Migrant Economy Research Articles

Bridging the Labour Regulation Gaps in India’s Informal Migrant Economy amid Covid-19 Pandemic: Uncovering Challenges and Results

Bridging the Labour Regulation Gaps in India’s Informal Migrant Economy amid Covid-19 Pandemic: Uncovering Challenges and Results

Climate Refugees or Future Migrant Labour Force: A Decolonial Critique of Matthieu Rytz’s Anote’s Ark (2018) and Climate Displacement Discourse in the Pacific

Between 2010 to 2020, the global media generally had a very positive view of the voluntary migration schemes or humanitarian refugee visas promised by their Pacific allies (e.g., Australia and New Zealand). However, the actual implementation of climate migrants’ relocation tells a different story, particularly in the case of I-Kiribati people. This paper examines Australian and New Zealand’s governmental policies of immigration for the Pacific islanders over the last two decades. Drawing on a decolonial theoretical approach inspired by Jonathan Pugh, David Chandler and Elizabeth DeLoughrey, in conjunction with Prem Kumar Rajaram’s post-Marxist migrant economy theory, this paper argues that the Australian and New Zealand governments ultimately only paid lip service to humanitarian aid for climate displaced people. In fact, the proposed schemes for I-Kiribati people or other Pacific climate migrants ultimately serve to convert the migrant populations into the host country’s labour force, of use for its neoliberal economy. The second half of the paper turns to an analysis of an award-winning climate documentary produced by a Canadian film maker, Matthieu Rytz. Rytz’s Anote’s Ark (2018) aligns with the “migrating with dignity” policy proposed by the former I-Kiribati president, Anote Tong. Bringing in Malcom Ferdinand’s decolonial analysis of the figure of Noah’s ark in the climate discourse, the paper problematises the general political consensus advanced by this particular type of contemporary climate documentary and challenges the feasibility of the “migrating with dignity” approach. Most importantly, it questions whether climate migrants can truly build a future with dignity in their host country if they are conditioned to supply the migrant labour market.

Affective News, Affective Labor: Chinese Female “Little Editors” of WeChat Official Accounts in Australia

In Australia, WeChat Official Accounts is known as a hub for the production and distribution of affective news, or sensationalized content, among Chinese migrants. This article aims to address: Who/What is responsible for this form of content production on WeChat? Who are the people (re)producing news information for WeChat Official Accounts in Australia? How and why do they engage with such activities for Australia-based WeChat Official Accounts? And how do they shed light on our digital culture, economy, and platform labor? To address the questions, from 2019 to 2022, I conducted 27 semi-structured interviews with Chinese-Australian media professionals at both managerial and staff levels as well as conducted a longitudinal ethnographic observation with more than 200 Australia-based WeChat Official Accounts that translate news stories for the Chinese diaspora. The article argues that in Australia affective news on WeChat is the news story that conveys emotional resonance to Chinese migrant readers; it is predominantly produced by Chinese female little editors who work as affective labor. The employment of affective labor, that is, Chinese female international students or postgraduates, has led to the concentration of precarity, exploitation, and alienation among the groups of Chinese female little editors who are vulnerably exposed to the double exclusion coming from both neoliberalism in Australia’s dominant society and patriarchal normativity embedded in the Chinese migrant economy. The research findings shed light on the intensifying social inequality based on one’s race, ethnicity, gender, and social class that has been imposed and further normalized by digital technologies.

(Shared) ethnicity in ethnographic research on clandestine and informal practices in the migrant and ethnic minority economy

This article addresses the methodological and ethical challenges of ethnographic research on sensitive topics such as clandestine practices in the migrant and ethnic minority economy. Drawing on related criminological and sociology of deviance literature I draw on my experiences of insider-ethnographic research in the Chinese migrant and ethnic minority economy in the Netherlands and Romania to demonstrate how stigmas related to race/ethnicity and clandestine practices can strongly shape access, rapport and researcher’s positionality in the field. Research participants’ concerns about these stigmas also revealed ethical questions on how to report on clandestine and informal practices without contributing to further stigmatisation and racialisation. At the same time, my experiences show that whether clandestine practices and race/ethnicity are considered sensitive topics is an emergent issue. In the Netherlands, due to active enforcement of clandestine practices in the migrant and ethnic minority economy, these practices were a sensitive topic of inquiry. In Romania, by contrast, clandestine practices were not treated as sensitive subject matter as these were normalised by research participants and broader Romanian society, due to a lack of active enforcement and criminalisation.

