How did we start associating the word ‘migration’ with danger and problems? After all, the history of animals and plants are all a tale of one great journey. Life on our planet is in constant movement along many surprising paths. And yet for centuries, scientists and politicians have been painting a dark vision of the perils of being in movement. Sonia Shah claims that it’s time to change our tune.

Information services all over the globe are teeming with migration news: overpopulated refugee camps in the south of Europe and by the borders of Bangladesh; more and more pontoons and haphazardly made boats taking off from the shores of Libya or sent away from Australia; growing numbers of people moving from villages to larger towns and cities every day; families walking the desert to try and cross the border from Mexico to the US. Recently, the attention of the world has focused on reports on the migration of the new coronavirus that transferred from wildlife to Homo sapiens, and in a flash, spread across the entire planet. It isn’t hard to see the common denominator of all these stories is their negative perspective, presenting migration as something pathological and unwanted.