Migration Discourse Research Articles

Национально-культурные организации в этнической и мигрантской инфраструктуре сибирского города (на примере Томска и Иркутска)

The article explores one of the major points of contradiction in the interests and roles of Siberian urban actors with regard to so-called ‘national-cultural’ organizations (natsional'no-kul'turnye organizatsii, NKO, also known as natsional'no-kul'turnye avtonomii, NKA), ‘national-cultural’ associations, centers, foundations, etc., all of which are ethnic organizations. Specifically, it looks into why and how these organizations have become the centre of intersecting ethnic and migration discourses, what is their role and place in the urban infrastructure being created and used by migrants coming to Siberian cities, and how the relations between the state and national-cultural organizations formed at the regional level. Carried out in the Siberian urban centres of Tomsk and Irkutsk, our 30-year research into these questions (including thorough research methods such as observation, engagement in public events and public and advisory council meetings, interview and survey, analysis of documents and other materials released by national-cultural organizations as well as by the mass media) has enabled us to determine what place national-cultural organizations occupy in the migrant infrastructure of the two cities and to establish what kind of relations there is between these organizations and migrants from countries of the same ethnic origin – paternalistic or the one that allows leaders and activists from these organizations build their own social capital. The study of 2018 and 2019 – in-depth interviews and surveys held in Tomsk and Irkutsk – resulted in a substantial correction of the research results we had obtained in a few years prior to it. It revealed that the role migrants play in the local national-cultural organizations is not that of full members, rather, they act as an object of patronage on the part of the local ethnic elite deeply integrated into the host society (or ethnic activist groups that position themselves as such). In fact, the (social, economic and legal) support of these organizations provided to migrants is insignificant, and only a small number of migrants participate in cultural events organized by the local NKOs. Thus, these NKOs can hardly be seen as an element of the migrant infrastructure or an asset facilitating adaptation of migrants in these cities. It also became clear that migrants’ ties with their ‘historical homeland’/home countries, which the local national-cultural organizations take advantage of in sustaining their activities as well as the status of their leaders, often result in the issue of ‘conflicting loyalties’, especially when home countries actively conduct diasporic politics toward this category of their citizens abroad.

A Risk Exchange: Health and Mobility in the Context of Climate and Environmental Change in Bangladesh-A Qualitative Study.

Background: Climate change influences patterns of human mobility and health outcomes. While much of the climate change and migration discourse is invested in quantitative predictions and debates about whether migration is adaptive or maladaptive, less attention has been paid to the voices of the people moving in the context of climate change with a focus on their health and wellbeing. This qualitative research aims to amplify the voices of migrants themselves to add nuance to dominant migration narratives and to shed light on the real-life challenges migrants face in meeting their health needs in the context of climate change. Methods: We conducted 58 semi-structured in-depth interviews with migrants purposefully selected for having moved from rural Bhola, southern Bangladesh to an urban slum in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis under the philosophical underpinnings of phenomenology. Coding was conducted using NVivo Pro 12. Findings: We identified two overarching themes in the thematic analysis: Firstly, we identified the theme “A risk exchange: Exchanging climate change and health risks at origin and destination”. Rather than describing a “net positive” or “net negative” outcome in terms of migration in the context of climate change, migrants described an exchange of hazards, exposures, and vulnerabilities at origin with those at destination, which challenged their capacity to adapt. This theme included several sub-themes—income and employment factors, changing food environment, shelter and water sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) conditions, and social capital. The second overarching theme was “A changing health and healthcare environment”. This theme also included several sub-themes—changing physical and mental health status and a changing healthcare environment encompassing quality of care and barriers to accessing healthcare. Migrants described physical and mental health concerns and connected these experiences with their new environment. These two overarching themes were prevalent across the dataset, although each participant experienced and expressed them uniquely. Conclusion: Migrants who move in the context of climate change face a range of diverse health risks at the origin, en route, and at the destination. Migrating individuals, households, and communities undertake a risk exchange when they decide to move, which has diverse positive and negative consequences for their health and wellbeing. Along with changing health determinants is a changing healthcare environment where migrants face different choices, barriers, and quality of care. A more migrant-centric perspective as described in this paper could strengthen migration, climate, and health governance. Policymakers, urban planners, city corporations, and health practitioners should integrate the risk exchange into practice and policies.

