Conceptualization Of Migration Research Articles

Meeting migrants: Mourning, possibility and generativity

AbstractA description of partnership between a school of psychology and a human rights organization that offers asylum services is used as a basis for probing the ethical complexity of activism. “Doing good” is complicated by the insertion of asylum evaluation services into the reductionist and metrics‐based evaluative mechanisms utilized in conventional psychological services and demanded by U.S. and European immigration proceedings. Conceptualization of migration through the lenses of decoloniality, necropolitics, and critical refugee studies lays bare the extraordinary complexity of the journey of involuntary migrants. Some consequences of the imperative to reduce such complex suffering to simple psychometric parameters and medicalized diagnoses are explored, and the paper ends with a plea for a situated, culturally sensitive, and clinically complex understanding of the human suffering entailed by involuntary migration. Activism, it is suggested, is best practiced within complex ethical frameworks that ensure that, at a minimum, we do no harm to those we seek to serve.

Fragments of solidarity: the social worlds of African migrants moving northwards

ABSTRACT The article provides a framework through which to analyse the experiences and social trajectories of migration from East Africa to North Africa and Europe. On the one side, it explores the systematic relationship between war and mobility, and on the other, it highlights the social worlds generated by such mobility. The article argues that these social worlds represent crucial elements for understanding contemporary (Eastern) African societies and their political dynamics, in relation to (a) the increased relevance of migration diplomacy, (b) the spatial interconnectivity constructed through mobility and (c) the transnational and diasporic spheres that lie at the core of the social and economic reproduction of states and societies in the Horn and more generally in Eastern Africa. We highlight, through these interconnections, the genealogies and transformations of the systems of violence composing the reality of migration in the regions explored, but also the various and interconnected systems of solidarity which, although fragmented and even misused at times, sustain migrants’ trajectories, social projects and resistance. In doing so, the article argues that it is necessary to explore present and historical local understandings and conceptualisations of migration, in relation to solidarity practices, forced migration, migrant smuggling, imaginaries of mobility.

Being migrant or nomadic or refugee in the Nusantara

PurposeLocal cultures under the nation-states have evolved and produced new concepts. Migrations and cultural interactions have also influenced the language. Thus, different conceptualisations of migration have developed in the “Malay World.” Language is not only a product of ecological and geographical environment, but it is also a result of human mobilisations and cultural intercourses. The differences caused by various Malay World conceptualisations are also related to different interactions, histories and social realities. In the “Malay World,” Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia are threatened by English hegemony. At this juncture, demonstrating these interrelationships helps one to understand local cultural intercourses between culture and social reality.Design/methodology/approachThis paper implements the critical discourse analysis, notably, the dialectical–relational approach to different conceptualisations in the “Malay World.” Thus, it aims to discuss the reasons behind the usage of migration-related terms in Indonesia and Malaysia. How migration terms mainly shape social forms, process and circulate in the social world is argued in this paper. The authors target to investigate the local meaning sets for migration concepts and explore self-reflectivity in and critique of the usage of established images between Bahasa Indonesia and Malay concepts, using a Critical Discourse Analysis framework. The discussion section attempts to analyse and explain dialectical relations between social norms and social elements.FindingsTrade diasporas, culture and identities of immigrants, cultural richness and multi-ethnicity have continuously diversified the conceptualisations. These concepts also indicate cultural dominations and exclusions. Thus, the migration dynamics in Southeast Asia might be understood by scrutinising these boundaries and patterns. This study showed that migration conceptualisations in the Malay world are substantially locally determined. Local wisdom and cultural codifications prevail in the migration context. A deeper understanding of the local context is essential in evaluating the international refugee protection mechanisms in these countries as neither Indonesia nor Malaysia are parties to the Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.Research limitations/implicationsDefinitions of various types of migration are referred to in multiple terminologies throughout the Nusantara. While in Bahasa Melayu, migrant refers to pendatang, nomadic refers to nomad; refugee refers to pelarian, to migrate refers to berhijrah; in Bahasa Indonesia, migrant refers to migran, nomadic or nomad refers pengembara, refugee refers to pengungsi and migrate, or migration refers migrasi. At the same time, in the Nusantara, many communities define themselves according to their geographical features, such as Orang Sungai, Orang Laut or Orang Kuala. In this context, defining leads to a significant impact on shaping the discourses and approaches.Practical implicationsDefinitions determine the borders, flexibilities, plausibility and flows of terms. Critical Discourse Analysis especially placed emphasis on languages and their impacts on social reality. According to Critical Discourse Analysis, terms and their genealogies, transformations and limits are vital in order to comprehend social facts and truth. To understand the change and continuity of migration flow in Southeast Asia, scrutinising the migration-related terms is crucial. This study aims to examine those main terms, their connection with other words, and their transformation in the Malay world sociologically. This as such will shed more light on the social changes regarding genealogical relationships and their usage in daily life within the Critical Discourse Analysis.Originality/valueThis study aims to fulfil the gap between authentic concepts of migration literature in Nusantara. Although Bahasa Melayu and Bahasa Indonesia have a strong connection and interaction, migration definitions in these languages are separated from each other. Cultural and social elements greatly influence migration-connected terms in Bahasa Melayu and Bahasa Indonesia. Without this understanding and the absence of local context, any assessment of their refugee protection systems may be incomplete. This study deals with different cultural nuances and refinements and their migration conceptualisations and histories are based on the ground of their social realities.

