Mainstream Migration Research Articles

Humanising research on migration decision-making: a situated framework.

The question of why some people (re)migrate while others choose to stay remains one of the important preoccupations in migration studies. It underlines the need to further conceptualise transnational migration to identify the drivers behind individuals' aspiration or intention to (re)migrate or stay where they are. Drawing from several migration theories and perspectives in various disciplines, this paper proposes the situated framework of "humanising research on migration decision-making", that is, highlighting its human aspects. This scholarly enterprise is critically important as mainstream migration theories put more emphasis on individuals' rationality and some life dimensions, thereby overlooking other human aspects of migration and stasis. Viewing individuals as persons, this framework offers three ways to humanise the analysis: thick contextualisation, life dimensions-focused analysis, and time-situated inquiry. It also calls for the engendering of the analysis and decolonising the methodologies adopted in the study of (non-)migration decision-making.

Humanising research on (non-)migration decision-making: a situated framework

Recent global challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, economic crises, and wars have not impeded transnational migration to continuously unfold. The question of why some people migrate while others choose to stay remains one of the important preoccupations in migration studies. It underlines the need to further conceptualise transnational migration to identify the drivers behind individuals’ aspiration or intention to (re)migrate or stay where they are. Drawing from several migration theories and perspectives in various disciplines, this paper proposes the situated framework of “humanising research on (non-)migration decision-making”, that is, highlighting its human aspects. This scholarly enterprise is critically important as mainstream migration theories put more emphasis on individuals’ rationality, thereby overlooking other human aspects of migration and stasis. Viewing individuals as persons, this framework offers three ways to humanise the analysis: thick contextualisation, life dimensions-focused analysis, and time-situated inquiry. It also calls for the engendering of the analysis and decolonising the methodologies adopted in the study of (non-)migration decision-making.

Ukrainian asylum seekers in Latvia: the circumstances of destination choice

Russian invasion in Ukraine in 2022 has created the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since WWII. Close to 7 million people have left the country as of August 2022 and figures keep growing. Latvia has accommodated a mere 36 thousand of them, but it exemplifies other smaller countries in the refugee flows. Patterns and factors of asylee destination decisions for less popular destinations have not been explored making one wonder what makes refugees deviate from the mainstream migration flows. We explore why and how Ukrainian war-displaced people have chosen Latvia using the narratives of Ukrainian displaced people who arrived in Latvia in early stages of the conflict. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with refugees in Latvia, we find that networks are the primary determinant of the choice to flee to Latvia. The closeness of kinship is not as important as the fact of having the contact as such, nor does it determine the level of support. Close or distant relatives and friends are the first instance to turn to for war-displaced civilians, while financial factors do not appear to be decisive. In the situation of acute displacement, the first asylee strategy is to seek support in kinship and other networks.

Introduction: Meanings of Mobility Among Peasants in Europe, 1300–1800

Abstract Migration is a fundamental but often neglected chapter in the history of European peasant societies. Knowledge of migration in Medieval and Early Modern rural Europe adds significantly to our understanding of phenomena as diverse as serfdom, the land market, social stratification, the diffusion of agricultural practices, and responses to climate change. To advance this knowledge, we need to consult both documentary evidence and archaeological data, and study diverse parts of Europe. This special issue of the Journal of Migration History collects articles devoted to various aspects of mobility among peasants and its multiple meanings. Written by historians and archaeologists, they present a plethora of perspectives, methods, and approaches to the study of migration in the past. This introductory article describes the themes and scope of the articles. We argue for the importance of migration to peasant studies but also for the integration of peasant studies into mainstream migration history.

