Domestic servants and diffusion of fertility control in Flanders, 1830–1930

This article uses a mixed method approach to analyse whether urban domestic service functioned as a diffusion channel in the fertility decline. The central hypothesis is that nineteenth century female, rural-born domestic servants were influenced by the reproductive habits of their middle and upper-class employers, who were vanguards in the adoption of family size limitation within marriage. This happened via a process of social learning, a mechanism of social influence in heterogeneous social networks. Female domestic servants are an excellent research population to study reproductive ideas and behaviour because they were large in number and had a particular social position in between the working and upper classes and in between rural and urban environments. This paper is unique in its use of qualitative information to analyse social fertility diffusion and in the incorporation of geographical mobility in the statistical part.     

Between hearts and pockets: locating the outcomes of transnational homemaking practices among Mexican women in Canada's temporary migration programmes

Temporary migration programmes (TMPs) contain features such as reduced costs and the social legitimation of regularized entry that allow women, including the very poor, to access transnational livelihoods. For mothers, taking up opportunities for employment abroad inevitably involves ‘transnational homemaking’, the set practices involved in caring for family relationships and maintaining household economies across borders. In this article, we examine the transnational homemaking practices undertaken by rural Mexican migrant women employed in highly masculinized TMPs in Canada, tracing how they construct and maintain household economies across borders through a delicate (re)negotiation of reproductive roles and responsibilities with non-migrating kin in Mexico. We find that migration yields material and subjective benefits that enable the expansion of their citizenship across multiple dimensions ranging from the economic to the sexual. At the same time, as racialized, gendered, migrants from the global South, their labour and status in Canada are highly precarious. The advantages derived from transnational migration are thus tenuous, limited, and contradictory.     

After citizenship: autonomy of migration,organisational ontology and mobile commons

This paper explores the relevance of the autonomy of migration approach for understanding the role of citizenship in the sovereign control of mobility. There is an insurgent configuration of ordinary experiences of mobility emerging against this regime of control. At its core is the sharing of knowledge and infrastructures of connectivity, affective cooperation, mutual support and care among people on the move. The sovereign regime of mobility control is displaced on the level on which it attempts to take hold: the everyday movements of migrants. The frenetic fixation with security is challenged by the creation of common worlds of existence; the obsession with governance is replaced by inhabiting social spaces below the radar of existing political structures. This paper attempts to contribute to a reconstruction of this mundane ontology of transmigration, an ontology which we will describe as the mobile commons of migration.     

Building Italianità in Northern Adriatic: the case of organized migration of population from Pola/Pula

The article analyzes the process of building italianità in the case of migration of population from Pola/Pula that started as early as May 1945 and culminated in an organized process that officially began on 23 January 1947 and lasted until 20 March that same year. The article sheds light on the premises of that identity by analyzing complex activities of the Italian authorities who wanted to “defend Italianism” in Pola/Pula, as well as in other border areas of former Venezia Giulia. At the state level, they were mainly carried out by the Office for the Julian March/Ufficio per la Venezia Giulia and following reorganization beginning at the end of 1946 by the Office for Border Areas/Ufficio per le Zone di Confine, and at the local level by a network of pro-Italian organizations and groups. Analysis contributes to the understanding of the top-down and bottom-up italianità building process. On the local level, common identity was built upon the myth of the patria, reiteration of traumatic/“wounded” memories and victim presentation of the “Italian” population, fear to be separated from the patria, and unjust peace treaty propaganda. Simultaneously, the “Italian” population understood the Italian state as their defender.     

Exploring “North” and “South” in post-Soviet Bishkek: discourses and perceptions of rural-urban migration

In this paper we explore, through the narratives and perspectives of “old residents” in post-Soviet Bishkek, the dominant discourse which has emerged towards rural migrants arriving to the city from other areas of Kyrgyzstan from the late Soviet period onwards. We investigate the existence of a primarily “antagonistic” discourse in relation to the migrants and analyze this in detail to understand how it illuminates wider concerns amongst residents about what is occurring in their city, and about wider processes of social change in Kyrgyzstan. The paper provides a revealing insight into the processes of urban change in post-Soviet Central Asia, and demonstrates the ways in which confrontation with the everyday harsh realities of post-Soviet transformation can lead to the negative “othering” of one group of urban residents by another. We also demonstrate how the “old residents'” perceptions of migrants reveal important insights into emerging notions and constructions of identity in the post-Soviet period, related in this case to understandings of “North” and “South'1 The terms “North” and “South” are used here to denote the “North” and “South” of Kyrgyzstan. Talas, Naryn, Issyk-Kul' and Chuy regions (where the regional and national capital Bishkek is located) are usually taken as “North”, whereas Osh, Batken and Dzhalal-Abad regions are taken as “South.” View all notes and related concepts of what is “urban” and what is “Kyrgyz”.     