Positioning Migrants in Informal Cross Border Trade: The Case of Busia, Uganda-Kenya Border

Informal cross-border trade (ICBT) is illegal in Uganda and Kenya because of revenue loss making it risky and thus traders are treated suspiciously. Regardless, internal and international migrants persistently engage in ICBT. This study thus sought to examine the motivating factors for migrants' continued engagement in ICBT despite state restrictions. Using ethnographic research design, the study captured and generated contextualised explanations of the motivating factors, migrants' behaviours, voices, concerns and thoughts. Fieldwork lasted for twelve months: February, 2015 to January, 2016. The data collection methods included in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and participant observation. Participants included migrant and local traders-men and women, transporters, border security, and local leaders. Findings indicate that the strength and density of migrants' social networks, their survival needs, border prospects, and weak enforcement of ICBT guidelines are key drivers of migrants to ICBT. Guided by social networks, migrant traders dominate petty trade, informal monetary exchange and other spill over entrepreneurial activities. Therefore, there is need to recognise that migrant economy is an increasingly vital contributor to the national economy of the countries connected by the border.

Movilidad itinerante y entornos construidos

Durante cuatro meses al año la ciudad de Pomán, provincia de Catamarca -Argentina-, experimenta la llegada de trabajadores migrantes para la cosecha del olivo. La ley Nacionalde Desarrollo Económico Nº 22.021 y su modificatoria 22.702 impulsaron esta actividad transformando los espacios productivos y sociales. Se estima que entre febrero y mayo lapoblación presenta un crecimiento demográfico de alrededor del 30%. Este artículo analiza qué problemas enfrenta la ciudad frente a esta movilidad itinerante y qué tipo de entornos se construyen a partir de la sociabilidad entre los migrantes y los habitantes locales. Para esto se analizan los espacios de la residencia migrante y su forma de habitarlos; laorganización material de la ciudad durante la migración (salud, educación y economía) y la producción de sociabilidad como elemento legitimador de este tipo de movilidad. El trabajo se basa en un estudio cualitativo con entrevistas en profundidad a diferentes actores locales y migrantes durante la época de la migración. Entre los principales resultados se destaca laausencia de políticas públicas para sostener los procesos de movilidad, la producción de una economía migrante a nivel local y la instauración de eventos simbólicos a favor de laestabilidad de esta itinerancia.

Hard Work as Identity Work in the Migrant Economy

The social construction of identity has associated certain identities and bodies with entrepreneurship and as enterprising and constructed other bodies as non-enterprising. In this study, I explore how stigmatized and racialized bodies constructed as ‘unentrepreneurial’ use the agency of hard work to negotiate stigma associated with their identity and project a coherent self-identity that is congruent with their entrepreneurial identity. By conceptualizing hard work as identity work at the intersection of entrepreneurship and embodiment, I theorize the body as a performative site of entrepreneurial legitimacy and identity negotiation. I argue that although hard work is critical to ventures’ growth and success, hard work can become racialized. Racialized hard work is excessive, overbearing and disempowering. A good proportion of the work done within the black migrant economy under the disguise of entrepreneurship is done as identity work. This study contributes to the research in identity work by identifying hard work as an intersectional site of identity work.

Multiplying Labour, Multiplying Resistance: Class Composition in Buenos Aires’ Clandestine Textile Workshops

AbstractBuenos Aires’ talleres clandestinos (clandestine textile workshops) are powerful sites of accumulation and resistance; a complex and communitarian migrant economy. The economy’s complexity is, however, masked by its spatiality, clandestinity, and the promotion of culturalist analyses that ignore intra‐collective class differentials. This paper considers the “autonomy of migration” approach through the lens of “class composition” to explore the talleres’ contours. Witnessed in the talleres is a clear “multiplication of labour”, yet approaching this multiplication compositionally highlights the multiple examples of resistance and refusal immanent to the workshop economy. But this dialectic of control and resistance transcends the workplace, with the talleres one node in a wider, socially reproductive borderscape. By developing a framework that neither condemns nor celebrates economic structures like the talleres, but instead unpacks their antagonistic nature, the paper highlights the benefits of (a) analysing the autonomy of migration approach compositionally, and (b) further geographical engagement with autonomist thinking.