Countering decapitalisation: examining teachers' discourses of migration in Galicia

ABSTRACT Multilingualism in European classrooms is the norm, not exception, and while the management of linguistic diversity is increasingly at the fore of language policy debates, policy engagement with the multilingual realities of schools continues to be inadequate, and the linguistic habitus of present-day education systems remains largely monolingual [Piller, I. (2016). Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice: An Introduction to Applied Sociolinguistics. Oxford University Press.]. This article draws on a case study of Cape Verdean immigrants in the small fishing town of Burela in Galicia, Spain, to highlight the challenges associated with language education and immigration in a minority language setting specifically. The article presents an expansion of the concept of decapitalisation [Martín Rojo, L. (2010) Constructing Inequality in Multilingual Classrooms, De Gruyter Mouton.] as a framework for analysing how hegemonic ideologies in the Galician education system can contribute to social stratification and the marginalisation of the immigrant population. The article focuses specifically on discourses deployed by teachers to understand how processes of decapitalisation play out, and the grassroots initiatives taken to resist them.

Manipulative tactics and methods in the speech behavior of German Chancellor A. Merkel in migration discourse (based on the material of the texts of political interviews)

Manipulative tactics and methods in the speech behavior of German Chancellor A. Merkel in migration discourse (based on the material of the texts of political interviews)

Национально-культурные организации в современном сибирском городе: проблема этнического представительства

The so-called ‘national-cultural’ (natsional'no-kul'turnye organizatsii, NKO, or natsional'no-kul'turnye avtonomii, NKA), or ethnicity-based organisations, that started to emerge in Russia at the turn of the Soviet and the post-Soviet epochs have become an ordinary attribute of the country’s urban space. We were interested in the question of why and how these organizations have found themselves at the intersection of ethnic and migration discourses. For nearly 30 years we have been studying the case of Tomsk and Irkutsk national-cultural organisations (based on observations, participation in the events and activities organised by NKO/NKA and in the meetings of specialised advisory boards, interviews and surveys, materials released by national-cultural organisations and municipal authorities, mass media reports, etc.). This allows us to understand what role migrants themselves had to play: whether they were subjected to paternalistic care or contributed to accumulation of social capital by leaders and activists of national-cultural organisations, or both. Local authorities have come to see such organisations as a convenient tool to manage ‘diasporic’ communities, that is, organised ethnic groups, whose membership is associated with one’s ethnic origin or ethnicity and which are entitled to act independently as agents of social relations. NKO/NKA leaders are considered to be ‘diasporic bosses’ exercising the right to control and regulate their ‘diaspora compatriots’. That these organisations serve to meet specific ethnic groups’ cultural needs is not their single and possibly not even their main function. Their legal status (resulting from a special law on organisations of this type and a law on public organisations more generally) allows them to be in close contact with the authorities, and, in fact, to have a symbiotic relationship with them. As a result, these organisations have come to be informally tasked with assisting adaptation of migrants in Russian cities. Enthusiasts developing national/ethnic culture (‘ethno-entrepreneurs’) enjoy a certain degree of power given by the state and receive limited but important material and symbolic resources to present their activities as a consolidated ethnic group (‘diaspora’) in urban space. Leaders of ethnic organisations can also benefit from their status in both symbolic and material terms, serving as intermediaries between the ‘diaspora’ they construct and the authorities, and maintaining a relationship with their historical homeland.

