Privileged Mobility in an Age of Globality

Sheila Croucher

doi:10.3390/soc2010001

Abstract

By 2050, the world’s population of international migrants is estimated to top 400 million. A small but growing number of those migrants are leaving well-developed, affluent countries best known for receiving immigrants to settle in less well-developed countries better known for sending migrants. These migrants of relative privilege, many of them retirees, are motivated primarily by a desire to enhance their quality of life. Although this migratory flow receives much less attention than more familiar, and reverse, movements of laborers or refugees, its implications for the destination sites, sites of origin, and study of international migration generally are significant. This article will examine the contemporary border crossing of privileged migrants, the economic, political and cultural stakes for the countries and individuals involved, and the implications of incorporating privileged mobility into the study of global migration and transnationalism.

Highlights

The International Organization for Migration [IOM] predicts that number will rise to 405 million by 2050, and warns that: ―The world will be taken by surprise by the relentless pace of migration unless States, international organizations and civil society make a concerted effort to invest in how they respond to it‖ [1]
This call for moving the study of international migration beyond a nearmyopic focus on marginalization is not intended to downplay the significance of global inequalities, but rather to use the case of privileged mobility as a way to better highlight the nature and implications of global inequality
In a recent volume on Migration in the Global Economy, editor Nicola Phillips makes the case for incorporating immigration into the field of political economy by arguing that: ―the relationship between structure and agency looks very different when the focus is on informal, unorganized, and/or disenfranchised actors who have few or no possibilities for influence or participation, face a very different set of political realities, and operate in local andprivate‘ contexts‖ [7]. These and countless other analyses capture well the challenges many migrants confront when crossing international borders and settling in new lands. They do not, fit an expanding category of border crossing variably described as amenity migration [8], lifestyle migration [9], privileged migration [10], international retirement migration [11,12], or residential tourism [13]

Summary

Moving Beyond Marginality

From Oscar Handlin‘s 1951 classic, The Uprooted, to Alejandro Portes and Rubén Rumbaut‘s 1990. In a recent volume on Migration in the Global Economy, editor Nicola Phillips makes the case for incorporating immigration into the field of political economy by arguing that: ―the relationship between structure and agency looks very different when the focus is on informal, unorganized, and/or disenfranchised actors who have few or no possibilities for influence or participation, face a very different set of political realities, and operate in local andprivate‘ (including domestic) contexts‖ [7] These and countless other analyses capture well the challenges many migrants confront when crossing international borders and settling in new lands. Americans living in Mexico and Central America report being drawn south of the border by amazing bargains and hospitable climates— meteorologically, but socially, and culturally as well These migrants routinely describe their host societies as warm and welcoming and themselves as assets to the local community and economy. Their absence limits potentially valuable insights both in the areas of policy-making and theory building

Assessing the Implications of Privileged Movement

Findings

Conclusions