REFRAMING DISPLACEMENT AND MEMBERSHIP: ETHICS OF MIGRATION KRISTIN E. HEYER The mounting human costs of contemporary displacement challenge dominant interpretations that frame migration in terms of security or economic functionalism alone. Surveying global realities and recent academic and pastoral contributions, the author argues that a migra- tion ethic attentive to transnational human rights, scriptural hospital- ity, and mutually (re)constituted membership remains well poised to reorient reigning approaches. The analysis suggests that greater atten- tiveness to the Church’s posture toward new migrants and the gender- specific experiences of migration are warranted. W ITH THE DISPLACEMENT OF PERSONS taking new forms worldwide, the rights and agency conferred by membership remain elusive for many, to the detriment of migrants and communities alike. Dominant interpretive frames frequently serve to distort the motives and experiences of people on the move, and theological ethics is well poised to unmask the urgent dimensions of migrant realities. The phenomenon of intensified migration touches a significant number of global inhabitants: one in nine lives in a country where international migrants comprise one-tenth or more of the total population. 1 Migrants cross borders in increasingly multi- directional ways, not only south to north, but also north-south, south-south, north-north, and east-west. 2 KRISTIN E. HEYER received her Ph.D. from Boston College and is now associate professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Religious Studies Depart- ment, Santa Clara University. Specializing in Christian social ethics, immigration ethics, and Catholicism and politics, she has recently published: “A Feminist Appraisal of Catholic Social Thought,” in For the City and the World: Conversations in Catholic Studies and Social Thought (2010); and “Social Sin and Immigration: Good Fences Make Bad Neighbors,” Theological Studies 71.2 (2010); and with Michael Genovese and Mark Rozell, she edited Catholics and Politics: The Dynamic Tension between Faith and Power (2008). Her Kinship across Borders: Christian Perspectives on Immigration is expected from Georgetown University Press this year. 1 Forty years ago, the ratio was 1:29; see Aaron Terrazas, Migration and Devel- opment: Policy Perspectives from the United States (Washington: Migration Policy Institute, 2011) 1, http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/migdevpolicy-2011.pdf. (This and all other URLs cited herein were accessed November 14, 2011.) 2 Andre ´ s Solimano, International Migration in the Age of Crisis and Globaliza- tion: Historical and Recent Experiences (New York: Cambridge University, 2010) 6. Theological Studies 73 (2012) 188