Beyond the boundaries. Migration discourse in EU parliamentary debates

Immigration has emerged as a prevalent political issue throughout the entire European Union over the past few years. Hardly a day goes by without news stories of people fleeing the Middle East and Northern Africa to reach the shores of Europe, or without an act of violence, the emergence of a new association or political party, or debates on policy initiatives taken by EU Member States. In this respect, and in ways which were almost completely ‘unexpected’ some years ago, nearly every single aspect of political discussion has been affected by the issue of immigration. In every European country new movements have emerged, anti-immigrant political parties have obtained electoral advances and have altered the balance of political forces. This new balance has influenced policy changes in the EU as Members States have attempted to deal with the challenges that threaten understandings, agreements, social policy and the political and social construction of Europe itself. By adopting CDA (Fairclough 1995, 2013; van Dijk 1984; Wodak 1997) and Zapata-Barrero’s distinction between re-active and pro-active discourse (2007), this work analyses a corpus of EU parliamentary debates on migration. The aim was to ascertain whether and to what extent the interventions taken into consideration negatively react against the process of integration and multiculturalism resulting from the arrival of migrants or whether they instead positively accompany the process and consider it a historic opportunity and not a threat. The ad hoc corpus, which covers a time span of three years – from 2016 to 2018 – will be investigated both quantitatively and qualitatively in order to identify the most frequent lexemes and their co-occurring patterns of usage along with the most recurrent or relevant phraseology in the verbatim reports. The interventions under scrutiny deal with migration issues, such as the flow of migrants legally or illegally entering the EU, asylum seekers, undocumented residents, borders and boundaries, thus allowing for the exploration of re-active and pro-active discourse constructions and of the strategies of legitimation used by MPs who try to demonstrate that their policies and actions towards immigration are legitimate, and executed within the boundaries and barriers of moral order and correct procedures (van Leeuwen, Wodak 1999; van Leeuwen 2007).

The discourse of climate migration: Unravelling the politics of ASEAN’s environmental policies

Climate change has inevitably created impacts globally ranging from regulatory changes to affecting social communities. Among these impacts, climate migration becomes the unprecedented and significant one. Millions of migrants are environmentally displaced and the Southeast Asia region is noted as one critical hotspot of the movement. This issue presents challenges for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as there is a need to enlighten and signify the urgency of the problem, knowing that climate-induced migration is still under-discussed within the regional body’s policy-making. Thus, this article aims to analyse why climate migration is under-discussed in ASEAN’s environmental policies and how the ASEAN regional framework lacks preparation to overcome challenges coming from climate change primarily on the issue of climate migration. In doing so, qualitative research method and discourse analysis will be used with data collection obtained from publications, academic journals, articles, and official reports. This article found that environmental communication and climate politics are the main elements that construct the discourse of climate migration within the policy-making of ASEAN. Moreover, a reflection on the discourse of climate migration in other regions such as the Pacific will be delivered.

A critical assessment of Daniel Groody’s conceptualisation of the incarnation and its implication in challenging the church to embrace and respond to migrants’ needs

This article identifies the church as obligated by God to respond to migrants’ challenges and, as it does so, what is at stake is the theological foundational status of migrant theology challenging the body of Christ to embrace and integrate migrants. With this in mind, this article considers Goody as the leading theologian in migration discourse. He has offered theological foundational status of migration theology that challenges the church to be practically responsive to the plight of migrants. Groody advances the theology of the incarnation as the major theology of migration with far-reaching implications for this subject. Unfortunately, Groody’s theology of the incarnation has weaknesses in both conceptualisation and application. In addressing the weaknesses in Groody’s conceptualisation and the application of the doctrine of the incarnation in urging the church to be proactively involved in migration issues, this article attempts to move beyond Groody by articulating the doctrine of the incarnation to counteract the weaknesses arising from Groody’s conceptualisation and application of the doctrine of the incarnation to migration issues. Thereafter, this article reaches a conceptual convergence with Groody by reinforcing the leading aspects of the incarnation that challenge the Church to respond to migrants’ challenges in an effective manner.

THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON SECURITISATION OF MIGRATION AND MOBILITY IN THE UNITED STATES

This article examines transformations in migration and security, arising from COVID-19 prevention measures. It utilises the Copenhagen school to theorise and illuminate the changes in the securitisation of migration and mobility in the United States. The focus on the United States was based on the fact that the country has, on top of being the world's most securitised, been the most severely affected by the pandemic, considering numerical statistics of infected and affected persons, deaths, and socio-economic impact. In doing so, the paper utilised relevant information sourced from online publications such as newspaper articles and other relevant institutional websites of the key agencies in the fight of the COVID-19 pandemic, chiefly the World Health Organisation, Centre for Disease Control, and the United States federal and state governments and academic journal articles. The main argument of the paper is that the COVID-19 pandemic will produce similar effects on migration and security as the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. The lessons gleaned from the current pandemic will most likely be a significant factor in shaping future politics and policies on the securitisation of migration and human mobility. The pandemic's portrayal as a security threat to human health has resulted in significant changes like travel embargoes, suspension of issuance of specific visa categories, and internal mobility controls, and now many countries are demanding for negative test results before allowing in any foreign arrivals into their territories. The paper concludes that the pandemic has ushered in alternative securitisation measures that would cause a shift in migration and security discourse from human-to-human aggression, notably terrorism, to the contagion of the pathogens like the coronavirus.
 
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Migration Discourse in Sweden: Frames and Sentiments in Mainstream and Social Media

This study undertakes a systematic analysis of media discourse on migration in Sweden from 2012 to 2019. Using a novel data set consisting of mainstream newspapers, Twitter and forum data, the study answers two questions: What do Swedish media actually talk about when they talk about “migration”? And how do they talk about it? Using a combination of computational text analysis tools, I analyze a shift in the media discourse seen as one of the outcomes of the European refugee crisis in 2015 and try to understand the role of social media in this process. The results of the study indicate that messages on social media generally had negative tonality and suggest that some of the media frames can be attributed to a migration-hostile discourse. At the same time, the analysis of framing and sentiment dynamics provides little evidence for the discourse shift and any long-term effects of the European refugee crisis on the Swedish media discourse. Rather, one can hypothesize that the role of the crisis should be viewed in a broader political and historical context.

One Hundred Years of Migration Discourse in The Times: A Discourse-Historical Word Vector Space Approach to the Construction of Meaning.

This study proposes an experimental method to trace the historical evolution of media discourse as a means to investigate the construction of collective meaning. Based on distributional semantics theory (Harris, 1954; Firth, 1957) and critical discourse theory (Wodak and Fairclough, 1997), it explores the value of merging two techniques widely employed to investigate language and meaning in two separate fields: neural word embeddings (computational linguistics) and the discourse-historical approach (DHA; Reisigl and Wodak, 2001) (applied linguistics). As a use case, we investigate the historical changes in the semantic space of public discourse of migration in the United Kingdom, and we use the Times Digital Archive (TDA) from 1900 to 2000 as dataset. For the computational part, we use the publicly available TDA word2vec models1 (Kenter et al., 2015; Martinez-Ortiz et al., 2016); these models have been trained according to sliding time windows with the specific intention to map conceptual change. We then use DHA to triangulate the results generated by the word vector models with social and historical data to identify plausible explanations for the changes in the public debate. By bringing the focus of the analysis to the level of discourse, with this method, we aim to go beyond mapping different senses expressed by single words and to add the currently missing sociohistorical and sociolinguistic depth to the computational results. The study rests on the foundation that social changes will be reflected in changes in public discourse (Couldry, 2008). Although correlation does not prove direct causation, we argue that historical events, language, and meaning should be considered as a mutually reinforcing cycle in which the language used to describe events shapes explicit meanings, which in turn trigger other events, which again will be reflected in the public discourse.

