Guest Workers Research Articles

The Political Ecology of Farmer-Herder Conflict in Ghana: A Case Study of the Kwahu Afram Plains South District

Farmer-herder conflict is an age-old phenomenon, which is widely spread in the West African sub-region. Current studies on the Ghanaian farmer-herder conflict have emphasised the land-related conflicts between indigenous farmers and nomadic herders. It has focused especially on environmental scarcity and climate change approaches. However, this study adopts the political ecology framework to highlight land conflicts between migrant farmers and nomadic herders, two migrant groups that are considered "strangers" to the Kwahu Afram Plains District. The study contributes to the broader debates on farmer-herder conflict. It provides contrary evidence with regard to the popular notion in literature and theory about the prevalence of land insecurity among nomadic herders. The study argues that migrant farmers in the study area experience more land insecurity compared to the nomadic herders. This is because of their history of immigration, their relationship with the Kwahu landowners, which is driving the escalating cost of accessing land, and disputes between landowning groups.

More jobs and less seasonal employment in California agriculture since 1990

Employment in California agriculture has increased over the past 30 years and has become less seasonal. There were an average of 404,000 farm jobs in California in 2020, 10% more than average employment of 367,000 in 1990. Meanwhile, seasonality, as measured by peak month employment divided by trough month employment, fell 22% over three decades, from 1.8 in 1990 to 1.4 in 2020. Most farmworkers have one farm employer a year, although that employer may be a labor contractor who moves workers from one farm to another. Most new workers in the California farm workforce are H-2A guest workers, the young and flexible Mexican workers who are legally authorized to work in the United States and who are often brought to farms by labor contractors. In the future, rising employment and declining seasonality, combined with an aging and settled farm workforce, may reduce farmworker migration and flexibility.

Precarity, Climate Change and Migrant Labour Amitav Ghosh’s Eco-Aesthetics

Migrant workers play an increasing role in Asia, where they are both remarkably mobile and largely disorganized. The workers’ position leaves them disempowered within the workplace; it also leaves them vulnerable in the world outside. In this sense, migrant workers lead lives that are, in Hannah Lewis’s view “hyperprecarious”. The celebration of the collective has been a recurrent trope in Ghosh’s oeuvre, and this article seeks to shed light on the formation of communities of migrant labourers in a transnational space in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island. It explores the heterogeneity of exploitative labor conditions, their situatedness as well as their “lived experiences” documenting the variegated landscape of neo-slavery for vulnerable migrant workers. It also highlights how Amitav Ghosh interrogates the ways in which the Western colonial episteme has commodified nature, land, mountains, and ecology in his most recent writing.

Educational knowledge and politics of receiving migrant pupils. A contribution to Danish welfare state history during the late twentieth century

ABSTRACT The arrival of guest workers in Denmark from the late 1960s meant new political questions of how to receive their children in school. During the 1970s, the heyday of welfare state reforms, a new area of welfare state politics and policy emerged concerning these children: an education politics of migrant pupils accompanied by knowledge being produced in the intersection between the pedagogical professional field, the academic field and the political field. This politics, policy and knowledge area soon became contested among politicians, professionals and academics. The article explores a core discussion still taking place at present, namely how approaches for receiving newly arrived pupils in the Folkeskole (the primary and lower secondary school. Based on source material consisting of parliamentary debates from the official political field and the professional and research-based literature that developed in the period, the article sheds light on how educational knowledge on different approaches to reception was circulated between fields. Executing an analysis that combines concepts from sociology and history of education and knowledge and from theory on policy processes, the article shows how knowledge and politics interacted to make or reject policy junctures in the formative decades when the politics of migrant pupils in the Danish welfare state was established, namely from the early 1970s and up until the mid-1990s. We conclude that local developments and debates in the knowledge production field shaped early school integration policies in the Danish welfare state during the 1970s and 1980s, but had limited influence in the 1990.

Lauren Stokes, Fear of the Family. Guest Workers and Family Migration in the Federal Republic of Germany. Oxford, Oxford University Press 2022

Lauren Stokes, Fear of the Family. Guest Workers and Family Migration in the Federal Republic of Germany. Oxford, Oxford University Press 2022

‘Like every other day’: Writing temporalities of banal exploitation among precarious migrant workers

AbstractThe violence of precarious labour migration is often represented in popular and policy accounts through episodic frames that emphasise particular—often sensationalised and extreme—aspects and moments of more complex and mundane experiences. These depictions commonly appear under the labels of ‘modern‐day slavery’ and ‘labour trafficking’. This paper advances a participatory methodology aimed at elucidating more complex temporalities experienced by precarious migrant labourers, drawing on a project with male migrant workers in Singapore. The methodology developed for this project centres on written diaries/narratives authored by the participants over periods ranging from one to three months. These detailed narratives document struggles—physically, relationally, financially and emotionally—in the context of post‐labour destitution. These struggles appear as both ‘everyday’ difficulties and longer‐term problems, with both temporalities rendered visible as a form of slow violence. This methodology fuses key principles of qualitative longitudinal research (QLR) methods with participatory action research (PAR) to develop a methodological orientation to temporally extenuative experiences of violence that are visible through processes that draw on participants as key producers of knowledge and advocates for change. As a way of engaging migrants' mundane post‐labour struggles, this methodology allows for tracing of the longer‐term and cumulative impacts of precarious migrant labour through participants' own frames of reference.

