Citizenship,economy and social exclusion of mainland Chinese immigrants in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is often viewed as a Chinese immigrants' city. This article discusses three interrelated dimensions of the social exclusion of migrants designated as “new” Chinese immigrants in Hong Kong. First, it is argued that globalisation has triggered intense economic rivalry among world cities as they undertake economic restructuring. Second, the political attempts of territorial states to establish their own legitimacy and strengthen their governing capacity are major catalysts that induce the social exclusion of immigrants. Third, the nature and strength of local place-based social identity is vital to determine the difficulties new immigrants face in being included in the host society. After recounting the history of Chinese immigrants and their recent profile in Hong Kong, the article examines the relationships between Hong Kong's economic development and the state's immigration policies, and how Hong Kong's state policies have constructed a form of Hong Kong identity vis-à-vis Mainland Chinese, drawing out the mechanisms that determine the social exclusion of Mainland immigrants since the 1990s.

“We asked for workers but human beings came.” Max Frisch(quoted in Hollifield,2000:149)     

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.     

Education and the development of Turkish and Yugoslav immigrants' political attitudes in Germany

A primary challenge facing both immigrants and German society more generally is immigrants' integration into the wider social, economic and political community, including the development of their political attitudes and behaviour in the host country. This paper examines how one aspect of the immigrant experience – individuals' educational experiences – has influenced the development of immigrants' political attitudes and behaviour. Twenty-five in-depth interviews conducted in 2002 with second-generation Turks and Yugoslavs living in Berlin illuminate how individuals' educational experiences in German schools influence the development of their political attitudes and behaviour. Survey data from the German Socio-economic Panel (GSOEP) are then used to test specific hypotheses concerning the relationship between education and various political attitudes and behaviour. Results suggest that, while interviewees reported numerous negative experiences in German schools and often used these experiences to form unfavourable opinions about government policies, quantitative analyses reveal that German education has generally benefited the political engagement of immigrants.     

Class or Citizenship? Debating Workplace Conflict in China

While a new working class is in the process of remaking itself in China, the latest trend in labour studies has rejected the Marxist tradition which sees the social relations of production as the point of departure for analysing workplace conflict. According to the new current, influenced by post-structuralism, class is only one of the identities articulated by workers, and it can be understood only with reference to their discourses. By critically evaluating an important book by Ching Kwan Lee (Against the Law: Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt), this article suggests that her approach generalising workers' protests with the notion of citizenship cannot satisfactorily explain the changing pattern of labour protests in China since 2004. By using fieldwork data and connecting the analysis of the social relations of production with the changing patterns of workers' struggle, this paper argues that migrant workers protests are a significant part of the emerging class conflict in China.     

The Guest Labor System in Taiwan

Abstract

Since the late 1980s, Taiwan's manufacturing and construction employers have pressured the state to increase substantially guest worker intakes in order to reduce labor shortages, to expand the supply of cheap accessible labor, and to weaken upward pressures on wage costs. This article describes the origins and development of the guest labor system and analyzes the effects it has had on Taiwan's economy and on workers both guest and local. The author analyzes the economic dimensions of migrant labor in the context of state efforts to promote employers' interests within a framework of class compromises and examines the response of Tai-wan's labor unions to the growing availability of cheaper foreign labor. Opposition to the mandatory food and accommodation fees imposed on guest workers led the state to encourage employers to recruit guest workers directly from the countries of origin in order to eliminate brokers' fees, the greatest source of migrant hardship. The author shows, however, that direct hiring has failed due to kickback arrangements involving employers, brokers, and state officials. This has brought the class basis of Taiwan's guest worker policy into sharp focus and engendered an intense struggle by guest workers.     

Nationalism,Confucianism, work ethic and industrialization in South Korea

The “economic miracle” of South Korea has been well documented by many scholars, but most studies have focused on the cooperative relations between the state and entrepreneurial elites, with little attention being given to the accomplishments and contribution of Korean labor to industrial development. To date there has been no comprehensive sociological study as to how workers in South Korea were “ideologically” mobilized and motivated to commit their labor power to the process of industrialization. In an attempt to redress this imbalance, this article offers an analysis of the role of Confucianism and nationalism in the state-sponsored ideology of work in South Korea during its economic boom of the 1960s and 1970s. It is argued here that both the workers' voluntary participation in industrial work and the harmony in the workplace, which were two of the most essential factors in the nation's remarkable economic success during the 1960s and 1970s, were intimately linked to a new ideology of work and entrepreneurship which combined nationalism and pro-growth Confucian precepts. The article will thus sociologically examine ways in which ideas about work in South Korea have incorporated nationalist ideals and Confucianism, and analyze the relevance of this ideology of work to the nation's phenomenal economic growth.     

