Social Capital,Migration and Development in the Valles Centrales of Oaxaca,Mexico: Non‐Migrants and Communities of Origin Matter

This article investigates the importance of place‐of‐origin communities to an understanding of the impact of migrant remittances on local development, employing the concept of social capital. Two aspects of social capital (each present prior to migration) are shown to be of significance–family relationships and community organisation. Drawing on recent research in two peasant communities in Oaxaca, Mexico, social capital is used to examine the relevance of non‐migrants in shaping the outcomes of migration in communities of origin. Evaluation of migrant remittances and home‐town associations demonstrates the developmental significance of non‐migrants and communities of origin.     

Migration and the Global Crisis: New Prospects for Return? The Case of Ecuadorians in Europe

This article explores the impact of the current recession on Ecuadorian labour migration to Europe. Several factors affect the evolution of this migration system: receiving countries' policies, the labour market demand (and its deterioration) and the scope for the self‐maintenance of migrants' social networks. We especially focus on a relatively less studied issue: emigrant policies, symbolised, in Ecuador, by a pervasive emphasis on migrant return, somewhat echoed even in Spain, as a destination country. Still, a massive return scenario is implausible in the light of migrants' family stabilisation abroad, and of the uncertain prospects for development in their motherland. Even during a worldwide recession, the ‘hidden agendas' in migration policies, along with the distinct time‐scale and the self‐feeding potential of a long‐distance migration system, should be critically appreciated.     

Stay or Go? Ecuadorian Immigrants in Spain in Times of Crisis

This article studies how the economic crisis affects Ecuadorian immigrants' decisions on staying in Spain or returning to their home country. Before the crisis, Ecuadorians were one of the most significant migrant groups in Spain in terms of volume and degree of settlement. The crisis has destabilised their situation and modified their migratory projects in different ways. This article presents the three main choices facing Ecuadorian immigrants during the crisis: permanence, wait and see, and return/re‐migration. The analysis focuses on how the decision‐making process is carried out and on the different factors that lead Ecuadorians to choose each option.     

CITY OF GHOSTS

This article links motorbike use with the work and living conditions of young migrant women in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) to highlight an example of the social and economic consequences of migration-assisted economic development in Southeast Asia. It traces a woman's life from her teenage years in the market of a small seaside town in Vietnam to her purchase of a motorbike, migration to HCMC, move into a rooming house, and work in a major department store as a cosmetics saleswoman. The reflections on urban life by the woman and her roommates lead the author to consider the notion that the condition of the unregistered and temporary migrant is like that of the unrequited wandering ghosts (co hon), which are said to invisibly roam the city's streets. While the author details the political economy of marginalization that situates the migrant saleswoman, he also shows how she struggles within it to constitute herself over time rather than in the present and to free herself from abstraction-producing social categories, both old and new.     

Managing “Self‐Preservation”: Charles Pearson's National Life and Character and the Early Australian Commonwealth

In National Life and Character (1893), Charles Pearson argued that the breakdown in “character” threatening social cohesion in Britain was a phenomenon that was replicated on a global scale in the late nineteenth century. The economic and technological progress that characterised the industrial revolution in Britain had stimulated urbanisation, and unleashed, Pearson claimed, a “bestial element in man”, degrading the quality of civic and economic life, and leading to a rising population of “stunted specimens of humanity”. Most analyses of National Life and Character focus on its fear of non‐white races and influence on policies of racial restriction; we argue that National Life and Character is a more ambitious work of political economy preoccupied, as Pearson observed, with the “self‐preservation” of the white European race, grappling with the tension of managing a potentially degraded population as new forms of state intervention, decline of traditional religious faith, and global expansion transformed white society, leaving it declining into a “stationary state” and vulnerable in the face of the rising non‐European peoples. These concerns were shared by many of the architects of Australian Federation, influencing the policy initiatives of the post‐Federation period.     

The Gendered and Racialised Division in the Korean Labour Market: The Case of Migrant Workers in the Catering Sector

Based on the empirical analysis of migrant women employed in the catering sector, this paper examines the gendered and racialised division in the Korean labour market. Given limited labour protection and the flexibilisation of the migrant workforce in the labour market, South Korea has been able to reduce possible economic and social costs and, at the same time, enjoy the benefits of the significant economic contribution of migrant workers. By looking at gender relations and racial discrimination in the catering sector, and inconsistent government policies, this paper underlines that migrant women are marginalised in the labour market owing to their ‘multiple vulnerability’ as women, migrants and undocumented workers.

