the workshop aims to advance more context-sensitive, theoretically grounded, and policy-relevant understandings of migration attitudes, while fostering collaboration across disciplines and regions.

This event can be attended either online or in person. In-person attendees are invited to attend from 1:30pm for lunch and networking, while online attendees are invited to join from 2:00pm.

Contributors

Dr Isabel Ruiz is an Associate Professor of Political Economy at the University of Oxford. She is a Fellow in Economics at Harris Manchester College, where she is also a Tutorial Fellow, and an Adjunct Faculty member at the Blavatnik School of Government. She is Associate Editor for the Oxford Review of Economic Policy (OXREP) and the co-convener of the Economics of Forced Migration Project (Econforced). Prior her current position, Isabel was Associate Professor of Political Economy and Director of Studies in Economics in Continuing Education at the University of Oxford and Assistant Professor in Economics at Sam Houston State University.

Professor Carlos Vargas-Silva is Professor of Migration Studies and a Fellow of Kellogg College. He has a joint appointment between the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), based at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, and the Oxford Department for International Development. Carlos was Director of COMPAS from October 2019 to September 2023, and was the (founding) Director of the DPhil in Migration Studies at Oxford from October 2018 to September 2023. He is a co-founder of the journal ‘Migration Studies’, published by Oxford University Press.

Dr Roxana Barbulescu is an Associate Professor in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds, and is the Director of Civil Society, Development and Democracy (CDD) for the WRDTP.

Please note: The WRDTP is committed to sustainability and to reducing the waste from excess catering at events. A key challenge here is non-attendance at events. From October 1st 2025, the WRDTP will be changing the way we manage the non-attendance of PGR students who have booked place/s at WRDTP Training events. Any PGR student who does not inform the WRDTP (via training@wrdtp.ac.uk) that they will not be able to attend a WRDTP event at least 3 working days before the event takes place will have the cost of their place deducted from their RTSG (if a WRDTP-funded student), or have this charged to their department (if not funded by the WRDTP). This will allow us to better plan for events and to avoid catering waste. Thank you in advance for your cooperation on this matter.