Violent Punjab,quiescent Bengal,and the partition of India

Why did the Punjab bear the brunt of the mass violence and the migration that accompanied the partition of India? This paper makes the case for analytical eclecticism by showing that the following three explanations – centred respectively on democratisation, nationalism, and ideas; the commitment problem; and the security dilemma – account for the violence/migration in the different stages in the run-up to the partition of India. Instead of arguing that ‘everything mattered’, this paper elucidates the complex causality at work by demonstrating how these factors interacted with one another during the different stages leading to India’s partition.     

The politics of return: exploring the future of Syrian refugees in Jordan,Lebanon and Turkey

Abstract

Although the Syrian conflict continues, local and global stakeholders have already begun to consider the return of the six million refugees, especially as neither the option of local integration in the countries of first asylum nor that of resettlement to third countries is seen as a realistic possibility. Elaborating on the return debates in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, we relate the politicisation of this question to the growing acceptance of the option of voluntary and involuntary repatriation in the international refugee regime as well as to policies and public opinion. We argue, based on empirical fieldwork, that any debate about the return of Syrian refugees is problematic, since the conditions of safety, voluntariness and sustainability are not fulfilled. Further, returns should not be left entirely to the individual hosting states and actors in the region but should be carried out in collaboration with representative authorities in Syria and the mediation of international organisations upon full resolution of conflict.     

Beyond Rainforests: Urbanisation and Emigration among Lowland Indigenous Societies in Latin America

Indigenous societies across lowland Latin America have recently made impressive political and territorial gains by emphasising their stewardship of and attachment to particular rural landscapes. But surprising new censal and microdemographic evidence shows that these groups have simultaneously been developing a presence in domestic and foreign metropolises. Cities offer employment and advanced education opportunities as well as escape from rural conflicts. We suggest that the dynamics and outcomes of these migrations are distinct from those of other rural Latin Americans. By outlining specific areas in which migration, politics, and territory appear to be interlinked, we seek to stimulate research that engages with these processes and their implications for indigenous advocacy and migration theory.     

Stories as Lived Experience: Narratives in Forced Migration Research

Stories are part of everyday life and constitute means for actorsto express and negotiate experience. For researchers, they providea site to examine the meanings people, individually or collectively,ascribe to lived experience. Narratives are not transparentrenditions of ‘truth’ but reflect a dynamic interplaybetween life, experience and story. Placed in their wider socio-politicaland cultural contexts, stories can provide insights into howforced migrants seek to make sense of displacement and violence,re-establish identity in ruptured life courses and communities,or bear witness to violence and repression. The researcher mustpay particular attention to his/her own role in the productionof narrative data and the representation of lived experienceas text.     

Forced Migration Studies: Could We Agree Just to 'Date'?

This essay questions the soundness of a scholarly shift awayfrom ‘refugee studies’ in favour of ‘forcedmigration studies’. It contends, first, that subsumingrefugee studies into the broader framework of forced migrationstudies may result in a failure to take account of the specificityof the refugee's circumstances which are defined not just bymovement to avoid the risk of harm, but by underlying socialdisfranchisement coupled with the unqualified ability of theinternational community to respond to their needs. Second, itargues that forced ‘migration’ (rather than, forexample, forced ‘migrant’) studies encourages afocus on a phenomenon rather than on the personal predicaments,needs, challenges, and rights of refugees themselves. It maythus contribute to a lack of criticality in relation to policieswhich subordinate refugee autonomy to the pursuit of more systemicconcerns. The first concern is illustrated by reference to theemergence of the ‘internally displaced persons’category, the second by reference to the determination to findand mandate ‘durable solutions’ to forced migration,including to the movement of refugees.     

How citizenship matters (or not): the citizenship–belonging nexus explored among residents in Oslo,Norway

This article sheds light on what citizenship means for individuals’ experiences of belonging. Through 41 interviews conducted in Oslo, Norway, we trace understandings of how, when and why citizenship matters (or not) for belonging. Our interviewees fall into one of four categories: born citizens; naturalized citizens; dual citizens and non-Norwegian citizens who would qualify for naturalization, thus mixing participants with and without immigrant backgrounds. We interpret individuals’ experiences evaluating whether formal citizenship is explicitly or implicitly salient and whether it is associated with secure or insecure belonging. We find that citizenship matters for security and recognition, both linked to belonging, in expected and unexpected ways. Our findings point to how, when and why citizenship matters (or not) for belonging, constituting the citizenship–belonging nexus. Here, race continues to matter, as does the materiality of the passport document, in how the citizenship–belonging nexus interacts with the nation as locus of membership for citizens.     

