Investigating migration decision‐making raises certain methodological issues because of the complexity of these practices and the diverse possibilities that exist for aspiring migrants. Migrants are increasingly engaging in multiple migrations, moving between various locations in three or more international destinations. Particularly in Asia, where short‐term temporary contracts are increasingly the norm for labour migrants, it becomes counter‐productive to analyse migration decision‐making as a movement from one place to another. Based on research undertaken in Metro Manila, the Philippines, with 48 Filipino nurses, this article addresses how to do research related to the multinational migration pathways that structure migration goals and aspirations through demonstrating the benefits and practicalities of mental mapping, a participatory visual method. By exploring the geographical imaginations of migrants and aspiring migrants, multinational pathways are shown to be planned for at the earliest stage of migration. Overall, the work reported here leads to the conclusion that researchers need to consider multiple migrations in more multidirectional and messy terms.

中文翻译：

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心理测绘和跨国移民：地理想象力方法

由于这些实践的复杂性以及有抱负的移民存在多种可能性，因此调查移民决策过程会引发某些方法论问题。移民越来越多地在三个或更多国际目的地的不同地点之间迁移。特别是在亚洲，短期临时合同越来越成为劳务移民的准则，将移民决策作为从一个地方转移到另一个地方的分析变得适得其反。根据在菲律宾首都马尼拉市与48名菲律宾护士进行的研究，本文探讨了如何通过展示心理测绘的好处和实用性，开展与跨国移民途径相关的研究，这些途径构成了移民目标和愿望，参与式视觉方法。通过探索移民和有抱负的移民的地域想象力，可以证明在移民的最早阶段计划了跨国途径。总体而言，此处报告的工作得出的结论是，研究人员需要以更加多方向和混乱的方式考虑多次迁移。