Migration,Reconfigurations of Family Relations and Social (In)Security: an introduction

This introduction reviews the contributions this collection of articles makes to understanding migration, social reproduction and social protection. Migration necessarily involves reconfigurations of family relations and these entail changes in the patterning of social (in)security. Our expansive interpretation of the concepts of social reproduction and social protection situate the reorganisation of gendered family lives as integral to the migration–development nexus. Life-course thinking informs analysis of how migrants ‘do family’ and what this means for gender, identity and (in)security. The collection explores how ‘care deficits’ are managed, both discursively through the negotiation of gendered ideologies about gender identity and the family, and through the everyday practice of social reproduction. The resulting reorganisation of social security involves taking on new risks and vulnerabilities for migrants and their families. For both internal and international migrants the challenges involved in securing social reproduction are powerfully shaped by welfare and migratory regimes and raise important questions about the relationship between social protection and broader social policy and citizenship issues.     

Critical Social Theory and the Contemporary World

The far-reaching historical transformations of recent decades, including the decline of the Keynesian/Fordist organization of polity and economy in the West, the collapse of party-state command economies in the East, and the emergence of a neo-liberal capitalist global order, suggest that contemporary critical theory must be centrally concerned with historical dynamics and large-scale structural changes. The paper argues that these broad developments can best be apprehended by a theory premised on the Marxian theory of capital, but only if that category is fundamentally reconceptualized in ways that distinguish it from its usage in traditional Marxist interpretations.     

Social Interactions and Spillover Effects in Chinese Family Farming

This paper aims to test the effects of social interaction and input spillovers on the agricultural performance of family farms in mixed paddy rice production (organic and conventional farming). Using survey panel data from a Chinese village, we adopt a Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) derived from spatial econometrics to disentangle the social interaction effect from spillover effects and to control for technological heterogeneities. Our analysis reveals a negative social interaction effect indicating that an increase in the yield of neighbouring plots leads to a decrease in the yield of the plot itself. We also find input spillovers. Labour, capital costs, water and organic pesticides have positive spillovers while external nutrients (nitrogen and phosphate) have negative spillover effects. Our study thus calls for a better understanding of social interactions and spillover effects among farmers in the promotion of sustainable family farming.     

美国社会生活拾零

在美国买房子 屈指算来,来美国已有五个年了,手头也有了些积蓄,加上老婆、孩子都跟了过来,就着手买房子,作长久打算。看了好多新房子旧房子,要么对房子不满意,要么对所在社区不满意,要么嫌房价太贵,可看了半年,房价就涨了半年,而且没有一点停的迹象,最后不得已咬牙花了近30万美元,在一个比较满意的社区买了一栋已使用了20多年的Ranch(平房)。 老父从国内来看我们,见我们花了200多万元人民币买了这么一个一拳可以打个洞、一脚可以踹倒一面墙的旧房子,很是心疼。他知道我们小夫妻这两年虽存了一些钱,但添置这添置那,现在手头离30万还差得远。而且他还担心我们在美国人生地不     

Social Change and Interest in Family Planning in Ghana: an Exploratory Analysis

This article examines the ways that pastors have mobilised their religious followers to address the issue of HIV and AIDS in Ghana and Zambia. The work argues that successful pastors have utilised church organisational structures to support and empower their activities, they have framed HIV and AIDS mobilisation messages in a way that is acceptable to their congregants and to their broader societies, and they have capitalised on changing political opportunities, particularly those opportunities for collaboration with external actors such as donors and Western churches. The work situates the analysis in Zambia and Ghana, two countries that contrast in their HIV prevalence rates and the amount of donor attention and funding they have received for combating HIV and AIDS. The article asserts that while pastors have agency in the social mobilisation process, they are also affected by the broader social and cultural contexts in which they operate.     

Degrees of Separation: Informal Social Protection,Relatedness and Migration in Biswanath,Bangladesh

This paper argues for a more precise and context specific understanding of mechanisms of ‘informal social protection’ in Bangladesh. The context is a ‘Londoni’ village in Sylhet which has high levels of internal and overseas migration. The economic boom caused by the latter provides important employment opportunities for people from much poorer areas of Bangladesh, who have moved into the area. Yet, as our findings show, the extent to which the poor can call upon the help and protection of rich overseas migrants depends upon the degree of closeness to, or separation from, them. This is marked both through real and fictive kinship as well as geography: those that come from nearby become ‘our own poor’, whereas those from further away are treated as ‘outsiders', not qualifying for significant ‘help’. As the paper argues, access to hierarchically ordered places is vital for the sustainability of precarious livelihoods. Yet whilst geographical movement is an important survival strategy for the poor, it is only when social relations are established with wealthy patrons that it can be said to contribute to informal social protection.     

Polish ‘Temporary’ Migration: The Formation and Significance of Social Networks

This article is based on in-depth interviews with migrants in different locations in Poland and the UK and explores Polish migrant decision making in both countries. In particular, we ask how migrants build networks, how this influences their decisions about the duration of their stay abroad, and the implications of network building for community cohesion. Networks exist within the sending country; between the sending and the receiving country; within diasporas; and between diasporas and the receiving community. Our article considers the first three sections of this chain.     

