ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

This study explores the Rubicon model as a theoretical framework for gaining a deeper understanding of homo migrans in the context of the globalization of migration. The Rubicon model conceptualizes migration not as a single event but as a volitional and psychological decision-making process, distinguishing four sequential stages: the predecisional stage(deliberating migration), the preactional stage(planning migration), the actional stage(realizing migration), and the postactional stage(settlement and evaluation in the destination society). The analysis yields several key findings. First, migration among homo migrans is not merely the outcome of rational economic calculations based on wage differentials or opportunity structures; rather, it constitutes a processual choice in which motivations and volitional commitment evolve, accumulate, and transform over time. Second, approaches that conceptualize migration as a one-time movement are inherently limited. Instead, migration research requires a longitudinal pathway perspective that incorporates return migration, re-migration, and long-term settlement trajectories. Third, across diverse migration types—including marriage migrants, youth migrants, labor migrants, and refugees—a stage-structured migration process is consistently observed, thereby confirming a certain degree of universal explanatory capacity of the Rubicon model. In sum, the Rubicon model offers a valuable theoretical tool for understanding international migration as a multi-layered, processual, and psychological phenomenon. It holds considerable potential for future migration research, particularly in analyzing the behavioral trajectories and decision-making contexts of homo migrans in a comprehensive and integrative manner.

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