The migration–urbanisation nexus in Nepal's exceptional urban transformation

AbstractThe dynamic relationship between urban transformation and migration pathways formed by multiple attractions and mobilities to, within, and beyond urban areas constitute what we, in this paper, refer to as the migration–urbanisation nexus. Drawing on case studies of urban growth in three urban sites of Nepal, this paper explores how migration practices, including rural–urban, international and return migration, and the migrant economy, exemplified by returns of remittances, intersect with the socioeconomic and spatial dynamics of urban growth. The analysis combines quantitative and qualitative data on migration pathways, including the historical timing of migration, the shifting drivers of rural–urban migration, and examinations of the links to an international migration and remittance economy. The findings show how rural–urban migration during the 10 years of conflict is setting urban growth in motion. However, most importantly, the analysis reveals how urban growth and form are stimulated by the migrant agency related to translocal migration economies, in particular, urban investments of international remittances. In conclusion, it is suggested that the migration–urbanisation nexus approach developed in this paper has potential to be used beyond Nepal in studies of migration and urban growth.

Women in the migrant economy. A positional approach to contextualize gendered transnational trajectories

ABSTRACTDrawing on the life histories of migrant women entrepreneurs in the Netherlands and Spain, this article explores the influence of transnational trajectories on their social positions and business strategies. A translocational positional approach enables us to research the transnational strategies of women entrepreneurs more effectively in addition to examining the changes in social positions and gendered identities between the country of origin and the country of destination. This approach contributes to scholarship on ‘context’ by offering a transnational gendered dimension in relation to the effects of social, spatial and institutional factors. Our findings demonstrate how female migrant entrepreneurs redefine their social status in different contexts by establishing a business and challenge, contest or comply with gender relations in their transnational entrepreneurial journeys.

Risky business and geographies of refugee capitalism in the Somali migrant economy of Gauteng, South Africa

ABSTRACTResearch on migrant livelihoods in South Africa reveals links between social exclusion and migrant ‘cosmopolitan tactics’, including multi-sited socialities, diverse spatial business strategies and orientations precluding integration into a ‘xenophobic’ host society. Drawing on 10 months of ethnographic research, this study explores how Somali migrants’ business practices and tactics of mobility within and beyond Gauteng Province, South Africa (which encompasses Johannesburg and Pretoria) articulate with both broader transnational flows and investments in the local economy. Since the end of apartheid, Somalis and other migrants from the Horn of Africa have carved out an economic niche in peri-urban townships where high risk and frequent movement characterise workers’ lives. The Somali enclave in the neighbourhood of Mayfair, Johannesburg, links local and national circulations of people, goods and money to international circuits of the Somali ethnic economy—an economy that also involves non-Somali groups, mainly from Kenya and Ethiopia. These diverse dynamics of human mobility and financial circulation complicate bounded conceptualisations of transnationalism and also illustrate how tactical cosmopolitanisms may be grounded in spatial and social arrangements. The convergence of migrant mobility and financial flows produces distinctive patterns of livelihood embedded in a multi-scalar geography of movement, remittance, investment, risk and opportunity.

Masculinity, Sexuality and Illegal Migration: Human Smuggling from Pakistan to Europe

Contents: Preface Part I Introduction: Introduction. Part II Drives: Gender, the household and migrant masculinity Sexuality and migration: thinking beyond the economic. Part III Death: Fortress Europe, Afro-Eurasia: human smuggling and restrictive economy Eroticism, history and base materiality: migrant experience in travel and transit. Part IV Loss: Myths and realities of return and arrival: gender and generation in Pakistani migration Time, space and illegality in the new migrant economy Conclusion Bibliography Appendices Index.

Comparative effects of migrants’ remittances on composition of recipient household income in two small, island economies

We use unique household survey data from Fiji and Tonga to estimate and compare the combined impact of migration and remittances on the composition of household income. A two-step methodology is followed employing a migration prediction model followed by the estimation of a Three Stage Least Squares (3SLS) remittances and income equation system. We find that remittances contribute to growth in productive capital and entrepreneurial activity in the longer-established migrant economy, but have yet to impact on business activity in the more recently remittances-oriented economy, despite it having a more developed, market economy. In the latter case, remittances seem more linked to supporting consumption through supplementing low wage income. These findings suggest that the duration and intensity of remittance-driven migration, and the structure of economic activity within a community are important in understanding the influences of migration and remittances on household resource allocation and production decisions.

The Labour Market Consequences of Human Smuggling: ‘Illegal’ Employment in London's Migrant Economy

This article explores the short- and medium-term labour market consequences of human smuggling for migrants at destination within the context of Pakistani migration to London. It questions the pessimistic picture painted in some recent academic and journalistic accounts of the experience of ‘illegality’, and argues that the context of reception does not necessarily make clear distinctions between so-called ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ migrants. It also questions the wisdom of assuming that trafficking and smuggling go hand-in-hand. Whilst harsh abuse by employers does indeed occur, this by no means structures the totality of the irregular migrant's experience. A more helpful conceptual distinction, it is argued, can be made between ‘work’ and ‘jobs’—different types of employment experienced by all migrant workers.