Lost in Transition- Quest for Identity Through Diaspora

The conceptualization of migration in literature which more often than not precipitates tragedy and in turn the dilemma in identity is associated with the literary concept of diaspora. Popularly categorized with the longing for homeland and its poetics, there is a rhetorical attempt to fathom the void caused due to displacement. The dichotomy of two identities, created due to tension between the former self-clinging to roots of origin and the latter trying to configure oneself within the framework of a new identity, contributes to the amalgamation of distinguishable individualities. Primarily, Diaspora literature is characterized by a sense of alienation and loss that envelopes the narrative and it is conditioned by the after-effects of expatriation migration. Generally, it revolves around themes of displacement, attempts to trace back existential roots, nostalgia, and the inescapable association of the dire quest for identity that diaspora and migration literature bring on to. It deals with the equivocacy of plurality and hybridization in the domain of constantly changing identities and transnationalism in the process of migration. The paper attempts to examine the various forms of literature and the way they concretize diaspora, as a result: evoking literary stimuli of longing for homeland due to displacement. It aims to encompass the realms of cultural, economic, social, religious, and political consciousness that change an individual's displacement from one dominion to another. The narrative is shaped into reality with devices of metaphors and zeugma to explain exaggerated realities. This paper specifically closely reads texts of various literary genres like Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, a graphic novel, Salman Rushdie's essay Imaginary Homelands Rohinton Mistry's short story Swimming Lessons and Jhumpa Lahiri's novel, Namesake.

‘How Can I Have a Future?’: The Temporal Violence of Deportation

ABSTRACT Based upon multi-sited research with Indigenous youth (13 to17 years old) deported from the United States and Mexico to Guatemala, this article situates young people’s mobility within multiple historical and ongoing displacements of Indigenous peoples. Longitudinal research with youth reveals that they move in multiple directions, often with great uncertainty, across geopolitical borders and that their mobility carries temporal meaning. Upon deportation, youth confront immediate, material consequences, as well as the inability to fulfill social obligations and rites of passage and the foreclosure of opportunities for long-term mobility. In other words, deportation inflicts not only physical violence but also temporal violence on Indigenous youth compelling them to live in the here and now. Moving across temporalities, I likewise argue that the migration of Indigenous youth must be understood as at once relational and contextual, developing as a social value and economic necessity among Maya families over time. These temporal insights importantly unsettle often-spatialized conceptualizations of migration as a series of linear stages of premigration, migration, settlement and post-deportation that simultaneously privilege settler-colonial jurisprudence and understandings of time.

The sociology of the limit: Reformulating the question of migration through Van Gennep

This article situates Van Gennep’s Rites de passage in the contemporary field of migration studies, arguing that his second and third chapters allow us to reformulate how we conceptualize contemporary migratory encounters. Rather than reading Van Gennep’s classical text through the prevalent Turnerian lens of “liminality” in migration, I reread it as offering a conceptualization of migration as deriving from society’s establishment on a delimited piece of earth, constituting itself against and in relation to its own limits. Society’s limit then becomes the center of social inquiry, while the strangers at the gate are seen as an integral part of these fundamental relations between a social grouping and the delimited space it occupies. The article further suggests that Van Gennep’s sociology of the limit offers the field of migration studies three practical analytical contributions: (a) its notion of the multiplicity of limits and sublimits emerging throughout the migratory encounter; (b) its emphasis on the sanctification of the limit, which opens up the possibility of analyzing the relations between migration and emotions; and (c) its pointing to the potential cycle of dread elicited by this sanctification—a notion highly relevant to analyzing contemporary migratory encounters.