Explaining Strike Outcomes in Chile: Associational Power,Structural Power,and Spatial Strategies

Research on strikes has traditionally focused on how economic, institutional, and political variables shape strike patterns. Recent work examines how workers' structural, associational, and symbolic power facilitate strikes. Building on this research, this article asks, what factors determine strike outcomes? It analyzes four strikes at MADECO, Chile's largest copper manufacturer, across democratic, authoritarian, and postauthoritarian regimes. Using qualitative and documentary evidence, it argues that strike outcomes reflect workers' capacity to halt or disrupt production and to access government allies who can pressure management to settle strikes in workers' favor. Outcomes vary based on the political composition of government, workers' capacity to halt production, and industry's and government's dependence on foreign investment. MADECO workers' location in Santiago, near national officials, allowed them to mobilize at the local, national, and international scales to pressure management. Comparisons with other strikes in Chile, Argentina, and Peru identify similar mobilization patterns.     

Labor control in worker's perspectives

This article challenges the allegations in the existing literature concerning the effectiveness of the labor control system in Taiwan. The theoretical debates on the linkage between Taiwan's labor regime and the political/economic systems are critically reviewed. Mechanisms and practices of state and enterprise control of labor are analyzed. Utilizing data from an empirical survey, the effectiveness of the labor control system is evaluated by examining workers' perspectives on trade unions, labor dispute settlements, welfare practices, and employee participation. The results indicate that the alleged effectiveness of Taiwan's labor regime is in doubt, both at the state and enterprise level, and is subject to further empirical investigation.     

Labor and democratization in South Korea and Taiwan

The article examines the recent work by Rueschemeyer et. al. (1992) and revisits the classic issue of the social basis of democracy. It argues that Rueschemeyer et al. are biased in their definition of democracy, have focused too narrowly on the postures of individuals classes, and have produced a one-sided picture of the role of the workers in democratization. Using the experiences of South Korea and Taiwan, the article argues that the extent of workers's involvement in the democratic struggle depends on their experiences of state domination. The latter, in turn, is influenced by the workers' market positions and the nature of the labor regime in question. The article also argues that workers affect democratization in a macro-structural sense, both by influencing the agenda of the oppositional movement and by shaping the contour of socio-political conflict of society.     

Ralph Bunche and the Colour of Sovereignty: Exploring the Eurocentrism of the United Nations' First Peacekeeper

Ralph Bunche, the first African American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, was a committed anti-imperialist, a fighter against racism and for civil rights. And yet, his action and appearance as special representative of the United Nations Secretary-General in the Congo, made him appear as hostile to African independence and as a (neo-colonial) “blanc,” questioning the sincerity of his anti-imperialism as well as his anti-racism. The article argues that Bunche's dilemma is paradigmatic for the paradox that exists between the United Nations' (UN) declared anti-racism and anti-imperialism, on the one hand, and its politics of peacekeeping and peacebuilding which are effectively a quasi-imperial politics of world order, on the other. The article dissects Ralph Bunche's writing and thinking on the international system, Africa and the Congo in order to understand how individual anti-racist commitment can co-exist, or even be co-constitutive of, systemic racism of international politics and law. Apart from providing important insights into the thought of a central founding figure of UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding, the article contributes, hence, to ongoing discussions on Eurocentrism and race in international politics.     

Migrant Workers in the Pearl River Delta: Discourse and Narratives about Work as Sites of Struggle

ABSTRACT

With the introduction of capitalist labor relations into China certain attitudes, competencies, and values associated with global capitalism seem to be increasingly valorized. This article analyzes the values and principles ascribed to migrant workers as part of practices linked to modes of government. The author confronts the dominant form of cultural construction of migrant workers through the Shenzhen official press with migrant workers' own narratives about their experience of work (dagong) in the city as the narratives are mediated through two different sites, namely, participant observation, interviews with rural migrants, and a body of unpublished letters to the editor acquired from several magazines dedicated to migrant workers. The article sheds light on the ways in which migrant workers' narratives confirm or, on the contrary, contest the pivotal elements of the hegemonic construction. Three different narratives that migrant workers produce about their own lives and about Shenzhen are examined. These narratives range from affirmations of dominant discourses about migrant workers and expressions of disillusionment about such discourses, to strategic uses of dominant discourses to justify the claims made by migrant workers.     

Contesting Mestizaje: Black Politics and Oral Traditions in Venezuela

Afro-descendant oral traditions are powerful modes of political expression that disrupt anti-black logics within Latin America's mestizaje. Scholarship on Afro-Latin American anti-racist mobilisation centres on large-scale, collective action. Instead, in this article, I examine songs and décimas, central forms of Afro-descendant cultural subjectivity. Drawing on thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in La Guaira state, Venezuela, I show how oral traditions are place-based forms of resistance against anti-black racism. This research calls on scholars to attend to oral traditions and their geographies as a tool of anti-racist political mobilisation.     

On collective assertiveness and activism during the immigration process: a case study of Yemenite immigrants who founded Kiryat Shmona – 1949–1953

This article focuses on the ways in which over 200 families of Yemenite immigrants, who founded the city of Kiryat Shmona, the development town situated at the edge of Israel's Northern District, functioned as a group during the immigration process. This case study coincides with the trend – within research of mass immigration to Israel – that relates the historical narrative through the perspective of the immigrant and settler groups, rather than from the vantage point of the establishment in charge of their absorption. The affair could have gone down in the annals of history as a story of weakness and victimhood: hundreds of immigrants were sent off to settle in an outlying peripheral region and were compelled to integrate into an environment where the financially and political-powerful kibbutzim were preponderant. Yet the Yemenite immigrants of Kiryat Shmona turned out to be a consolidated, opinionated, fighting and stubborn force that succeeded, in trying conditions, to assert their voice, struggle for their values and identity, affect major changes within the immigration–absorption system.     