Dead men working: time and space in London's (`illegal') migrant economy

This article explores human smuggling's consequences through a study of London's Pakistani immigrant economy, paying particular attention to the labour process and its experiential dimensions.The latter are unpacked in empirical context with due reference to literatures on illegal migration, as well as more recent writings on employment and `precariousness' that seek to make sense of the changing nature of work patterns under post-Fordist `flexible' regimes in the new global economy. All newly migrated (and some British born) Pakistanis working in ethnic economies endure long hours, poor working conditions, low pay and a general context of insecurity that is distinct from the unionized labour process that prevailed under Fordism. Smuggled migrants tend to deal with a specific set of constraints, however, including added material and psychological burdens stemming from the higher cost of migration and an inability to achieve `structural' embeddedness.

Migrant and the Impact to Social-Economic of Household at Plumbon, Polokarto Sub-District

This research was caried out in Plumbon district of Mojolaban and it was intended to find out demographyc characteristic and migrant social economy, way of mobility process, factor, and reason which affect mobility and social economy effect of mobility action to the migrant family. The applied method to research was surveying and the area of the research was selected purposively, respondent in the surveying amount to 60 which was collected at random out of 320 population. The research outcome shows that mobility agent include in the group of potential age i.e domination of age 22 – 44 groun amount 63,33 percent. Thier education are relatively low i.e amount to 83.33 percent graduated from grammer school and lower. Or if it is more detailed there are 43.33 percent that did not go to school and did not pass grammer school. The work of respondent are 65 percent as workers of factory and construction. Average income per mount of migrant is relatively low i.e Rp 121.417 – only 30 perecent of then do the side job. The reason is that they have no more time as their working hours is long i.e 48 working hours per week, beside a larger part of them have not special skill. Before mobility action their work in farming, it mean that there happened the mobility of working. Decision to realize the mobility emerged from respondents them selves and the main information workes of destination area is an informal one. The effecct of go back and forth mobility to the migrant family is their income improvement, if it is compared to their income before mobility, it includes the problem of providing food, clothing, and education.

Violence, Exile and Ethnicity: Nyemba Refugees in Kaisosi and Kehemu (Rundu, Nambia)

In debates about ethnicity it is often taken for granted that Africans developed or imagined an ethnic identity, albeit in different periods and in different forms. In the Kuando-Kubango province in southeastern Angola, however, ethnic ideology does not seem to have acquired the compelling attraction it has had elsewhere in Africa. Among refugees from this area, who now live in Rundu (Namibia), ethnicity is avoided as a category of identity as well. Very different explanations have been given for the uneven development of ethnic consciousness. Thus some have implied that ethnicity meant little for Africans living in areas where colonial control, missionary enterprise, and a migrant economy did not make a great impact. In another interpretation, specifically dealing with refugees, the lack of ethnic identity has been explained as a ‘pragmatics of identity’ intended to counter the ‘labels’ attached to refugees by local citizens. Refugees use the lack of fixed ethnic identity as a means of becoming inconspicuous members of a cosmopolitan culture and so avoid expulsion. In the first interpretation, the limited significance of ethnicity is situated in peripheral conditions; in the second approach, the fear of ending up in such conditions informs a tactics designed to deny ethnic identity. This article attempts to show that it is not only possible but, in the case under discussion, necessary to reconcile the ‘thesis of marginality’ with the ‘thesis of strategy’.

Violence, Exile and Ethnicity: Nyemba Refugees in Kaisosi and Kehemu (Rundu, Namibia)

In debates about ethnicity it is often taken for granted that Africans developed or imagined an ethnic identity, albeit in different periods and in different forms. In the Kuando-Kubango province in southeastern Angola, however, ethnic ideology does not seem to have acquired the compelling attraction it has had elsewhere in Africa. Among refugees from this area, who now live in Rundu (Namibia), ethnicity is avoided as a category of identity as well. Very different explanations have been given for the uneven development of ethnic consciousness. Thus some have implied that ethnicity meant little for Africans living in areas where colonial control, missionary enterprise, and a migrant economy did not make a great impact. In another interpretation, specifically dealing with refugees, the lack of ethnic identity has been explained as a ‘pragmatics of identity’ intended to counter the ‘labels’ attached to refugees by local citizens. Refugees use the lack of fixed ethnic identity as a means of becoming inconspic...