Küresel göçün sosyo-mekânsallığı: ulusötesi mekânlar / yerelötesi yerler, topluluklar ve kimlikler

Geçmişte araştırmacılar göçü, belirli nesiller için bireylerin memleketlerini terk etme ve yeni bir topluma/kültüre uyum sağlama süreci olarak ele alırken; göçmenleri, anavatanlarını geride bırakan ve başka bir topluma/kültüre sancılı bir katılım süreciyle karşı karşıya kalan kişiler olarak görmüştür. Ancak yakın zamanlarda yapılan araştırmalarda göç, hem göç-veren ve göç-alan ülkeleri, hem de göçmenlerin kendilerini, bu iki ulusal alandaki kişiler, kurumlar ve süreçler ile ilişkili hale getiren daha geniş kapsamlı bir hareketlilik olarak betimlenmektedir. Bu yüzden araştırmacılar tarafından eski göç kavramsallaştırmalarını sorgulayan ulusötesicilik, ulusötesi göç, ulusötesi mekânlar gibi yeni kavramlar önerilmiştir. Son yıllarda sözü edilen bakış açısını güçlendirmek ve yeni anlayışlarla genişletmek için kullanılan yerelötesilik veya yerelötesicilik kavramları da ilgi odağı haline gelmiştir. Bu yazı sosyoloji, antropoloji, siyaset bilimi, psikoloji ve beşeri coğrafyadan bazı çalışmaları birleştirerek ulusötesicilik bağlamında yeni sosyal coğrafyalar yaratan ulusötesi ve yerelötesi toplulukları, kimlikleri ve mekânları/yerleri ele almayı amaçlamaktadır. Ulusötesi ve onun genişletildiği yerelötesi ve yersel mercekler bize göçü, göçmenlerle birlikte göçmen olmayanları ve başka yerlere göç edenleri de hesaba katarak gönderen ve kabul eden yerler ötesinde çoklu yerler olarak değerlendirme fırsatı sunmaktadır. Göçle ilgili yeni bakış açıları, aynı zamanda kimlik, aidiyet ve demokrasi meselelerini yeniden düşünmeyi; süreçlerin tarihsel sürekliliğini izlemeyi ve metodolojik değişiklik yapmayı, yeni yöntemler geliştirmeyi de sağlamaktadır. Araştırmalar, ulusötesi/yerelötesi pratiklerin göçmenlerin gittikleri yere adaptasyonunu ve aynı zamanda köken bölgenin gelişimini destekleyebileceğini göstermektedir. Bu bağlamda makale, ulusötesicilik/yerelötesilik ile bütünleşme ve göç ile kalkınma arasındaki mevcut ve olası bağlantıları keşfetmek için yeni araştırmalar yapılması gerektiğini vurgulamaktadır.

Minding Methodology

The present paper addresses the question of methodology in theology-missiology’s engagement with migration studies in academic settings. Migration Studies’ rapidly growing literature rarely discusses methodology. While acknowledging that research is always defined by methodology with ontology, epistemology and their assumptions as core-components, the present article perceives migration as a field of inquiry and seeks to create dialogue and conversation on methodology at the level of intra-disciplinarity, multi-disciplinarity and pluri-disciplinarity (Tötösy de Zepetnek and Vasvári 2009). It assumes that methodological nationalism (Wimmer and Glick-Schiller 2002, and Wimmer 2007) penetrates much of migration studies and therefore needs interdisciplinary attention and should be replaced by relevant and innovative approaches to migration. Intra-disciplinarily, the article problematizes two theological conceptualizations of migration: migration aslocus theologicusand migration as context. It argues that revisiting meanings attributed to “locus” and “context” will lead to a more relevant contextual theological praxis related to migration. Multi-disciplinarily, it focuses on ethnicity and introduces the models of boundary-making and structuration as means of combating methodological nationalism. As regards pluri-disciplinarity the article issues a call for teamwork fostering methodological awareness.