Surrogacy-led migration: reflections on the policy dilemmas

PurposeThere is abundant research on surrogacy; however, migration scholars have not addressed surrogacy-driven migration. Policies related to surrogacy and surrogacy-led migration are under-researched. The paper argues that surrogacy-led migration or fertility/reproductive migration constitutes a significant part of mainstream migration. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the policy dilemmas in various countries.Design/methodology/approachA total of 9 surrogate mothers (4 from India; 2 from Thailand, 2 from Indonesia and 1 from Nepal) and 8 commissioning parents (2 from Japan; 4 from Europe; 1 from the USA; 1 from Australia) and 2 doctors (1 from India and 1 from Thailand) selected on snowball basis were interviewed between 2014 and 2016 by using a checklist.FindingsThe deficiency and inconsistency of laws regarding surrogacy facilitated the growth of the surrogacy market. Therefore, a uniform policy would help to define and improve the surrogacy and surrogacy-led migration management.Originality/valueThis paper demonstrates the interplay of surrogacy and mainstream migration. This is a fresh addition to the study of migration.

Climate change induced migration: A study on informal settlement in Dhaka city

The purpose of this paper to know decision making plan of urban migrant people of urban slam in Dhaka city in the context of climate change. Besides this study also make out the reason of migration for the settlement of urban slam and the current socio economic situation and vulnerability of those who have moved to urban as slam dwellers. The study conducted at two slum of Dhaka with purposive sample survey, KII and in depth qualitative interview of selected climate migrant slum dwellers. The study found that migrants residing in urban side-line of Dhaka city slum have been using migration as livelihood or survival strategy for quite some times. Mainstream migration literature of Bangladesh mostly highlighted economic, social and demographic challenges as drivers of rural‚ urban migration. This study found that many economic, social and demographic challenges that led to migration decision of the slum dwellers are deeply bounded with the environmental or climatic stresses of the areas of their origin. Migrants of Dhaka slum mostly experienced environmental stresses, i.e. riverbank erosion, cyclone, flood, water logging drought and salinity. In other words, these groups of people have taken help of different types of migration (short-term, cyclical, seasonal or permanent) to adapt to the changes that took place in their lives due to social and economic reasons influenced by climatic stresses. After migration city slum’s vulnerability represents necessary reformulation of the existing policies on migration in the context of climate change. This study effort to identify the major climatic stress and shocks in the decision to migrate. It also clarify livelihood pursued by migrants and other house members. This study is on adaptation strategies of urban migrants in the context of climate change.

The European Development Response to the Refugee and Migration Crisis

This paper is focused on the European development response to the refugee and migration crisis. European development aid was impacted by the refugee and migration crisis and appeared to be a tool to smooth the consequences of the crisis in Europe. The author conducted semi-structured interviews with scholars, policymakers and representatives of civil society and came to conclusion that the European Union (EU) and its members, instead of developing a strategic programme to resolve this structural issue, used a tactical solution to achieve the short-term goal of stopping migration. Short-term motivations prevailed over a long-term strategy and resulted in the politicization of development aid in policy papers: there was a significant change in the discourse regarding migration and development assistance. While EU members have indeed excessively used official development assistance (ODA) to host refugees in their countries, EU development programmes in African countries have been largely relabeled as “migration-related.” So far there is no evidence-based research that redistribution of aid beneficiaries has taken place as a result of the policy to tackle the “root causes” of migration.This paper first outlines the European policy framework on development assistance which is aimed at migration management. Then it identifies the EU initiatives to mainstream migration into the development agenda, and considers members’ use of ODA to cover domestic expenses for refugees and asylum seekers. The paper concludes by outlining the key concerns regarding instrumentalization of aid.

Who Counts as a Migrant Footballer? A Critical Reflection and Alternative Approach to Migrant Football Players on National Teams at the World Cup, 1930–2018

Although there is a common belief that more footballers are representing countries other than their native ones in recent World Cup editions, a historical overview on migrant footballers representing national teams is lacking. To fill this gap, a database consisting of 10,137 football players who participated in the World Cup (1930–2018) was created. To count the number of migrant footballers in national teams over time, we critically reflect on the term migrant and the commonly used foreign-born proxies in mainstream migration research. A foreign-born approach to migrants overlooks historical-geopolitical changes like the redrawing of international boundaries and colonial relationships, and tends to shy away from citizenship complexities, leading to an overestimation of the number of migrant footballers in a database. Therefore, we offer an alternative approach that through historical contextualization with an emphasis on citizenship, results in more accurate data on migrant footballers – contextual-nationality approach. By comparing outcomes, a foreign-born approach seems to indicate an increase in the volume of migrant footballers since the mid-1990s, while the contextual-nationality approach illustrates that the presence of migrant footballers is primarily a reflection of trends in international migration.