To stay or re-migrate after the pandemic shock? Labor re-migration intention to the coastal areas of Thừa Thiên Huế province in Vietnam

This study applied the extended theory of planned behavior (ETPB) to explore factors that shape the behavioral intention of migrant laborers returning to the coastal region of Thừa Thiên Huế province during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic to remigrate. Data collection included 210 interviews with returned migrants aged 18 and above in 4 coastal communes of Thừa Thiên Huế province, in-depth interviews (8 key informants) and a group discussion (5 persons). Exploratory factor analysis and a multivariate linear regression model were applied to analyze the data. Results showed that in addition to individual socio-demographic characteristics (i.e. level of education, age, income level and sex), attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and perceived risk were also determinant factors of migrants’ intention to remigrate. This research suggested that in order to build resilience of rural migration workers, related departments should seriously consider the following recommendations: (i) raise awareness and encourage young rural people to complete their education and necessary skills; (ii) organize related psychological training programs for rural laborers; (iii) raise awareness about the necessity to participate in social insurance; (iv) promote rural job creation programs suitable for low education and low-skilled rural laborers; (v) raise awareness for local people, particularly school children, about the value and opportunities of being smart farmers in the context of 4.0 technology and social risks at the destination for low education and low-skilled laborers; (vi) digitalize migration labor management and provide digital information services regarding job opportunities for rural laborers.

Aspects of the Integration of Third and Fourth Generations of Serbian Migrant Workers in Vienna

This paper focuses on the integration of the third and fourth generations of descendants of Serbian migrant workers residing in Vienna, Austria. This immigrant community emerged as a result of the influx of Serbian guest workers who have been moving to Austria for temporary employment since the end of World War II. The third and fourth generations consist of their (great) grandchildren. The objective of this study is to examine the current state of their integration, based on the findings of research undertaken in 2020. Somehow paradoxically, we explore the following research question: to what extent are the third and fourth generation descendants of migrants, who were born and raised in Austria, integrated into the socio-cultural and political system of Austria, given that they are still perceived as ‘persons of migrant origin’?
 In this study, we re-evaluate the concept of integration, which tends to essentialise national identity, and emphasise the dynamic nature of the integration process and the transnational connections of our target group. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting state of emergency, the research was conducted online using Google surveys. We employed non-probabilistic and exponentially non-discriminatory sampling, utilising the ‘snowball’ sampling approach. A total of 73 individuals participated in the survey, which comprised 12 sections with 70 open and closed questions. Of the participants, 43.8% were men, 50.68% women, and 5.47% did not declare their gender.
 We adopted four criteria under which to analyse the integration processes based on the collected data and the responses of our respondents: cultural, structural, social, and emotional. The cultural factor refers to the acquisition of knowledge and skills, such as language proficiency and understanding of social norms. Structural integration involves the positioning and participation of migrants in key aspects of the host society, particularly the job market. Social integration encompasses interactions and connections with the local community and other groups, including marriage, friendships, and interactions beyond one’s own ethnic group. Lastly, emotional integration relates to elements of identification, a sense of belonging, and the various ways in which immigrants maintain connections with their own cultural group.
 We view integration as a dynamic and interactive phenomenon influenced by three parties: the country of origin (Serbia), the immigrants themselves, and their descendants. Thus, we investigate all three factors, while frequently highlighting intergenerational disparities in the integration process. In addition to the concept of integration, we incorporate contemporary interpretations of transnationality in this study, demonstrating that even members of the third and fourth generations of Serbian labour migrants maintain strong cultural ties and utilise cultural elements from both their ancestors’ country of origin (Serbia) and the country in which they were born and raised (Austria). Ultimately, we conclude that they are equally integrated into both the Serbian immigrant population in Austria and the society of their origin country, while maintaining significant transnational and emotional connections with Serbia.