Reflections on Migration, Community, and Place

AbstractThis paper explores different conceptualisations of migration, community, and place as an introduction to a themed issue of this journal concerned with the contextualisation of migrants' experiences across a range of nested scales. The purpose of this collection of papers is to draw out the spatial variability, contradictions, and ambiguities in migrant experiences and to explore conceptual frameworks for understanding the connections between migration, community, and place. The papers focus on local places of social encounter, particularly at the neighbourhood and city scale, but they also draw attention to the value of comparative research to tease out structural differences in opportunities, social context, and policy that underpin commonalities and differences in experience between localities. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Taking the Road Less Travelled

Sino-Africa relations are criticized as a form of neo-colonialism on one hand and commended for their investment in African economies on the other. This article provides analyses of artwork featured in the ‘Making Way’ exhibition, which, by bringing together a combination of Chinese and South African artists, seeks to forge new paths in conceptualizations of migration, diaspora and identity. The intricate identities of Chinese communities who reside in contemporary South Africa are often overlooked. The geo-political similarities between these two nations form the basis of the curatorial thematic links. Artists such as Chen Qiulin, Hua Jiming, Maleonn, Lebogang Rasethaba, Kudzanai Chiurai, Athi Patra-Ruga, Gerald Machona and Doung Anwar Jahangeer reveal that seeing ‘makes way for a discursive window to the world’ and that notions of socio-cultural identities are constructed through modes of perception.

Coffee Shops and Cigarettes: On the ‘Return’ to Tehran of Young Diasporic Iranians

This essay explores the experiences of a young community of diasporic Iranians living and working in Tehran during the years 2007–2009 when the author lived there. Through analysis of the lived experiences of this group, the article highlights a unique experience that is often absent from current discussions of “diaspora.” In the preliminary research, a redeployment of often taken-for-granted concepts such as “home” and “abroad” are proposed and a conceptualization of migration and diaspora that problematizes stasis and movement is reconsidered.

Counterurbanization: Condemned to Be a Chaotic Conception?

This paper presents an overview of past and current debates over the conceptualization of migration into rural areas – counterurbanization. It begins with the history of the term itself, leading us from its original use to the contemporary plurality of its meanings. Key issues in the process of defining counterurbanization are examined, in light of the term’s historical development. The article illustrates a shift in counterurbanization research from the study of the settlement system to the study of local dimensions of counterurbanization and finally to the discursive production of counterurbanization. Secondly, contemporary residential decentralization in Czechia and the theoretical framing of counterurbanization are linked together in order to discuss the relevance of the counterurbanization research agenda in Czechia. The article concludes by stating the need for new ways to approach migration into rural areas.

Maturational opportunities in migration: separation–individuation perspective

AbstractThe psychological research of migration tends to overstress its distress‐provoking aspects and neglect the psychological opportunities that immigration presents. Based on the conceptualization of migration as a separation–individuation process, this paper attempts to shed some light on potential growth‐promoting factors in migration. Through the narrative of a young woman immigrant, it demonstrates how migration may offer an additional opportunity for psychological maturation and the attainment of autonomy. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

“I am not willing to return at this time...” - Transmigration of Eastern European Women as Transformation Strategy

For centuries social and cultural science studies have conceptualized migration as a one-directional move leaving the country of origin behind. This article which is based on a two years ethnographical research project on migration strategies of young Slovakian women to Germany can-not only show that the new migration patters after the so-called fall of the Iron Curtain are much more of a mobile, temporary culture producing new transnational social figurations stretching at least over two different countries. The article shows as well how these women are positioning their migration strategies in the context of the transformation processes of their post-socialist country. Their practice of mobility and their reasoning of the transformation processes challenge not only the classical conceptualizations of migration but as well the hegemonic reading of the Eastern European transformation in social and cultural sciences. Their practices call for a gender sensible transnational anthropological perspective conne...

Interprovincial Migration, Population Redistribution, and Regional Development in China: 1990 and 2000 Census Comparisons*

Until recently, migration has had a limited role to play in China's space economy because of central-planning logic and mechanisms. Mobility increases and economic restructuring since the 1980s, however, call for new conceptualizations of migration. Using interprovincial migration data from China's 1990 and 2000 censuses, I analyze migration rates, migration effectiveness, population growth, net migration flows, and spatial focusing of migration. The analysis supports the notions that migration is an increasingly effective factor of population redistribution and that it has a strong relationship with regional development. While these relationships have been documented in many other parts of the world, they have been less well addressed in the case of China. Regional divergence in economic development during the 1990s was accompanied by a marked increase in interprovincial migration and sharply concentrated migration flows, especially from relatively poor central and western provinces to the rapidly growing eastern region. These results suggest that migration theories that draw from experiences of capitalist economies may be of increased relevance to China. *This research was partially supported by a UCLA Academic Senate research grant. I would like to acknowledge Jiantao Lu for research assistance and Chase Langford for cartographic assistance. I would also like to thank Truman Hartshorn and seven anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions on an earlier version of the paper.

