Gendering the border effect: the double impact of Colombian insecurity and the Venezuelan refugee crisis

Abstract

In the Colombian–Venezuelan borderlands, the reconfiguration of armed group presence and mass migration create and reinforce conditions of high violence and risk. Against this backdrop, we ask: What are the gendered security implications of the double crisis in the borderlands? Based on fieldwork in four regions along the border, this article argues that the border effect is gendered; the very factors that coalesce to produce this effect exacerbate existing gendered power dynamics, particularly as these relate to gender-based violence. Accordingly, this article demonstrates the specific ways in which the border – as a facilitator, deterrent, magnet and/or disguise – reinforces experiences of gendered insecurity in this region. The article finishes by outlining the implications for other international borderland settings.     

The Swedish dystopia: violent imaginaries of the radical right

ABSTRACT

Thorleifsson examines the ways in which violent imaginaries of Sweden have been discursively constructed and used by populist radical-right (PRR) parties and actors in contemporary Europe. Based on multisited fieldwork among politicians and supporters of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and the Hungarian Jobbik party, this article demonstrates how individual acts of violence are ‘transvaluated’ into violent imaginaries of migrants from Muslim-majority lands. What Thorleifsson terms ‘the Swedish dystopia’ not only entails a message of alarm and warning. PRR actors also use the trope of the Swedish dystopia in their call for action against Muslim migrants and minorities who, they claim, pose an ethnoreligious threat to national identity, security and even (Judaeo)-Christian civilization as a whole.     

China–Africa Exports: Governance Through Mobility and Sojourning

ABSTRACT

A centre for Asian and intercontinental immigration and export-oriented production, Guangzhou city is at the forefront of China’s global interactions. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article examines informal governance mechanisms that co-ordinate the circulation of goods and capital between China and Africa. The question addressed is: What roles do mobility and sojourning play in governing trade relations? The analysis is informed by research from three fields: economics scholarship on the trade–migration nexus, ethnographic studies of informal trans-border trade, and historical accounts of long-distance trade in pre-colonial and colonial eras. These traditions point to different ways in which the mobility of people and goods are interlinked. In the case of China–Africa interactions, the flow of goods has increased in tandem with the number of visits by African itinerant traders. The empirical discussion demonstrates that the emergence of intercontinental movements of goods and people between China and Africa was predicated on the brokering role played by African sojourners in Guangzhou. Of particular importance was informal hospitality and logistics infrastructure set up by Africans in the late 1990s, which subsequently evolved and adapted. This infrastructure has facilitated the mobility of people and goods and increased the pace at which trading capital circulates.     

定居与流动:布努瑶作物、生计与文化的共变

20世纪80年代以来,广西布努瑶族农民打破了旧的以玉米种植为主的生计方式,转向新型的养殖业和经济作物种植业,这一生计方式的转变,使其文化特质由定居转向流动。由此证明了作物、生计与文化的共变规则。     

Citizenship,migration and loyalty towards the state: a case study of the Kyrgyzstani migrants working in Russia and Kazakhstan

Building upon recent studies in the field of citizenship and transnationalism, this article examines the relations that Kyrgyzstani migrants in Kazakhstan and Russia entertain with their homeland, both in terms of concrete status (rights and responsibilities) and subjective attitudes (feeling of membership and loyalty). The article relies on field research, including semi-structured interviews, conducted in March and April 2007. Findings show that Kyrgyzstani migrants have developed a distinctive and somewhat paradoxical relation to their state of origin, in which pragmatic interest and long-term loyalty are not easily reconciled.     

Ethnicizing citizenship,questioning membership. Explaining the decreasing family migration rights of citizens in Europe

Citizenship does not equal belonging. In this paper, we investigate how the disjunction between the ‘imagined community’ and the formal citizenry impacts on citizens’ rights. In particular, we analyse decision-making on the family migration rights of citizens in France, Germany and the Netherlands. Our analysis shows that in these three countries, notwithstanding their different migration and citizenship regimes, the reduction of citizens’ family migration rights is based on the same discursive mechanism: the ‘membership’ of citizens of migrant origin who marry a partner from abroad is called into question. As they are excluded from membership of the imagined community, their entitlement to family migration rights is decreased. Ethnic conceptions of national community, intersecting with gender and class, play a crucial role in shaping the rights attached to citizenship in Europe today.     

Why the EU Still Matters in Turkish Domestic Politics: Insights from Recent Reforms in Migration Policy

Abstract

In view of Turkey’s increasing distance from the European Union (EU), the continued partial alignment with EU standards is often attributed either to domestic factors, or to diffusion processes induced by external actors other than the EU. However, based on interviews with officials from Turkey and the European Commission on recent reforms in migration policy, this article argues that two factors are responsible for continued EU influence on policy processes. First, the EU is still able to set incentives for compliance. Second, the instrument for pre-accession assistance has an impact that goes beyond that of a mere facilitator of domestically defined interests.     

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.     

Elections and “sons of the soil” conflict dynamics in Africa and Asia

Recent research reveals that nearly one-third of ethnic civil wars since 1945 have been “sons of the soil” (SoS) conflicts that pit indigenous populations against internal migrants. Despite important differences across SoS conflicts, many share a common trait as they often escalate during elections. While scholars have examined the causal mechanisms behind electoral violence, the relationship between elections and SoS conflicts has been overlooked. By examining a wide range of cases, the article breaks with previous research that privileges in-depth case studies of SoS conflicts with high levels of violence. Using insights from recent fieldwork in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Indonesia, the article sheds light on the causal dynamics that link elections and diverging levels of SoS conflict. In so doing, it illustrates how the severing of patronage networks and the shifting balance of power towards migrants create fertile contexts for political elites to instrumentalize local grievances. Elections are thus more likely to produce violent SoS conflicts when elites (at both the national and local levels) are able to mobilize supporters by playing upon these grievances, often through the politicization of citizenship and/or the ethnicization of the local sphere.