Guest Workers Research Articles

The control and agency dialectic of guest worker programmes: evidence from Chinese construction workers in Japan’s Technical Intern Training Program (TITP)

ABSTRACT Guest worker programs entail an intrinsic tension between control over workers’ mobility and workers’ agency. By drawing on the qualitative data from Chinese construction workers in Japan’s Technical Intern Training Program (TITP), I illuminate the dialectical nature of the tension between control and agency. My findings suggest that labor recruiters and employers implement labor control, but their practices have the opposite effect of pressing workers to abscond or to do irregular jobs. Staying in the program is not an outcome of effective control, but a response to circumstances wherein revisions to Japan’s immigration policy bring rewards while China’s surveillance policies incur potential punishments. The control-agency dialectic suggests that the regulative focus should be shifted from workers to employers and recruiters. Incorporating approaches of spatiotemporality and relationality, I analyze how workers sustain relations with various actors through three interconnected temporal stages, and how the relational dynamics shape workers’ varied mobility choices. Two features of the construction industry shape workers’ circumstances and occasionally facilitate their mobility: the stratification of the labor force according to legal status and the subcontract system. The paper thus highlights the need to contextualise labor agency in changing state policies, relations with co-ethnics, and industry-specific features.

Portrayal of Migration in the Novel ‘A Fine Balance’ and Migration in COVID-19: A Comparative Study

Objective of this paper is to study the effects of migration in and outside the country. Migration has been in trend from a very old time. People have been migrating from one place to another place or across the border. A number of books have also been authored in literature with focus upon internal and external migration. To understand the reason and impact of migration I have taken Rohinton Mistry's famous novel 'A Fine Balance' which is based on the theme of migration due to social and economic issues. This novel depicts social and economic issues of migration with keeping eyes upon the pitiful situation of lower and labour class. Portrayal of displacement from one place to another has been done realistically. It seems that all the events are happening in front of reader's eyes. Whether it's the plight of main characters in the novel or pain of the migrant labourers, we discovered that behind the migration of common people social and economic issues are more in force than other issues. In social issues, casteism, pressure of landlords, difficulty of switching the profession, lack of security, feud, marriage, drought, etc. Are the key reasons of migration. In economic issues, better education, poverty, lack of variety of occupation, allurement of city life or life abroad, desire to earn handsome money are some of the reasons. Reverse migration too is one big issue. When people come to the cities in search of a better life, what forces them to return. If we observe the situation during Covid -19 in India, people, especially the labour class return to their villages owing to many reasons. Lack of food and unemployment are the main reasons among them. Finally, the focus of this paper is, whether it is the story of the labour class in the novel or during the crisis of Covid-19, they are the ones who have always borne the brunt of circumstances and lockdown.

Dimensions of wellbeing and recognitional justice of migrant workers during the COVID-19 lockdown in Kerala, India

The lockdown of March 2020 in India witnessed one of the largest movements of migrants in the country. The state of Kerala was quick and efficient in responding to the challenges posed by the lockdown on its migrant population and in supporting its ‘guest workers’. While many studies have researched the material resources of migrants during the pandemic, such as income and food, few have investigated the subjective measures and emphasised the lived experiences of migrant workers. Drawing on the Wellbeing in Developing Countries (WeD) approach which examines three dimensions of wellbeing, namely, (a) material, (b) relational and (c) subjective wellbeing, this article focuses on the mental health and wellbeing experiences of migrant workers during the first lockdown in Kerala. By deploying these wellbeing dimensions, the study looks at how migrant workers perceived and experienced the various interventions put in place by state and local governments, as well as voluntary initiatives aimed at supporting them. The study elaborates around migrants’ relations of love, care, and trust, and their reasons to remain in Kerala or return home during the lockdown. The study found that a paradigm shift, where ‘migrant workers’ are becoming ‘guest workers’, was at the forefront of the captured narratives. The key findings in this way contribute to the understanding of migrants’ lived experiences, wellbeing, and perceptions of the different lockdown interventions. We argue that an increased attention to subjective factors helps us understand migrant needs at times of crisis through their lived experiences and thereby enhances policy planning for disaster preparedness.