Driven women

This article focuses on the skill and fortitude of Gagauz Moldovans who migrate to Istanbul to work as domestic laborers. I consider how these 'driven' women negotiate their subject positions as mothers and wives, educated workers, migrants and paid domestic laborers, Turkish-speaking Christians and former Soviets. While their understandings reproduce certain power relations in Turkey and Moldova, their journeys also constitute a route for empowerment. Their situation is presented in the context of a 'discourse of sexual threat' that circulates about them in Turkey. I examine how this discourse and the women's understandings of their own subjectivities work to open or close off, contribute to or limit, the subject positions, the goals and desires, and the potential agency of Gagauz and Turkish individuals. By considering these issues in this way, I argue that this case study may challenge traditional academic conceptualizations of migration in Europe, female subjects and power relations.

Preparing adolescents for immigration: a group intervention

This paper describes and illustrates a group intervention that prepared adolescents from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) for immigration to Israel. The intervention was implemented for students setting out to Israel for a special educational program and was carried out in summer camps held for these students in the FSU. The intervention was structured according to the principles of primary prevention in the sphere of mental health. Its contents were based on the conceptualization of migration as a separation–individuation process. The techniques were attuned to previous cultural experiences and future needs of the participants. A scheme for the intervention was formulated in advance, however, the facilitators were free to implement their ideas as well. Vignettes that demonstrate the different variations of the model are presented.

Between unity and plurality: the politicization and securitization of the discourse of immigration in Europe1

Immigration has always been at the heart of controversy in the history of human societies and, most recently, in the history of nation‐states. The aim of this article is, first, to help get to the heart of the “problem” of mass migration in Europe by investigating how the “politicization” of migration is created at the national level and discussing the mutually conditioning relationships between public opinion, mass media, identity politics and fear in the evolution of immigration policy discourse in the Member States of the European Union (emphasis on the UK and Italy). Secondly, the article questions how and why the conceptualization of migration as a security concern has become dominant in European countries and whether there has been a shift between the way immigration is addressed in Member States' policies and the way the European Union is now confronting the issue (post‐Amsterdam treaty). Is the European Union approaching immigration with a “new vision”? Adopting a discourse‐theoretical approach, the article argues that the inevitability of the politicization of immigration derives from the inescapable contradiction between democratic equality and plurality and that the discourse type of securitization of migration has emerged as the hegemonic discourse in the Member States, produced by the interplay of publics, media and governments and aimed at the preservation of existing power structures and socio‐political boundaries. The article then concludes that the national discourse on immigration as a security concern is reflected and re‐adopted (but carefully re‐articulated) by the European Union.

Methodological nationalism and beyond: nation–state building, migration and the social sciences

Methodological nationalism is understood as the assumption that the nation/state/society is the natural social and political form of the modern world. We distinguish three modes of methodological nationalism that have characterized mainstream social science, and then show how these have influenced research on migration. We discover parallels between nationalist thinking and the conceptualization of migration in postwar social sciences. In a historical tour d’horizon, we show that this mainstream concept has developed in close interaction with nation–state building processes in the West and the role that immigration and integration policies have played within them. The shift towards a study of ‘transnational communities’— the last phase in this process — was more a consequence of an epistemic move away from methodological nationalism than of the appearance of new objects of observation. The article concludes by recommending new concepts for analysis that, on the one hand, are not coloured by methodological nationalism and, on the other hand, go beyond the fluidism of much contemporary social theory.

Perhaps a seventh person?

This paper examines some aspects of the lives of women who have migrated from the Indian sub-continent to Britain. These women constitute an important example of the pervasive neglect of women in much social science research and they highlight the shortcomings of dominant conceptualizations of migration and culture. It examines the implications of this neglect, attempts to fill some of the obvious gaps and to specify areas of continuing ignorance or distortion. Its aim is to develop an adequate feminist perspective which can inform and improve work not only within social science but outside it. The paper challenges the assumption of migration as a male activity encompassing female experience and the stereotypical presentation of women from the Indian sub-continent common to so much of the scholarly and popular discussion. It questions the use of culture as a ‘catch-all≐ explanation and looks at some of the evidence on women's work in the subcontinent of India and in Britain. It points up the inadequacy of official definitions of work as a basis for understanding women's economic activity.