Coordinated approaches to large-scale movements of people: contributions of the Paris Agreement and the Global Compacts for migration and on refugees

It is not yet clear how climate change will affect the structural constraints and spatial and social complexity that affect population movements in the future. Today, countries of origin, transit, and destination have reached a juncture. The UNFCCC Paris Agreement adds value to decisions these countries face by helping them explore possible scenarios for impacts that include large movements of people that could be associated with a rise in global average temperatures between 1.5 and 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. Climate policy and mainstream migration and refugee policy are developing recommendations by the end of 2018 that, together, will provide new contours for governing human mobility in the twenty-first century. This paper compares work on human mobility under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and how climate change features in the initial drafts of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) and the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR). The international community can choose not to include such future considerations, missing opportunities to avert risks of involuntary movements of people as climate change impacts intensify. Alternatively, the international community can help countries to preempt risks arising from governance gaps and climate impacts, incorporate climate and mobility considerations in planning, and establish contingency arrangements for large-scale movements of people. A measure of efficacy in coordinating responses to large-scale movements of people will be the degree to which both state and non-state actors take up the recommendations of the Task Force on Displacement, how the Global Compact for Migration is negotiated, and the degree to which states utilize the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework as climate and other dynamics unfold in future years.

The contribution of J.R. Commons to migration analysis

The complexities of migration have exposed fundamental problems in how mainstream economists understand migration and shown the limitations of the neoliberal migration policies typically proposed as panacea to overcome the migration crisis. Therefore, political economy must provide both a critique of and alternative to mainstream economics theories and policies of migration. Yet, while the canon of mainstream migration theories is vast, the radical political economy challenge is relatively undeveloped or narrowly centred on structural Marxist political economy. To broaden the radical challenge to the mainstream, this essay highlights and clarifies a simple institutional economics framework based on the notes provided by J.R. Commons in his 1907 classic: Races and Immigrants in America. Commons’ approach is radically different from the mainstream in terms of its unit, scale, and concept of labour. Grounded in trans-actions rather than homo economicus and multi-scalar and historical instead of mainstream ahistoricism and spatial separatism, this approach does not consider labour as ‘capital’ in which to ‘invest’ to produce more goods or commodity merely to be sold. In turn, its policy orientation is also entirely different. This institutional framework has much in common with the Marxist alternative, for example, in terms of emphasising the class basis of migration. However, it is sufficiently different from the Marxist approach to constitute a distinctive paradigm that can help to better understand and transcend migration. Although the institutional economics framework has major drawbacks, including its sympathies with eugenics or ‘scientific racism’, these problems can be addressed without losing the essence of the approach: offering a critique of and alternatives to mainstream economics while evolving into a full-scale institutional economics migration approach.

Migrant Domestic Workers as ‘Agents’ of Development in Asia

Temporary contract migration represents the predominant form of legal migration policy in Asia. With its rationale of the filling of jobs and provision of income-generating opportunities, it is linked to the migration–development nexus debate. This paper focuses on the impact of migrants’ agency as development actors within a transnational sphere. The mainstream migration–development nexus debate and policy prescriptions imagine diaspora groups as the ideal conduit for grassroots-driven development initiatives. While ‘diaspora group-led’ initiatives assume long-term, if not permanent, migration, temporary migration creates a dynamic that is fundamentally distinct. Temporality of migration, as mandated by bilateral agreements and promoted by global institutions in Asia, shapes migrant agency and migrants’ development aspirations in essentially different ways, but temporary contract migrants are nevertheless constructed as the ‘agents of development’ at the macro level of politics and policies, while receiving limited research attention. This paper analyses temporality, migrant agency and the migration–development nexus debate in relation to female domestic workers who epitomise the feminisation of migration and constitute the largest number of newly hired migrants in many key source countries in Southeast Asia. This introduces a gender dimension to our discussion of temporary migration in its link to migrants’ developmental agency.