Nostrana, frustra, fiorata: migration patterns and the semantics of consumption in the Alps, mid-17th to late 18th centuries

ABSTRACT Labour migrants were a widespread phenomenon in the Alps during the early modern period and impacted the materiality of everyday life in the mountains. This article investigates traces of these movements in linguistic usage by exploring the way in which goods were described by actors from the Three Leagues, in present-day Switzerland and Italy. Provenances of goods were given by using toponyms that indicated the place of origin the more precise, the closer the location was to the Alps. These geographical terms informed about specific visual and tactile qualities and were introduced together with other technical vocabulary via specialized merchants and spread via shops to customers of the upper echelons. Small-scale retailers and occasional dealers made use of less detailed descriptions that can also be found in the accounts of their clients which resembled the language used in informal correspondences. These channels could be activated to gain more detailed information and thanks to the wide-spread networks of migrant labourers, knowledge was exchanged with and via the Alps. This exchange of information appears, however, to have become less intense when migration patterns changed in the aftermath of the French Revolutionary Wars.

A Study on the Causes and Consequences Inter-State Migration and Reverse Migration in Tamil Nadu, India

In a huge populous country like India, migration is an acceptable reality and inevitable. It is a most effective tool for balancing between shortage of workers at one place and excess population at another area. In the present VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) business environment, Inter-state migration has socio-economic and political consequences in both donor and recipient states. Migrants do not always relocate willingly or voluntarily. Most of the migrations occur for economic reasons. If continuous employment and consistent income is guaranteed to everyone who are willing to work at all states, there is no need to migrate at all. The state of Tamil Nadu has been forerunner for inter-state migration; presently there is huge number of migrants working in the state. Places like Tirupur, Erode, Coimbatore, Chennai, Thiruvallur and Chengalpattu are having huge number in-migrants. While excessive inflow of migrants is economically advantageous to source states, it has mix of benefits and challenges to destination states. Long working hours, payment of low wages (about 70% of what the local workers get), poor living conditions, stagnated garbage and waste water, lack of sanitation facilities makes the lives of the migrants vulnerable. Reverse migration is an act of migrants getting back to home places. In extreme cases, migrants could not tolerate and decide to relocate to their native places. The decision made is not based on luxury or added quality of life at their places, but issues faced is migrated state It is a logical mechanism available to the migrant labourers when the whole economy is severely hit by a thunderstorm like covid-19.Migrants’ lives are badly affected to the standstill business environment which could not provide livelihood, shelter and any other social security this labour force. Migration is a constitutional right stronger implementation of labour and migration laws and More concrete measures to curb exploitation and harassment of in-migrants will only solve challenges in such a sensitive issue. The present study attempts to find out the impact of inter-state labour in-migration in Tamil and also the effect of reverse migration from the state.

Literature as Medium: The Development and Cultural Space of New Worker Literature

Abstract Over the past few years, China's cultural landscape has seen the emergence of several authors from among its migrant laborers, or “new workers.” Fan Yusu and Xu Lizhi are the most representative. Their literary production, which draws on their personal experiences and tells their workplace stories, is an artistic configuration entirely different from both mass culture and high literature. This article analyzes the significance of this new worker literature from three perspectives. First, since the 1990s, new workers have been using the traditional medium of literature to speak with their own voices, which is particularly remarkable in the age of the internet. Second, workers’ culture spaces like the Picun Literature Group, from which Fan Yusu emerged, not only support ordinary laborers’ active interest in writing but also represent a specific cultural practice that has come into being in the post-Mao era. Third, the fact that a large number of new worker writers are “borrowing” from the language and style of 1980s literature generates a productive relation between the critical spirit of that literature and the alienating conditions under which the new workers labor. Although seen as marginal by many, new worker literature is of great cultural value for contemporary China.

The Covid-19 Pandemic and Inter-State Migrant Labours in India - Need a Policy, Holistic in Definition and Implementation

Subash G. Plathottam, Dr. Seema Surendran

Research on the Factors Affecting the Consumption Level of Migrant Workers

The role of consumption is gaining prominence under the robust boost of economy, making it pivotal to release the consumption potential of farmer workers. Since parts related to employment quality, which would trigger the strong mobility and poor income stability, will probably affect the consumption level, the relationship between employment quality and consumption level of farmer workers seems crucial. Therefore, this article is aimed at researching the effect on consumption level of migrant farmer workers put by employment quality, as well as some other controlled variables and cities developmental differences, through OLS method. Through researching, the employment quality are found to improve the consumption level of farmer workers. Also, higher degree of urban development would pose higher consumption level. At last, suggestions are given to improve the consumption level of migrant farmer workers.

