Between fragmentation and institutionalisation: the rise of migration studies as a research field

Abstract It is clear that the field of migration studies has grown significantly over the past decades. What is less known is how this growth has taken place. This article combines bibliometric metadata with expert interviews to analyse the institutionalisation of the field in terms of self-referentiality, internationalisation, and epistemic communities. Self-referentiality in migration studies has gradually increased as the field has grown, until recently. The field has internationalised in terms of international co -authorships but has done so unevenly. Finally, we find that epistemic communities in migration studies, based largely on disciplines, increasingly refer to one another and are increasingly interdisciplinary.