Las fuerzas tras la migración global

Movements of people are a crucial element of global integration. Most destination countries favor the entry of highly skilled migrants, but restrict that of lower-skilled workers, asylum seekers and refugees. A major cause of migration is the growing inequality in incomes and human security between more- and less-developed countries. Further driving factors include uneven economic development; rapid demographic transitions; and technological advances in transport and communications. Increasingly, migrants do not shift their social existence from one society to another, but maintain transnational connections. The global economic crisis that began in 2008 has brought a hiatus in some of these factors, but has not undermined their long-term significance. Australia's traditional model of permanent-settlement migration needs to be adjusted to the new realities of global mobility and connectivity.     

International labour migration and local rural activities in the Kyrgyz Republic: determinants and trade-offs

This paper uses a representative household-budget survey from the Asian Development Bank to analyse the determinants of international labour migration, distinguishing between seasonal and permanent (long-term) moves and comparing them with determinants of rural local income-generating activities in the Kyrgyz Republic. It has been found that both permanent migration and local nonfarm-wages employment substitute agricultural activities and attract the most educated rural individuals. The difference is that the permanent migration option is unattainable for individuals from poor households with small land holdings. They tend to engage in local nonfarm activities, while those who are educated and have resources to finance the cost of migration choose to leave the country for long periods of time. In contrast to permanent migration, seasonal migration does not require the possession of either higher or vocational education, which can make it potentially less harmful for local development in terms of brain drain.     

“Women will keep the household’

The transition into married life for rural-urban female migrants in Bangkok impacts their gender identities in unexpected ways. This article uses the experiences of a married migrant woman as a case study to explore and discuss how migrant women mediate the loss of autonomy and the added familial expectations that arise from this transition. The author suggests that given their prior migration experiences as independent income-earners women in this particular community enter marriage with broadened gender identities that fracture under marital gender norms. This places significance and value solely upon their nonpaid homemaking duties. The double burden of work inside and outside the home expands the roles of migrant women as wives and mothers, but at the same time it reinforces existing inequities within the conjugal relationship. Nonetheless, migrant women continue to actively participate in the construction of their conjugal contract and in decision-making within their households. In sum, this case study illustrates how conflicting desires, gender role norms, and particular migration situations are meaningfully mediated by women and how this negotiation affects decision-making regarding family organization and future mobility intentions.     

‘Going away on foot’ once again: the revival of temporary labour migration from Russia's Dagestan

This article addresses temporary labour migration – known in Russian as otkhodnichestvo (going away on foot) – from the Russian republic of Dagestan. The discussion is situated within reviews of current work on migration in the former Soviet Union, push-pull factors determining migration behaviour in the North Caucasus, and the historical importance of otkhodnichestvo in imperial Russia and the USSR. The paper then turns to the results of a census conducted in summer 2006, which found that most migrants come from Dagestan's mountainous southwest, frequently obtain work at locations characterized by economic growth and high pay, and rely on ethnic or communal networks as a basis for choosing employment sector and destination when searching for work.     

Livelihoods in transition: changing land use strategies and ecological implications in a post-Soviet setting (Kyrgyzstan)

The sudden independence of Kyrgyzstan from the Soviet Union in 1991 led to a total rupture of industrial and agricultural production. Based on empirical data, this study seeks to identify key land use transformation processes since the late 1980s, their impact on people's livelihoods and the implication for natural resources in the communes of Tosh Bulak and Saz, located in the Sokuluk River Basin on the northern slope of the Kyrgyz Range. Using the concept of the sustainable livelihood approach as an analytical framework, three different livelihood strategies were identified: (1) An accumulation strategy applied by wealthy households where renting and/or buying of land is a key element; they are the only household category capable of venturing into rain fed agriculture. (2) A preserving strategy involving mainly intermediate households who are not able to buy or rent additional agricultural land; very often they are forced to return their land to the commune or sell it to wealthier households. (3) A coping strategy including mainly poor households consisting of elderly pensioners or headed by single mothers; due to their limited labour and economic power, agricultural production is very low and hardly covers subsistence needs; pensions and social allowances form the backbone of these livelihoods. Ecological assessments have shown that the forage productivity of remote high mountain pastures has increased from 5 to 22 per cent since 1978. At the same time forage productivity on pre-mountain and mountain pastures close to villages has generally decreased from 1 to 34 per cent. It seems that the main avenues for livelihoods to increase their wealth are to be found in the agricultural sector by controlling more and mainly irrigated land as well as by increasing livestock. The losers in this process are thus those households unable to keep or exploit their arable land or to benefit from new agricultural land. Ensuring access to land for the poor is therefore imperative in order to combat rural poverty and socio-economic disparities in rural Kyrgyzstan.     