Who are the vulnerable, and how do we reach them? Perspectives of health system actors and community leaders in Kerala, India

BackgroundAmong the core principles of the 2030 agenda of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is the call to Leave no One behind (LNOB), a principle that gained resonance as the world contended with the COVID-19 pandemic. The south Indian state of Kerala received acclaim globally for its efforts in managing COVID-19 pandemic. Less attention has been paid, however, to how inclusive this management was, as well as if and how those “left behind” in testing, care, treatment, and vaccination efforts were identified and catered to. Filling this gap was the aim of our study.MethodsWe conducted In-depth interviews with 80 participants from four districts of Kerala from July to October 2021. Participants included elected local self-government members, medical and public health staff, as well as community leaders. Following written informed consent procedures, each interviewee was asked questions about whom they considered the most “vulnerable” in their areas. They were also asked if there were any special programmes/schemes to support the access of “vulnerable” groups to general and COVID related health services, as well as other needs. Recordings were transliterated into English and analysed thematically by a team of researchers using ATLAS.ti 9.1 software.ResultsThe age range of participants was between 35 and 60 years. Vulnerability was described differentially by geography and economic context; for e.g., fisherfolk were identified in coastal areas while migrant labourers were considered as vulnerable in semi-urban areas. In the context of COVID-19, some participants reflected that everyone was vulnerable. In most cases, vulnerable groups were already beneficiaries of various government schemes within and beyond the health sector. During COVID, the government prioritized access to COVID-19 testing and vaccination among marginalized population groups like palliative care patients, the elderly, migrant labourers, as well as Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes communities. Livelihood support like food kits, community kitchen, and patient transportation were provided by the LSGs to support these groups. This involved coordination between health and other departments, which may be formalised, streamlined and optimised in the future.ConclusionHealth system actors and local self-government members were aware of vulnerable populations prioritized under various schemes but did not describe vulnerable groups beyond this. Emphasis was placed on the broad range of services made available to these “left behind” groups through interdepartmental and multi-stakeholder collaboration. Further study (currently underway) may offer insights into how these communities – identified as vulnerable – perceive themselves, and whether/how they receive, and experience schemes designed for them. At the program level, inclusive and innovative identification and recruitment mechanisms need to be devised to identify populations who are currently left behind but may still be invisible to system actors and leaders.

Strategies for Fulfilling the Basic Needs of Circular Migrant Farmers in Wonokupang, Sidoarjo

The purpose of this study was to find out the strategy for fulfilling the necessities of life for the circular migrant business of vegetable farm laborers in Wonokupang Village, Sidoarjo Regency. This study uses migration theory by Everett S. Lee. The research method used is a qualitative method with a case study approach. The results of this study indicate that the strategy for fulfilling the necessities of life for the circular migrant business of vegetable farm laborers is the economy and lifestyle, working patterns in migrant places and building social networks. In addition, there are socio-economic changes experienced by circular migrant vegetable farm laborers. Then, from this migration process, there are factors behind the vegetable farm laborers doing circular migration, namely individual factors, factors of origin, factors of destination, and obstacles that exist in the area of origin and destination. From these strategies, changes, and factors, it is proven that they can fulfill the necessities of life of the circular migrant business of vegetable farming laborers.

Image-Maker in Residence: Diana Takacsova

Researcher Diana Takacsova, a National Geographic Society grantee and Slovak Press Photo award winner, photographs beachgoers in Ostend and migrant labourers in Alentejo. Our April Image-Maker in Residence.

Financial exclusion of internal migrant workers of India during COVID-19: can digital financial inclusion be facilitated by AI?

ABSTRACT We examine ways to facilitate the digital financial inclusion of internal migrant workers in India, using technologies assisted by Artificial Intelligence. Internal migrant workers, whose vulnerabilities were cruelly exposed during COVID-19, constitute 37% of the population of India. We argue that an AI-enabled solution augmenting preexisting financial transaction processes in public sector banks and post offices could integrate vulnerable groups into the economy and empower them socio-politically. AI-assisted ATMs have the potential to improve digital financial inclusion, bring accountability, ensure security, build trust, and protect privacy in the process of empowering marginalized communities. The paper uses a case study method since it deals with a contemporary event, the deleterious impact of digital and financial exclusion of migrant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the first wave of COVID-19, migrant laborers were stranded without access to basic needs. Facilitating digital financial inclusion could have provided access provisions in desperate situations.