STATUS OF URBAN HEALTH INFRASTRUCTURE TO COMBAT COVID-19 IN BIRBHUM DISTRICT, WEST BENGAL

The outbreak of Covid-19 was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 31st January, 2020. Every country can take at national, sub regional and local levels to reorganize essential health services in the pandemic context and maintain a safe access to every citizen. To deal with this catastrophic Corona Virus India is making preparedness with its high urban population density, deficiency in hygiene and sanitation facilities and most crucially insufficient treatment capacity. The first 2000 cases were reported in 56 days. The next 2000 in 15 days and the next 2000 cases in a week. According to the data released by the state health department, West Bengal took just 5 days from June 3 rd to June 7th to register the next 2000 cases. Till Tuesday (9th June) total cases in the state stood at 8985. With increased number of testing and the entry of migrant labourers, there was a sudden spike in the number of cases. The returning migrant workers from the highly infected zones after an unplanned lockdown delivers a major catastrophe at our doorstep. The objective of the study is to focus on the arrangement of health services for this disaster in Birbhum District, West Bengal. According to the direction of the Bengal health department, separate hospitals for Covid-19 patients are to be set up in each district in order to arrange a local set-up before the contamination expands into the community transmission stage.

The Interplay of Migrant Workers’ Working Hours, Income, and Well-Being in China

There is a history of overwork in China, and regulations to protect workers are insufficient. This study explores the relationship between working long hours and self-rated health among rural-urban migrant workers in China. Survey data from the 2018 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) is used to construct a simultaneous equation model, and the 3SLS method is applied. The results showed that: (1) Migrant workers had good health. However, overtime work is very common among migrant workers in China, and male migrants work more overtime. (2) Migrant laborers’ health and income are causally related, with better health leading to higher income. In contrast, the compensatory effect of income by extending working hours on health is smaller than the damage caused by overtime work for the male migrants who have more severe overtime work, resulting in a negative income effect on health. (3) The incentive effect of income on labor supply and the positive interaction effect of increasing labor hours to increase income are only reflected in the standard labor time sample. Therefore, for the heavy overwork group whose working hours have already reached the limit, income increases can no longer motivate them to extend their labor hours. Therefore, provincial and national policy transformations are needed to regularize working hours and remuneration while maintaining individual health.

An Analysis of the Living and Working Conditions of Migrant Labourers in Mumbai

Mumbai is the heartland for migrant labourers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar because the city provides them livelihood. The present paper explores the living and working conditions of semi-skilled and unskilled migrant labourers. The methodology of the paper consists of collection of primary data using a mixed method approach in the form of a field visit to Mumbai in February 2019. Qualitative data in the form of narratives, case studies and descriptions was analysed, while quantitative data was analysed using simple statistics and ANOVA. The findings from the study show that these migrant labourers face challenges of socio-economic and political identity in Mumbai but have developed their own cultural landscape to adjust to life in Mumbai. The quantitative findings show that there are variations in the patterns of income, remittances and expenditure of migrant labourers according to their occupation in Mumbai. Therefore, the findings of the study provide a better understanding of the living and working conditions of migrant labourers as well as encourage academicians, policymakers, and researchers for further research in this area.

An Anthropology of Exploitation Techniques in the London Real Estate and Labor Market

AbstractThis study explores the life-mode of Hungarian migrants in their destination country, England, particularly London in the last decade, focusing on their housing conditions and working experiences. Relying on her participant observations and interviews, the author formulates a picture through the eyes of Hungarian migrant laborers regarding how both the real estate and labor market exploits them (micro level). She explains the motives of the main economic actors (entrepreneurs, real estate and employment agencies, employers) leading to exploitations (meso level) in addition to discussing how all of these fit into the wider socio-economic context (macro level).

Fragile agency: the lived religion of human trafficking victims in East Nusa Tenggara Indonesia

ABSTRACT This article aims to describe the role of religion in the experiences of human trafficking victims from the migrant labourer sector. The research conducted in East Nusa Tenggara-Indonesia in 2020 interviewed 19 participants consisting of victims and their families. Working as a migrant labourer is a consequence of poverty intersecting with religious meaning. Workers' limited agency is fragile due to exploitation and violence. Participants are commonly alienated from their families, themselves, and society. Religion plays a significant role in alienation because experience shapes religious meaning, and religious meaning mediates an individual's actions.

A critical review of the Zimbabwe special temporary residence permits, 2010–2021

ABSTRACT This article reviews the Zimbabwe special temporary residence permits to demonstrate how these permits have, over the past 13 years, been used to limit Zimbabwean migrants from accessing permanent residency and South African citizenship. For instance, we illustrate in this article how the Zimbabwe special temporary residence permits effectively marked Zimbabweans as perpetual outsiders with no rights to reside indefinitely in South Africa, even though some Zimbabwean migrants have been living in the country on an ongoing basis for the past two decades. The Zimbabwe special temporary residence permits keep Zimbabwean migrants in a ‘temporary migration status’ as ‘guest workers’ who are expected to eventually ‘go back home’. We further argue that although the Zimbabwe special temporary residence permits are not racist tools per se, they are exclusionary tools that embody analogous, exclusionary and othering logic as the twentieth-century migrant labour system that the White South African government used to banish all Blacks from the category of citizenship.