The rise of a hesitant EU host? Examining the Greek migrant integration policy and its transformation during the crisis

Greece lately, as a result of the crisis, has been transformed from a migrant receiving (host) country to a simultaneously migrant sending and receiving one. At the same time, processes of migrant de-integration from the economy and society have been manifesting too. This paper attempts to draw light on Greek migrant integration policy, which through the years has been characterized by a contradiction between policy narratives and concrete actions on the ground. More specifically, this paper brings to the fore a policy change that occurred during the period 2012–2015 and possibly continues up to now. According to this policy shift, special emphasis was put on the acquisition of the European long-term resident status from the part of already settled migrants as a passport to their intra-European mobility. Politically speaking, such developments were heralded as a win–win situation for both migrants, but also, Greece as a host country. Nevertheless, this rise of a hesitant EU host, who turned its integration policy into a managing migration endeavour, might be indicative of broader tendencies and trends within an expanded EU migratory landscape that includes both migration, but lately most importantly, asylum too.     

Street-level Politics: Labour Protests in Post-authoritarian Indonesia

This article discusses the promotion of economic “reintegration” programs among migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong. The programs include training migrants in savings and investment, business planning and entrepreneurship, with the immediate aim of helping them to achieve some steady income as an alternative to continued working overseas, and the longer-term objective of channelling migrant savings into national economic development “back home.” The reintegration programs are analysed in the context of hegemonic neo-liberal or popular capitalism, which inter alia, encourages the transformation of citizens with rights into entrepreneurs who can be held responsible for their own failures. It argues that such programs discipline rather than liberate migrant workers and that despite good intentions on the part of progressive non-government organisations (NGOs), represent individualistic solutions to structural problems which may undermine campaigns like the campaign for the rights of migrant workers and their families.     

Work and Family Life among Migrant Factory Workers in China and Vietnam

ABSTRACT

Through on-site interviewing, a comparative study has been carried out about migrant factory workers in industrialised parts of China’s Guangdong province and in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City. Even though China and Vietnam possess similar legacies of socialist transformation and have household registration regulations that restrict rural migrants’ access to urban social services and impede their settlement in cities, there exist marked differences in Guangdong and Ho Chi Minh City in migration patterns, factory work conditions and migrant worker family livelihoods. In particular, migrant families in Ho Chi Minh City largely stay intact and tend to settle there permanently, while married migrant workers in Guangdong normally need to split up their families and remain trapped in circular rural–urban migration. As shall be seen, the national and local governments play important roles in determining the inclusion or exclusion of migrants from urban life, the wages they are paid and their standard of living and, most important of all, their children’s access to education. Each of the two countries’ differences in implementing policies is examined and comparatively analysed.     

Keeping labour mobility informal: the lack of legality of Central Asian migrants in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan's legal–regulatory framework provides for a small number of quotas for highly skilled foreign workers but has no provisions for legal employment of semi-skilled or low-skilled migrants from the Central Asian states, who enter under the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) visa-free regime and work informally in construction, household and service sectors. The lack of acknowledgement of the scale of informal labour migration has denoted an act of strategic neglect on the part of the state, allowing it to render migrant labour illegal, disposable, and keep migrants legally and statistically invisible. Unable to obtain a legal status, migrants nominally comply with the existing legal framework as they also circumvent and subvert it. The article details the entrenched informal regime of labour migration and explains why recent efforts to ‘legalize’ labour through the introduction of a labour patent (licence), as is the case in Russia, are unlikely to bring in significant reforms.     

