This thematic dossier¹ focuses on the complex and intense field of migration movements across the Atlantic. Its articles explore how migration structurally impacts the social and cultural identities of those who move and those who do not, while addressing key topics such as aspirations and motivations, integration and positioning strategies, transnational links, and family relations at distance. It draws on a problematization of human mobility and migration that equates both movement and stasis (^{Faist, 2013}; ^{Glick Schiller & Salazar, 2013}) and analyzes the interconnectivity of these processes in light of identity production and reproduction. The articles discuss not only the purposes and consequences of movement per se, but also, and most significantly, the uprooting activities and identity negotiations of those who migrate and those who stay behind.

International migrations, in general, and transatlantic movements, in particular, have been under the intense scrutiny of scholars in the Portuguese speaking world. Migrations across the Atlantic unfold in a multitude of north/south, south/north, north/north, south/south, and east/west routes. Some of these routes are ancient, and their historical, economic, political, and social impacts widely acknowledged. This is the case of the forced movements of millions of enslaved Africans from the east coast of Africa toward Brazil, or the Portuguese movements toward North and South American countries. Other movements are more recent, and their outcome is still being assessed. This is the case of the movements from Brazil toward Portugal or from Portugal toward Angola, after the country’s independence. While acknowledging the importance of numerically significant migration flows, the two articles of this special issue focus on two more discrete present-day routes: the Portuguese migrations toward the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro and the Cape Verdean migrations to Italy.

Brazil was the main destination of the Portuguese migrations, from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1950s. This flow, matched only by the one that had the usa as destination, is known as the Transatlantic Stage (^{Baganha, 2009}; ^{Pires et al., 2010}). Two decades later, in the 1970s, the first significant contingent of Brazilians arrived in Portugal and today they are the largest foreign community in the country (^{Pinho, 2012}; ^{Serviço de Estrangeiros e fronteiras (SEF), 2015}). During the period that followed the Carnation Revolution in Portugal, in 1974, Brazil witnessed the arrival of another large number of Portuguese migrants, this time departing both from Portugal and the former Portuguese colonies in Africa (^{Silvano & Rosales, 2015}; ^{Rosales, 2015}). In the course of the last international economic crisis, the Portuguese movements toward Brazil increased again (^{Peixoto et al., 2015}; ^{Pires et al., 2015}). Rosales & Machado’s article² addresses this recent movement and discusses the conflicting identity dynamics of the most recent Portuguese arriving in Rio de Janeiro, an historical migration destination and home of a large and well-established Portuguese community. The authors address Portuguese migrants contemporary movements via an innovative perspective that explores the challenges faced by these migrants through the analysis of their domestic material culture and consumption practices. Rosales and Machado argue that the examination of the routes of people and things, and their intersections (^{Basu and ­Coleman, 2008}), over the Atlantic brings light to the migration experience, i. e., how movement is planned, experienced, and evaluated at the level of everyday life. Furthermore, the authors claim that material culture and consumption are key to the uprooting processes, belonging and positioning strategies of young Portuguese migrants in Rio.

Cape Verde is located in the Atlantic Ocean, halfway between Brazil and Portugal. The migration flows of Cape Verdeans toward the two sides of the Atlantic have been especially intense since the nineteenth century and thereafert (^{Batalha & Carling, 2008}; ^{Góis, 2006}). In fact, as Lobo (this issue) rightly points out, migration is an identity marker of Cape Verdean identity. The structural centrality of movement in Cape Verde is also stressed by Carling and Åkesson (2009), who picture mobility and transnational networks as intrinsic (^{ibid 2009}, p. 123) elements of the life of the islanders. According to the authors, the migration story of the archipelago is closely connected with Portuguese imperial history. The Atlantic crossings of people coming from Cape Verde started with the slave trade, in the fifteenth century, and have continued without interruption to present-day. Today, the movements out of the country take increasingly diverse routes. Lobo (this issue) explores a contemporary migration route toward Europe. The author analyses the trajectories of Cape Verdean women in Italy and the intended and unintended effects of movement from a holistic perspective that also includes the family members who stayed behind. Lobo’s article argues that the centrality and value of movement as an identity marker is simultaneously compatible with the mobile and immobile trajectories of the different family members. Movement generates complex relationships and interdependencies, not only between different countries and regions, but also within the family, whose lives are structured around migration.

To conclude, it is important to state that this special issue illustrates the relevance of the ethnographic method in the field of migration studies. Both articles draw on participant observation, direct observation, and extensive interviews to capture the unique aspects of the migration experience. The ethnographic investigations carried out in Brazil, Cape Verde, and Italy explore the mutual and constitutive dimensions of migration at the micro (aspirations, strategies, evaluations) and macro levels (crisis, borders, routes, political impacts) of analysis, while promoting an intense description of the lived experience of migration.