Garment Ateliers and Women Workers in Istanbul: Wives,Daughters and Azerbaijani Immigrants

Not only multinational corporations but also small-scale firms are recognized as part and parcel of global commodity production. Most of this production is destined for western economies but not all commodities of industrial production end up in these countries. There is a high volume of trade taking place between developing regions. This article aims to highlight industrial production for the shuttle trade in the Laleli market of Istanbul and the central role that women's and immigrants' labour plays in this production. Garment ateliers producing for the Laleli market are usually operated as family establishments in which tapping into cheap female and immigrant labour through kin networks has been a main form of survival for the ateliers and has generated a successful internationally trading industry.     

Migración,lucha por la vivienda y transnacionalismo socio-político: El caso de Movimiento por Justicia del Barrio

Transnationalism is, within Mexican migration studies, the predominant perspective to explain collective action undertaken by Mexicans in the United States. It takes into account the Mexican “diaspora's” interest and political participation in their hometowns. This article challenges transnationalism's basic tenet and proposes, instead, the notion of socio-political transnationalism. Nevertheless, the article emphasizes on how migrants fist act collectively to improve their living conditions in the host societies, rather than organizing around their ties with their homeland. This kind of organizing does not imply indifference towards the situation in their country of origin. It does mean, however, that the transnational perspective falls into a second plane. To illustrate, we will depict the history of Movimiento por Justicia del Barrio, an immigrants' organization in the City of New York, principally Mexican based, and their struggle against the gentrifying attempts taking place in East Harlem. We will also look at their political vision and the links they have created with organizations in Mexico.     

In the Service of Industrialization: Etatism,Social Services and the Construction of Industrial Labour Forces in Turkey (1930–50)

This article explains the employment practices at Turkish state factories during the 1930s and 1940s when the state expanded industrial activity. Complaints about the availability of industrial workers had been commonplace since the population exchange, but emerged as a key constraint on industrial activity in the 1930s and 1940s, as industrial production expanded considerably. The article argues that the Turkish state introduced social services in Turkish state factories in response to workers' resistance to the low wages and long hours of work. Rather than a deliberate attempt at populism or building political support, the expansion of social amenities through state economic enterprises reflected the weakness of the state in enforcing industrial discipline and the limitations of creating industrial labour forces through compulsion.     

Rethinking Police Violence in Brazil: Unmasking the Public Secret of Race

In Brazilian cities, perhaps the most disturbing criminal activity is the violence perpetrated by police officers themselves. This article is an invitation and a provocation to reconsider social scientific thinking about police violence in Brazil. Illustrated by a court decision from a Northeastern city, in which a black man won a case against the state for being falsely arrested and abused by a black police officer on the grounds of racism, this article investigates three paradoxes: Brazilians fear both crime and the police; black police beat black civilians; and government officials disavow responsibility by stigmatizing the police on racial grounds. It then proposes an alternative reading of these paradoxes that opens the possibility for rethinking police reform and argues that democratization in Brazil is deeply intertwined with the future of its darkest‐skinned citizens.     

Chronicle of a Crisis Foretold: The Politics of Irregular Migration, Human Trafficking and People Smuggling in the UK

This article argues that a distinct repertoire of social and political contention associated with migration and the presence of immigrants in the UK plays a large part in structuring responses to ostensibly 'new' migration challenges such as people smuggling and human trafficking. This repertoire includes the elision and confusion of migration categories (particularly in this instance between irregular migration and asylum); the impact of state policies on the creation of 'unwanted' migration flows; fears of floods and invasions by 'unwanted' migrants; concerns that the state is losing control of migration; the depiction of migration and migrants as causes of increased support for the extreme right; the existence of labour market pull factors that provide economic spaces for both regular and irregular migrants; the symbolic power but limited effect of an international human rights regime and discourse; and problems of policy implementation. The contemporary twist is provided by the links made between irregular migration and the 'war on terror' and the ways in which migration has become a component of bilateral relations between the UK and other states, particularly those structured by EU competencies.     

Uhlin,Anders. Post-Soviet Civil Society: Democratization in Russia and the Baltic States. London and New York,Routledge, 2006, ISBN: 0-415-36804-9.

The Baltic German politician and political thinker Paul Schiemann (1876–1944) is widely recognized as the most prominent defender of liberalism in the Baltic states during the interwar period. However, his liberal ideas have rarely been interpreted in their own right. This article explores the main presuppositions of Schiemann's liberalism: his conceptions of individual freedom, democracy, and cultural development. Although Schiemann's main intentions are liberal, his theory of the anational state includes significant Marxist elements, which call into question the potential of the democratic state. In my conclusions, I will argue that Schiemann's ideas still have theoretical relevance, which must be further explored in the context of contemporary liberal theory.