Durable peace and sustainable development in Africa

Zimbabwean migration into South Africa represents a challenge to standard global models for responding to large-scale migration flows. South Africa's existing legal and institutional infrastructure for migration management and refugee protection is not adequate for responding to this challenge and yet the country has not planned or implemented alternative responses. The paper outlines the complex ‘mixed’ nature of current Zimbabwean migration to South Africa and describes how South Africa's range of legal and institutional responses are ineffective in protecting both South Africa's national interests and the rights of Zimbabwean migrants. After presenting a series of factors against which future responses should be evaluated, it lists various possible forms of response, including legal and humanitarian interventions, and discusses their respective appropriateness in the South African context. Finally, the paper suggests six possible policy scenarios, taking into account institutional and political realities on the ground in South Africa.     

Social movements amidst democratic transitions: Lessons from the Brazilian countryside

Democratic transitions represent unique opportunities in which movements of the poor can coalesce, place their demands on the national agenda, and institutionalise their access to authoritative decision‐making centres. The opportunities and constraints movements of the poor face during transitions, however, remain little understood and under‐theorised. This study develops an analytic approach that links national‐level democratisation processes to the local‐level movement dynamics that make collective action possible, particularly the creation and reproduction of collective identities and organisational structures. The approach theorises how changing elite alliance patterns during transition cycles, and redefinition of institutional linkages that bind state and society, shape the opportunities and constraints movements face at successive stages of democratic transitions. The utility of this approach is demonstrated by examining the new unionism in rural Brazil, in that country's democratic transition during the 1980s.     

Changing the immigration rules and withdrawing the ‘currency’ of legal aid: the impact of LASPO 2012 on migrants and their families

The provisions of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO 2012) will remove almost all immigration cases from the scope of legal aid with effect from 1 April 2013. Part One of this paper describes the expected changes LASPO 2012 will make and then explores their anticipated impact. It explains that large numbers of migrants and their family members are likely to be without legal advice and representation after April 2013, including in cases where the state-enforced removal or deportation from the UK of a parent is contemplated, with the consequence of separating parent from child. Part Two explores the possibility that an ‘exceptional case determination’ might provide a route back into legal aid funding, and finds that this is likely to be restricted, in immigration cases, to those making applications relying on Article 8 ECHR and who can demonstrate a particular and individual requirement for legal aid. Part Three explores the rationale for these changes, and concerns about access to justice for migrants and their family members in cases involving acute interference with rights to family and private life. It places these concerns in context, specifically the fundamental and restrictive amendments to the Immigration Rules relating to family migration introduced from July 2012. These amendments are enormously complex and their full legal implications have yet to be tested in the higher courts. Part Four questions whether the changes will in fact achieve their stated aim of cost savings or whether the costs will simply be transferred to other parts of the State (especially to the Tribunal system, in dealing with litigants in person). The paper additionally questions, in Part Five, whether the regulators are equipped to regulate the quality of the fee-charging immigration advice services to which at least some individuals will turn. The paper concludes that, at the very least, it is particularly harsh that the Government has removed the ‘currency’ of legal aid at this time, so that those with limited financial resources have neither access to legal aid advice about the meaning of those Rules nor legal aid representation to test their proper interpretation.     

Theorising African communications: The bad news signalled by broadcast digital migration policy

Abstract

Broadcasting digital migration (BDM) in Africa reflects deadlines agreed by the continent at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The case suggests a negative answer to the question about a uniquely African contribution to communication theory. This is because there is a disjuncture between the ideology of BDM, as evolved in developed countries and copied in African countries, and a critical theorisation of African communications which could surface a different vantage point. The embedded theory that informs African accord on BDM assumes unquestioningly that this particular development in advanced economies has to be emulated in Africa. As a result, primary African communications characteristics are ignored, including the case for investing in radio or mobile Internet rather than BDM. Also missed is the value of democratic and interactive communications, meaning that the BDM set top boxes (STBs) are seen merely as decoders of one-way content flows. In sum, the experience of BDM as a particular intersection of communications technology and social conditions reflects an inadequate African communication theorisation.