The growing scholarly interest in internal migration meant that it was vital to look at where people were moving from and moving to and some of the characteristics of those that had moved and the areas they were moving between. To set the scene, my initial empirical analysis chapter of my thesis explores the patterns of Polish peoples internal switzerland rcs data migration to gain a sense of . Data constraints meant that I was only able to obtain data at a district level and therefore I wanted to maximise the analysis I could undertake at this spatial level. In an effort to engage with the dominant discourses in migration studies and ethnicity research I used a selection of categorisations such as the Defra urban to rural categorisation to examine if Poles were moving to more urban places or alternatively moving towards more rural places. Patterns observed among other groups were found to be dispersing but also counter-urbanizing and given the more recent nature of Poles international migration I was interested in observing if they followed suit.
Advances in the visualisation techniques used in migration research led to me to use circular plots and Circos to map my origin-destination data. Being previously unfamiliar with mapping techniques, learning these skills as part of my PhD showed me how visualisation were key to telling a story of migration.
Figure 1: Polish internal migration patterns between districts categorised by DEFRA urban to rural classification (Source: Census 2011 England and Wales origin-destination data)