Migration, African migrants, and the world: towards a radical political economy

In what ways does class shape the migration of Africans? How have Europeans in Africa been treated and how does such experience compare with how Africans in Europe have been treated historically? If migration in the past was an instrument to underdevelop Africa, are Africans and Africa now using migration to develop the continent as advocates of neoliberal and neocolonial growth-led development suggest? Political economists have long grappled with these issues and debated mainstream responses over the years. Yet, with the so-called ‘migration crisis’ of recent months, we need fresh perspectives and responses to these questions. John Arthur’s Class Formations and Inequality Structures in Contemporary African Migration; Afe Adogame and Andrew Lawrence’s collection, Africa in Scotland, Scotland in Africa: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Hybridities, and Lisa Ǻkesson and Maria Eriksson Baaz’s edited volume, Africa’s Return Migrants: The New Developers? bring precisely such freshness of insight and perspective. In doing so, they draw on critical sociological analyses of class, historiography and ethnography in ways that provide the ingredients for a radical political-economic alternative to mainstream migration research and narratives. Curiously, all the books under study founder in not relating their analyses back to the global capitalist system. Combined, however, the books show that analyses of migration in and about Africa and Africans that draw on a variety of evidence and concurrently emphasize the three social forces of class, race, and neocolonial neoliberalism reveal that migration largely emerges from, contributes to, and is constrained by uneven development under capitalism, ideas that can help to make political economy more postcolonial; and postcolonialism more political economic.

Privileged Mobilities: Locating the Expatriate in Migration Scholarship

AbstractMigrants who are privileged by citizenship, class or ‘race’ are largely still absent from mainstream migration research and theory; until recently, they were generally assumed to be adaptable and acceptable cosmopolites, positive drivers of cross‐border transfers of knowledge and skills. This has been addressed by an emerging scholarship on ‘expatriates’. This article offers a review and critical reading of that literature; it considers the instabilities and ambiguities of the term ‘expatriate’ and situates expatriate migrants within the global economy, before examining the gendered nature of expatriation and attending to migrants' incorporation in host contexts and expatriate negotiations of identity. The literature suggests that at the heart of these processes lie complex configurations of racialisation, gender, class and nationality, often involving problematic reproductions of the colonial past. This article argues that these issues are inherently related to the category's inconsistencies, rendering it difficult as a ‘category of analysis’. Instead, rather than using the term as a pre‐given conceptual frame, it needs to be treated as a ‘category of practice’ to be investigated in its own right. Especially as the subject becomes more established in migration studies, scholars need to reckon with the ongoing challenge that lies in studying the identity category ‘expatriate’ while resisting reproducing a reified understanding of it.

The Repugnant Other: Soldiers, Missionaries, and Aid Workers as Organizational Migrants

Most people do not consider diplomats, corporate expatriates, missionaries, scholars, or soldiers to be migrants. Even migration scholars often pay little attention to people whose migratory behavior is primarily determined by the interests of the organization they work for. The reason for this blind spot is not the lack of analytical tools. In his landmark 1971 paper on the mobility transition, the geographer Wilbur Zelinsky already acknowledged the importance of such—often highly skilled—migrants. Five years later, Charles Tilly made a similar point in his migration typology, which was adopted in the overview of migration in Western Europe by Leslie Page Moch, by explicitly distinguishing “career migrants.” Notwithstanding the inclusion of what we label “organizational migrants” by leading scholars, in the mainstream migration historiography attention to their mobility is conspicuously lacking.