The Double Burden of Work and Life and Turnover Intention Among Migrant Garment Workers: A Case Study From an Industrial Zone in Vietnam

This study aims to determine the prevalence and associated factors of turnover intention among interprovincial migrant workers in garment companies in a rapidly urbanizing area of Vietnam. This study employed a mixed method approach, beginning with in-depth interviews with 12 migrant garment workers to develop survey instruments, which were then used in a quantitative survey. The survey recruited and interviewed 328 inter-provincial migrant workers working in garment factories using a social mapping sampling method. Multivariable backward stepwise logistic regression analysis was used to investigate factors associated with worker turnover intention. The results show a high prevalence of turnover intention (46.3%) among the survey participants. High psychological demand (OR = 2.5, 95% CI [1.4, 4.4], p < .001), low job control, income dissatisfaction (OR = 3, 95% CI [1.5, 6], p < .01), migration intention (OR = 13, 95% CI [7, 24], p < .001) and male gender (OR = 2.5, 95% CI [1.3, 4.8], p < .01) are factors significantly associated with turnover intention among migrant workers. This study provides a model for understanding migrant laborers’ turnover intentions in the garment industry, as well as critical data for developing needs-based intervention programs for this vulnerable group, such as appropriate resettlement strategies and the creation of a healthy working environment, both of which could play essential roles in the garment industry’s workforce retention.

Maternal Practices of Korean Healthcare Workers in Germany

In the framework of the former West German government’s “guest worker” (Gastarbeiter) recruitment policy between 1955 and 1973, more than 11,000 South Korean nurses and nurse assistants moved to Germany to work in medical or nursing institutions to fill a gap in the provision of healthcare services as “guest workers.” Drawing on personal accounts, the current empirical study explores mothering practices primarily between the 1960s and 1990s in the families of Korean migrant healthcare workers who resided in Germany over the course of their working lives and/or returned to Korea. This study charts the manner in which these migrant mothers navigated and balanced competing social discourses around mothering that emerged from the different cultural and historical backgrounds in a new host society. The concepts around mothering consist of the ideology of “intensive mothering,” the Confucian ideal of “wise mother and good wife,” and the German notion of the “raven mother.” Special attention is paid to the way in which mothering is negotiated and experienced by migrant mothers in gendered family roles over the time—the period from childhood to adulthood—spent in the host country. Various practices and strategies for childcare arrangements and education in sustaining a migrant family in the host country are discussed. Another salient question to explore is the manner in which the migrants’ ethnic culture and values inform their ethno-specific mothering practices. In this respect, the demands and aspirations of cross-cultural mothering to raise children with dual-cultural competence in both the culture of origin and that of destination are explored

Dynamics and Structure of International Labor Migration: Global Trends

The article is devoted to the analysis of the process of international labor migration, the definition of factors affecting its scale, geographical directions and quality component. It was revealed that negative demographic trends in developed countries (birth rate decline, aging of the population) generate disproportions in their national labor markets, turning migration into the most important and, actually, the only source of labor force replenishment. In Western Europe, workers of foreign origin make up 18.4% of the total workforce, in Australia, Canada, and the United States it is about 20%. The effective functioning of some sectors of the economy in developed countries is already dependent on the labor of migrants. The trend to increase the share of foreign labor in the labor markets of these countries will grow. On the other hand, under the influence of scientific and technological progress, the needs of the labor market are being transformed, the demand for highly skilled and skilled labor is increasing. Through preferential migration regimes, countries are trying to attract foreign specialists, including potential (foreign students), thereby increasing the role of educational migration in the migration flow, its scale is growing, the flows of highly qualified specialists are intensifying, contributing to a change in the qualitative component of labor migration.

Brigitte Le Normand. Citizens without Borders: Yugoslavia and Its Migrant Workers in Western Europe.

Building on a wide range of historical sources, Brigitte Le Normand’s Citizens without Borders: Yugoslavia and Its Migrant Workers in Western Europe presents a fascinating account of a complex social phenomenon that peaked in the early 1970s and linked the former socialist federation with several countries short of manpower. Yugoslavia was among those Eastern European countries that relied on migrant workers and even forced their own populations to seek work in the West. The case of “guest workers” (Gastarbeiter) in German-speaking countries provided an instructive model. Le Normand structures her book in two main sections. In the first one, she reconstructs attempts to administer and govern Yugoslav labor migrations in human geography, statistics, and the political economy, and analyzes the representations of migrant workers in Yugoslav cinematography. Whereas her choice to present migration as a state-centered phenomenon might be at first questionable, Le Normand strengthens this claim by pointing at the state policies of socialist Yugoslavia. The federation was one of the rare examples of a state-controlled economy deciding to export the work force and thus cope with domestic unemployment. The author follows the state-centered approach in the second part of the book as well, where she documents different attempts of various state-controlled mechanisms to keep in contact with the workers abroad. This was a crucial point for Yugoslav authorities in order not to lose influence among workers in favor of anti-Communist exile organizations, most often structured according to different nationalist projects. Le Normand contextualizes policies, such as radio programs, newspapers, associations, and cultural production destined for workers abroad, including activities for migrant children such as schooling in native languages and youth clubs.

