Abstract
ABSTRACT It is now widely held that a variety of intermediary actors, including recruitment and staffing agencies, multinational corporations and local brokers, shape labour migration. This paper argues that in order to better understand the global circulation of labour it is necessary to explore the involvement of these actors in the production of the regulatory spaces through which migrant labour is brokered. Indeed, migration intermediaries do not only navigate borders on behalf of their migrant clients. Nor is ‘the state’ primarily a backdrop against which the understanding of the role of intermediaries may be developed. Instead, we argue, regulatory spaces of labour migration are made and remade through direct and indirect exchanges and interactions between intermediaries and state actors. Through an analysis of three moments of regulatory change in Sweden, the paper shows that such interaction does not take place in an even landscape but, rather, that the ability of migration intermediaries to influence the regulation of migration lies in the capacity to form close relationships or establish a powerful presence. A focus on the dynamic co-production of regulatory spaces by intermediaries and state actors, in our view, offers a more nuanced account of how labour migration currently is brokered and regulated.
Highlights
In recent years, there has been growing interest in the actors that enable and give shape to international labour migration, not least in this journal (e.g. Cranston, Schapendonk, and Spaan 2018; Deshingkar 2019; Elrick and Lewandowska 2008; Groutsis, van den Broek, and Harvey 2015; Hernández-León 2021; Krifors 2021; Pijpers 2010; Walton-Roberts 2021)
It is widely held that in order to understand the process of migration, it is necessary to include intermediary actors in the analysis
This paper has sought to highlight a role that intermediary actors play in migration that so far has received relatively limited attention: their multifaceted involvement in the production and reproduction of the very regulatory spaces in and through which they broker migrant labour
Summary
There has been growing interest in the actors that enable and give shape to international labour migration, not least in this journal (e.g. Cranston, Schapendonk, and Spaan 2018; Deshingkar 2019; Elrick and Lewandowska 2008; Groutsis, van den Broek, and Harvey 2015; Hernández-León 2021; Krifors 2021; Pijpers 2010; Walton-Roberts 2021). In the rest of the paper, we combine these insights about the roles of non-state actors in the regulation of international labour migration with results from a Swedish case study in order to further develop the understanding of how the regulatory spaces of labour migration are shaped and re-shaped through direct and indirect exchanges and interactions between state actors and migration intermediaries. The December 2008 reform sought to reduce state involvement to a minimum and, instead, entrust employers to identify labour shortages (Frank 2014) As noted earlier, this extensive neo-liberalisation of Sweden’s labour immigration policy, in turn, should trigger growth in the number of private actors, including different shades of intermediary actors, in the governance of labour migration (Hedberg and Olofsson 2021). After describing the materials on which the empirical analysis is based, below, we explore in detail three moments when exchanges and interactions between a wide variety of intermediaries and state actors, in different ways, have continued to shape Swedish labour migration regulations
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