Gender in the Migratory Process

This paper argues for treating gender as a key category in the understanding of migratory processes. Starting with an illustration of the absence of women in mainstream migration research, it presents the debate on this phenomenon and its development from a focus on women to one on gender. Through discussion of the debate on current migration phenomena it is demonstrated how gender can be used in a conceptual framework which includes various levels (micro, meso and macro). The paper advocates the analysis of migratory processes within a broader framework of social change.

Gendered Factors of Chinese Multi-locality Migration: The New Zealand Case

Chinese female migration always stands apart from New Zealand mainstream migration. Historically, Chinese women were restricted by openly discriminatory legislation and selective manipulation of immigration policies until the introduction of new immigration policy in 1987. Contemporarily, the multi-locality strategy (popularly labelled as 'astronauting') that Chinese women and their families pursue has attracted much media attention. This paper will explore the gendered factors of Chinese migration within the New Zealand context and examine the grounds on which some of these popular perceptions have developed. The researchers found that in recent years Chinese women greatly outnumbered their male counterparts not just because they were 'wives left behind in New Zealand', but also because more Chinese young women migrated to New Zealand on their own initiatives. By critically analysing two sets of data sources (the New Zealand Census and New Zealand Immigration Services), we found that the number of female principal applicants in the General Skilled Category is higher than that of male. The crucial indicator is that Chinese women are actively involved in the migration decision-making process and may even be the driving force of this mobility. Further empirical evidence also shows that women have played lead roles in the return migration processes, giving impetus to transnational movements and multi-locality migration.

TOWARDS A THEORETICAL EXPLORATION OF THE DIFFERENTIAL URBANISATION MODEL IN SUB‐SAHARAN AFRICA: THE BOTSWANA CASE

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the extent to which the differential urbanisation model is applicable to Botswana by using empirical data obtained from periodic censuses, supportive documentary information and observations from personal on‐going research on urbanisation and migration. Differential urbanisation refers to the cyclic spatio‐temporal growth trends that the elements of human settlement hierarchies undergo, in response to migration. Empirical studies have verified the validity of differential urbanisation in the United States, Europe, India and South Africa. These areas, unlike Botswana, have longer histories of urbanisation, larger population sizes, denser population distributions, and higher levels of economic development. Current research interest is focused on investigating the theoretical applicability of the differential urbanisation model to those countries at the lower end of the economic development spectrum. The rationale and thrust of this paper is to therefore investigate the relevance of differential urbanisation under unique environmental, demographic and socio‐economic conditions that pertain to Botswana. Evidence from the paper shows that urbanisation in Botswana has occurred in sequenced phases that, in general, resemble those suggested by the differential urbanisation model in the following ways. First, there has been concentration in the primate city due to mainstream migration. Secondly, there has been fission leading to the fast growth of the adjacent intermediate settlements, partly as a result of deglomeration economies at the primate core accompanied by substream migration. Third, the peripheral regional and rural centres appear to be now growing relatively rapidly, in response to the implementation of decentralisation policies.

The Development of the River Thames in Central London during the Flandrian

Reconstruction of the pre-urban situation from historical sources and contour mapping of subsurface information demonstrate the existence of a system of eyots and channels within the flood-plain of the Thames in central London. Their formation is explained by predominantly northward migration of the Thames channel during the Flandrian. Analysis of the tributary drainage pattern allows a more precise description of the mechanics of migration and is used to calibrate the northward movement. Five chronological stages (Thames 1-5) are proposed, the position of the Thames and the tributary configuration described at each. Particular attention is paid to the formation of the anomalous Isle of Dogs meander in East London. The succession of events is examined in more detail using the examples of the rivers Tyburn and Fleet for which more historical data are available than other tributaries. Dating flood-plain deposits is discussed and a chronology, derived from Flandrian eustatic change in the Thames estuary, applied to main stream migration in central London. The case for unidirectional migration is debated and comments appended on the relative utility of urban areas for geomorphological investigation. Directions for future research are outlined.