Taylorism Comes to the Fields: Labor Control, Labor Supply, Labor Process, and the Twilight of Fordism in California Agribusiness

When the Bracero (guest worker) Program ended in 1964, California agribusiness seemed to be facing a labor crisis. Growers had lost access to a large pool of essentially unfree labor, and (consequently) unionization in the fields was on the rise. As a result, researchers in the various agricultural divisions of the University of California embarked on a broad effort to reengineer the farm labor process through the development of labor aids; mechanization of pruning, thinning, and harvesting tasks; redesigning fruits and vegetables; and extensive time-motion studies. This article traces these efforts and uses their history to argue that labor and economic geographers should focus attention on how struggles over the labor process are frequently struggles over the ability to shape and deploy the labor supply and not only matters of how work is organized on the shop floor (or in this case, in the fields). More broadly, the article argues that focus on the fine-grained details of innovation in the labor process is vital for a full understanding of fundamental transformations in the agribusiness landscape. As a consequence, the article explains why a set of innovations, which contemporary analysts figured would lead to agriculture adopting labor relations much more like those in more traditionally Fordist industries, actually paved the way for a set of even more highly casualized, exploitative relations than had existed heretofore.

Pułapka „ciepłych portretów”. Wybrane przykłady ukraińskich heteroobrazów w literaturze i kinie polskim na początku XXI wieku

The expressions of Polish solidarity with Ukrainians after the aggression of the Russian Federation on February 24, 2022 was absolutely unprecedented. Undoubtedly, such a radical historical breakthrough would not have been possible without the contribution of Ukrainian migration diplomacy, implemented, often unknowingly, by hundreds of thousands of migrants who, through direct contact with Poles, reduced the conflict-causing potential of Ukrainian-Polish history. The aim of this paper is to examine the evolution of Ukrainian heteroimages appearing in Polish cinema and literature at the beginning of the 21st century, e.g. Lady from Ukraine by Paweł Łoziński, Ukrainian girl by Barbara Kosmowska and reportages written by Marta Mazuś and Monika Sobień-Górska. The author also focuses attention on the migration counter-discourse in Guest Worker Literature, the role of the Polish-Ukrainian theater and the intercultural perspective for future literary and artistic searches.

Harnessing large-scale agro-based investments in the Sagcot area for inclusive agricultural transformation in Tanzania

The colonial and post-colonial large-scale agriculture has brought the far-ranging implications on the local population in Tanzania. These include dispossession of land, dislocation of migrant labourers who are also subjected to poor work conditions and induced imbalances in terms of gender and ethnic relations. The government and other actors in Tanzania have strived to reduce the effects by fostering inclusive large-scale agriculture that benefit the small-scale farmers. This includes the move to initiate a 20-year public-private partnership on large-scale agribusiness namely Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SACGOT) in 2010. Serious concerns were raised against SAGCOT especially on the extent to which it entails uprooting and taking away lands from poor rural dwellers and turning them into poorly paid casual labourers thus increasing poverty and food insecurity. Consequently, the coordinating unit of SAGCOT vowed to improve food security to hundreds of thousands of poor farmers. The primary research was designed to examine the inclusivity aspects of the six selected large-scale investment schemes under the SAGCOT partnership. The Responsible Agriculture Investment (RAI) Framework was employed to assess sustainable labour practices, community engagements and fairness in out-grower arrangements. While the investment schemes demonstrated a fairly positive outlook pertaining to social sustainability under the RAI framework, a notable variation was observed across the six schemes in relation to specific RAI indicators. For instance, a company that demonstrated the outstanding performance in corporate social responsibility also performed poorly in the domain of wages and employee relations. A set of sustainability benchmarks developed jointly by the SAGCOT Center and civil society organizations and implemented on voluntary basis by a few member investors need to be harmonized and monitored across all investment schemes. This is especially important for the small-scale sub-contracted firms which lacked the requisite skills and capacity to engage in a more sustainable manner. Key words: Inclusion, agriculture, Tanzania, growth corridor, investments, sustainability, out-grower schemes, decent work

Understanding the Dynamics of Migrant Labourers in Unorganised Sector: A Study of KBK Districts of Odisha

Understanding the Dynamics of Migrant Labourers in Unorganised Sector: A Study of KBK Districts of Odisha