Fulani on the Move: Seasonal Economic Migration in the Sahel as a Social Process

Most research on short-term rural to urban migration and its impacts takes an economic approach and often emphasises negative aspects of migration, linking it synergistically with rural poverty in sending areas. Data from Fulani migrants in Northern Burkina Faso challenge this pessimistic view of short-term labour migration. Rather than a response to destitution, migration seems to be a useful way in which reasonably prosperous households can further enhance livelihood security. Moreover, factors not easily incorporated into a standard economic analysis, identity and village networks, emerge as being essential to the understanding of migration in this population. Finally, migration emerges as a highly dynamic process, which an ahistorical, static framework of analysis fails to capture.     

Migration,Representations and Social Relations: Experiences of Jharkhand Labour to Western Uttar Pradesh

Studying a stream of migration from Jharkhand to western Uttar Pradesh (UP), this article focuses on the work and life experiences of migrant labour from tribal India. Based on an in-depth study of a Jharkhand village, alongside a briefer stint at the destination village in UP, it examines the micro-level nuances and complexity of migrant labour movements and their often unexpected and unrecognised social consequences, particularly, the renegotiation of class and gender relations at home and the destination. Apart from pointing to the deep interconnections between the relations of production and reproduction, it demonstrates how the use of distinct representations of work and life due to spatial distanciation contribute to renegotiating both labour relations and social identities.     

Manufacturing and Migration in Eurasia

Abstract

This article investigates the social foundations of apparel manufacturing in Kyrgyzstan. Drawing upon interviews and a survey of Bishkek-based workshop owners, a bottom-up analysis finds that many are family businesses that started producing clothing after the country’s independence in 1991. I discuss here how they acquired the capital and knowledge necessary for this business, and how they mobilised a variety of migration-related experiences and relationships—often related to bazaar work—to compete in the sector. The findings contribute to a growing literature on how migration can facilitate family-based manufacturing in the post-Soviet region, although not without significant costs and challenges.     

Migration,Livelihoods and Institutions: Contrasting Patterns of Migration in Mali

Migration is a common and essential livelihood strategy in the risk-prone environment of Sahelian West Africa. But migration is not a passive reaction to economic and environmental forces. Patterns of movement are determined by context-specific and complex dynamics, mediated by social networks, gender relations and household structures. IDS-based research on sustainable livelihoods illustrated this in two locations in Mali: in a village in the Sahelian dryland with different and gendered migration patterns of various ethnic groups; and exceptional patterns in the Sudano-Sahelian cotton region with extensive and long-lasting engagement in small cocoa and coffee plantations in Côte d'Ivoire.     

Social Context Matters: Predictors of Quality of Life among Recently Arrived Refugee Women-at-Risk Living in Australia

Abstract

Little is known about the predictors of quality of life among refugee women. 104 refugee women-at-risk were recruited within 6 months of arriving in Australia. A structured questionnaire was administered using standardized tools to assess pre-migration trauma, post-migration living difficulties, social capital, social networks, and quality of life. Hierarchical multiple and logistic regressions assessed factors predicting quality of life. Post-migration factors such as low trust in the community, and lack of support from individuals in their social networks predicted poorer quality of life. These findings have implications for community and social programs for refugee women-at-risk.     

Labour Migration and Health of Left-Behind Children in China

With rapid urbanisation, millions of people from rural areas have migrated to major cities for employment, leaving their young children at home. This labour migration creates substantial mental and physical challenges for these left-behind children. This study establishes two empirical models for comparing the health status of left-behind children with that of children in rural areas without migrant parents and with that of migrant children in urban areas. Our empirical findings reveal that parental migration negatively affects the height and weight indices of left-behind children. The effects are particularly prominent for younger children, when both parents migrate or when parents migrate out of province.     

New Hispanic Migration and HIV Risk in New York

Abstract

This paper reports on research designed to assess access to care by Latino immigrant populations in the New York area. A qualitative approach and methods were employed, involving focus groups with PWAs and affected men and women from Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Central America to explore the perceptions, beliefs, experience and knowledge of HIV care issues and the issues affecting health-seeking behavior. Among the data collected to provide context, depth and detail to the issue of access and utilization of services, was the detailed information on migration and HIV risk reported here.

A total of 57 men and women participated, ranging in age from 19-61. Results included information on migration patterns, obstacles for Latino immigrants living in the U.S., social networks, community resources, knowledge of HIV/AIDS, risk behavior and access to information. Data support the conclusion that to be effective in reaching and providing services to these immigrant groups, it is crucial to understand the environment from which they come and the impact of immigration. Poverty; repressive governments; lack of education/literacy; ethnicity, class; color-based stigma; and cultural norms are crucial factors in determining their attitudes, motivations, decisions and behavior. The key elements for the provision of services to this population appear to be those which build on cultural norms and which network human and institutional resources.     

Internal Migration Trends in Soviet and Post-Soviet European Russia

This article compares Soviet with post-Soviet migration trends. It uses a livelihood studies approach to explore what types of Russians migrate and their motivations for so doing. It concludes that today labour migration is the most significant type of internal migration. The norm is temporary migration by individuals, which may be either short-term or long-term, but in either case it is characterised by frequent visits home and often, it seems, by failure and permanent return.