Consent, Resistance, and Gender Identity in Social Reproductive Work: The Case of Georgian Migrant Women in Turkey

ABSTRACT Taking Georgian migrant women who work in Turkish homes as a case, this article explores the material and ideological conditions surrounding the extraction of surplus value from live-in migrant domestic labourers. From the perspectives of social reproduction and labour process theories, it documents the migrant workers’ concerted consent and resistance strategies in the workplace with reference to domestic labour processes. Based on an ethnographic study, the findings show the contradictory nature of migrant women’s attainments due to their gendered migrant identities. Implications of these findings in relation to the collective organisation of domestic labourers are discussed.

COVID-19 and Vietnam-Laos Cross-Border Migration: Impacts and Solutions

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused great harm and difficulties to workers, especially migrant laborers. The COVID-19 crisis has shown that migrants, particularly those employed through informal agencies, lost their jobs, and were not entitled to social protection policies, including labor migration from Vietnam across the Laos border to the DPR or other countries. The article is based on a survey of over 300 quantitative samples and in-depth interviews with 28 experts in order to focus on case studies of Vietnamese migrants crossing the Vietnam-Laos border in Nghe An, Ha Tinh. Thereby the study assesses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on migrant workers across the Vietnam-Laos border in terms of employment, income, etc. From that, some solutions are proposed to restore livelihoods and stabilize the lives of migrant workers.

이주민 남미 청소년들의 자아존중감, 긍정성 향상, 우울감소를 위한 무용동작치료

In this study, dance movement therapy is used to treat South American immigrant adolescents who are depressed, have problems with their self-esteem, The goal is to reduce dejection while boosting optimism and self-worth. Many South American migrant laborers enter South Korea illegally because there is no Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to dispatch manpower between the two countries, while others enter on tourist visas to work so they are in an unstable environment. Every Saturday from October 22 to April 23, the Catholic Pastoral Commission for Latin American Communities organized A total of 48 sessions were conducted in two sessions of 70 minutes each for six youth (accompanied by parents from Peru, Spain, Bolivia, and Colombia) to improve their self-esteem, reduce depression, and increase positivity. Based on the 6 categories of the Emotional Social System DMT (Ryu, 2017) study, the dance movement therapy program for migrant youth from South America to improve their self-esteem, reduce depression, and increase positivity. The program applied the following 6 categories were used: Kinesthetic Perception DMT, Grounding DMT, Interaction DMT, Synchronization of rhythm and kinetic connection DMT, Cognition Behavioural Action DMT, and Self-System Activation DMT. As a result, there was a meaningful positive improvement in self-esteem, positivity, and depression when the pre- and post-test results were compared. Dance movement therapy to improve self-esteem, reduce depression, and increase positivity for South American immigrant adolescents used movement as a psychotherapy tool to help them better understand themselves and unleash their inner spontaneity and creativity, ultimately helping to establish a confused identity, improve self-esteem, and lessen depression. The purpose of this study is to serve as a resource for future research on migratory youth from Latin America.

Illicit crops in the frontier margins: Amazonian indigenous livelihoods and the expansion of coca in Peru

ABSTRACT This paper explores illegal coca crop expansion in indigenous Amazonian communities in Peru. The ethnographic study sheds light on the historical development of these areas as frontier spaces, where the growth of illicit crops intertwines with socio-ecological transformations and gives rise to conflicts over new forms of land control, opportunities for capital accumulation, and political power dynamics. The paper argues that this expansion is shaped by dual processes: from ‘below,’ involving small-scale migrant farmers from the Andes, and from ‘above,’ primarily driven by state-led agrarian interventions. Consequently, communities experience significant tensions, as they adapt to the forces of market expansion to secure their livelihoods, while simultaneously facing risks of violence and insecurity.

Mass exodus of India’s internal migrant labourers during the first phase of COVID-19: a critical analysis

Mass exodus of India’s internal migrant labourers during the first phase of COVID-19: a critical analysis

Venezuelan Migration: Peruvian And Ecuadorian Case

Venezuelan migrants access social assistance, social security and labor market programs with the intention of improving their level of life opportunities, within the framework of social inclusion and protection.
 The migratory process of Venezuelans to Ecuador and Peru affects the socioeconomic conditions and distribution of benefits within a territory, causing in some cases the denial of access to services.
 The methodology used is to carry out a questionnaire to Venezuelan migrants who are in Peru: in Trujillo and Tumbes and in Ecuador: in Huaquillas and Guayaquil, carrying out a comparative study and after that, processing the information, tabulating it, analyzing it and preparing the final report.
 As Social Workers, it is important to know the social programs and institutions that support Venezuelan migrants in Ecuador and Peru, determining that there is inclusion, protection and non-discrimination.