Living and working as a domestic worker in the Middle East: the experience of migrant returnees in Girana town,North Wollo,Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

This article explores the migration experiences of Ethiopian migrant returnees from domestic work in the Gulf countries and Lebanon. The returnees reside in the town of Girana located in Habru sub-district, North Wollo zone of Amhara region. There is much female work migration to the Arab Middle East from the town, particularly to Saudi Arabia through Muslim pilgrimage. Employing a qualitative method, the study examines how the returnee women perceived and experienced labour migration and analyzes the impacts of labour migration on childcare, family survival back home, and debt payment. The returnees made voluntary regular and irregular labour migration to the region and engaged in domestic work, which is not preferred by the host society. However, domestic work is unregulated by the labour policy of the destination countries. This made the returnees’ employment situation rather exploitative, exacerbating their vulnerability to abuses, ethnic denigration, and undermining of cultural identity.     

Transnational policy networks in the migration field: a challenge for the European Union

The migration policy field is a multilayered and fragmented area still lacking a strong global and European regime. Nonetheless, different initiatives and fora have been promoted in the last decade to increase the international dialogue on migration, with the active participation of non-state actors, and particularly civil society organisations (CSOs). The article reviews selected initiatives undertaken at the UN and European level, whereby institutional representatives engage with CSOs in furthering migration policies. These initiatives and platforms may constitute transnational policy networks (TPNs). It explores signals towards the consolidation of more structured and ‘hard’ forms of participatory policy-making on migration issues, as well as obstacles present in this engagement dynamic. The key question addressed in this study is whether and how European institutions have engaged with the TPNs in the field of migration. The article also explores how some of the TPNs influence institutional policy-making at the EU level.     

‘Ringleaders and Troublemakers’: Malawian (Nyasa) migrants and transnational labor movements in Southern Africa,c.1910–1960

The article examines the transnational role of Malawian (Nyasa) migrant laborers in the emergence and development of African labor and proto-nationalist movements in Southern Africa. Using both archival and secondary evidence mainly from Southern Rhodesia and South Africa, it argues that the history of Southern Africa’s labor consciousness from the early to mid-twentieth century can be enriched by exploring the place of Nyasa migrants in shaping anti-colonial processes across the region. Nyasa migrants, a product of the colonial labor migration system (chibaro/mthandizi), laid the foundations for, and influenced trade unionism in the region, especially between 1910 and 1960. The colonial wage economy created ambiguities of dependence for Africans forcing many into a migrant and capitalist world laden with dilemmas, tightropes, and frustrations that fueled social movements. Malawian migrants who were at the core of such movements within a regional colonial economic system, gained a reputation for being ‘ringleaders and troublemakers’ to the colonial governments. Existing literature has not fully historicized the centrality of Nyasas in molding this critical episode of Southern African history. The historiography has dealt with these dynamics in an ad hoc manner, approaching this Nyasa ‘annoyance’ on a national basis, without drawing on the underlying regional connections.     

Conservatism between theory and practice: The case of migration to Europe

This article explores the neglected relationship between conservatism as political theory and conservatism as political practice using the example of recent immigration to Europe. A cursory glance at how European politicians have responded to migration challenges suggests that they roughly divide into an open‐arm, leftist ‘liberal’ camp and a right‐wing ‘conservative’ one. The situation, however, is more complex. This article engages with the resources of conservative theory to argue that there are many distinct conservative theoretical positions for any one policy point. Using contemporary migration patterns as a case study, the findings suggest that Conservative parties have not borrowed much from conservative theory in its variety of incarnations. In fact, conservative theory can buttress a course of action that is generous toward migrants and at odds with the claims of right‐wing populist movements. While certain strands of conservatism imagine a homogenous people, there are others that are no less pro‐pluralism than liberal theories, and sometimes more so.