Governing Domestic Worker Migration in Southeast Asia: Public–Private Partnerships,Regulatory Grey Zones and the Household

ABSTRACT

Focussing on the example of domestic worker migration, this article seeks to explore the regulatory regimes that control the flow of migrants across Southeast Asia. Although at first glance this appears to be a deeply statist regime, the aim of this article is to complicate this picture and to look at the role that private power and authority places in shaping migration governance. The article focusses on three interrelated issues: (i) how states have increasingly come to regulate migration via partnership arrangements with private sector actors; (ii) how these partnership arrangements are emblematic of broader processes of state transformation that take shape within the complex governance practices surrounding domestic worker migration in Southeast Asia; (iii) how a focus on the micro-processes of domestic worker governance (that is, how migrant worker bodies are constructed and disciplined) also highlights the significance of private actors in this aspect of governance.     

Migration and geopolitical preferences

This paper investigates the impact of work experience abroad on migrants’ geopolitical preferences. For this purpose, I analyze representative survey data from Moldova, a country caught in an ideological battle between Russia and the West, with high emigration rates to both destinations. In a first step, I show that return migrants from the West are significantly more likely to support European Union (EU) accession than non-migrants, while return migrants from the East are more likely to support closer ties with Russia, controlling for economic, demographic, and ethnic confounding factors. In a second step, I use district-level variation in migrant networks as an instrument for individual migration. Second-stage regressions show that work experience in the West increases support for EU accession, while no evidence of causal effects is found for work experience in the East. Differences in information exposure and migration policies between the EU and Russia may explain this asymmetry.     

‘It’s a Limited Kind of Happiness': Barriers to Achieving Human Well‐being among Peruvian Migrants in London and Madrid

This article examines migrants' self‐reported experiences via application of human well‐being approaches to deepen exploration of the barriers that migrants themselves identify in achieving their goals and getting their needs met. A focus on the construction of human well‐being can potentially provide a more holistic approach to debates on international migration. Discussions have focused on labour market integration, paying less emphasis to migrants as social agents and the psychosocial elements that they consider important for achieving human well‐being. This article applies human well‐being approaches to assess the barriers that Peruvian migrants identify in the contexts of London and Madrid.     

Collective Remittances and Migrant‐State Collaboration in Mexico and El Salvador

As part of an emerging research agenda on the political impact of remittances in high‐migration countries, this article explores the conditions under which organized migrants are likely to engage in transnational public‐private partnerships with their home governments through a comparison of Mexico and El Salvador. Both countries have well‐organized migrants who have cofinanced community projects back home. But this collaboration has been more sustained, multifaceted, and negotiated in Mexico than in El Salvador. These outcomes are linked to four factors: the density and type of migrant organizations, the territorial distribution of state authority and resources, the extent and nature of diaspora outreach, and legacies of state‐society relations. The article discusses how this framework might be applied to other high‐migration countries and whether there is room for agency in creating more favorable conditions for migrant‐state collaboration.     

The existentialities of Ethiopian and Nigerian migrants in South Africa

Many studies on international migrations have concentrated on South-North migrations, causes and consequences of such migrations, sending and receiving countries and characteristics of migrants’ interfaces. there is much less scholarly work on South-South migrations, and academic and policy works on wider Africans’ migrations into South Africa are particularly scarce. even among the very few existing studies on South-South migrations, very few account for migrants’ existentialities in South Africa – a nation experiencing the largest scale migrations in Africa and strategising to cope with associated issues, especially among the hard-to-reach migrant communities. This article therefore, examines the ramifications of experiences and existences or existentialities of ethiopian and Nigerian immigrants in South Africa as crucial case study for the growth of pan-Africanism. the approach adopted for this article is transnational systematic interactions and observations in Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Africa. Secondary sources from unclassified documents, scholarly journals, reports and reliable Internet sources were utilised. The findings suggest the need for more robust, inclusive and dynamic social/migration policies in South Africa, as well as other southern nations experiencing high immigration. the argument is that the receiving nations of migrants must pay more attention to objective and comprehensive understanding of migrants and migrant communities to sustainably appropriate migration’s gains and to ameliorate unintended migration consequences.