Une Dialectique Des Migrations : Acculturation Et Transition Démographique

It is argued that two types of migration have tended to follow each other. One is a ‘colonizing’ migration corresponding to a technical, military and economic advantage of one group over another, associated at first with a demographic surge in the first group; the other is a ‘social-capillarity’ migration occurring when the first, ‘colonizing’ group has completed its demographic transition and the second has barely started. Two hypotheses concerning the outcome of this process are presented. The first — optimistic — hypothesis of economic advance in the second group, implies a return to demographic equilibrium. The second hypothesis is a catastrophic one, the implications of which are hard to predict. Finally, the need for a specific co-operative effort is underlined.