Gender Analysis on Productive Economy Program for Returnee Women Migrant Workers: A Case Study in Kenanga Village, Indramayu District

<div>Indonesia is one of the countries of origin for migrant workers in the world. In the context of migration, the discourse on natural resources, sustainable economy, and women’s impowerment are not the mainstream discussion. The resilience or economic sustainability of returnee women migrant workers (RWMWs) is also a major problem in migration policy schemes and practices in</div><div>Indonesia. This paper explores how the model of economic empowerment in Kenanga Village, Indramayu District, as a local initiative can bring welfare toward RWMWs and goes beyond the discourse of safe migration. The data in this research analyzed using Harvard and Longwee’ gender analysis tools as well as indicator of gender mainstreaming, and Naila Kabeer’s theory of empowerment. This paper finds that local initiatives of productive economy have a positive impact on the economic sustainability of RWMWs in Kenanga Village. It is important to develop economic resilience as an alternative to alleviate poverty. However, in the empowerment program,it is important to consider various aspects of gender justice.</div>

The Location of Settled Diasporas in Nova Scotian Fiction

This article offers a comparative study between two novels by Nova Scotian writers: George and Rue (2006), by George Elliott Clarke, and No Great Mischief (2000), by Alistair MacLeod. The main purpose of this analysis is to transform some of the pervasive assumptions that dominate interpretations of diasporic ontologies. Most conceptual contexts of diaspora, constructed around the idea of a homeland that is located elsewhere, can only partially be applied to historically long-established communities. Clarke’s and MacLeod’s works emphasize “native” identity, the historical presence of Africans and Scots in Nova Scotia and their ensuing attachment to the (home)land. The novels illustrate how the hostland may be transformed into a homeland after centuries of settlement. The favoring of routes over roots of many current conceptualizations of the diaspora thus contravenes the foundations on which these groups construct a “native/diasporic” identity. However, in settler colonies such as Canada, identifying these groups as unequivocally native would imply the displacement of the legitimate Indigenous populations of these territories. A direct transformation from diaspora to indigenous subjectivity would entail the obliteration of a (however distant) history of migration, on the one hand, and the disavowal of Indigenous groups, on the other. For these reasons, new vocabulary needs to be developed that accurately comes to terms with this experience, which I propose to refer to as “settled diaspora.” In settled diasporas, the notions of attachment to a local identity are reconciled with having distant points of origin. At the same time, there is conceptual room to accommodate claims of belonging that differ from those by Indigenous populations. Thus, the concept of the settled diaspora redresses critical restrictions in diaspora theory that prevent discourses of migration from being applied to spaces of settlement.

Rural out-migration from Ghana’s development zones and household food security

ABSTRACT Food security and human migration are both major developmental issues for governments, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. However, scholarship on the links between rural out-migration and food insecurity remains ambiguous about migrants in their destination and lacks ample comparison with the place of origin. Using data from the nationally representative Ghana Living Standards Survey (Round 7), we employed multinomial logit functions to examine the food security status of migrants relative to their non-migrant counterparts in their rural origins across Ghana’s three development zones i.e. Coastal, Middle Belt and Northern. The results showed that compared to their respective non-migrants, whereas rural out-migrants from the Coastal and Middle Belt development zones to urban areas were significantly more likely to be severely food insecure, rural out-migrants from the Northern Development Zone were less likely to be food insecure. Increase in household size and decrease in household expenditure were both associated with an increased likelihood of being food insecure across all development zones. These empirical findings highlight the importance of the unique characteristics of different migration flows in current food security and migration discourse globally. This study shows that rural out-migration to urban centers might not necessarily ensure relatively better food security as largely anticipated if the origin of migrants is overlooked.

The European Union Obligation: Member States must not Neglect the Consequences of Covid 19 to the Disadvantaged Asylum Seekers and Refugees

In early March 2020 the health crisis warnings of corona virus also known as Covid 19 emerged in the European Union (EU). It dominated political dialogues prompting a sense of urgency, fear, and disruption among people. Suddenly there was a halt to the continuous controversial discussions on migration, asylum seekers and refugee challenges across the EU Member States and beyond. The message from the health experts and governments among the EU Member States was clear. Stay home, wash your hands constantly, maintain physical distance, and keep the children away from vulnerable grandparents. However, these seemingly extreme health guidelines engendered great anxiety for the disadvantaged people living in crowded refugee camps across the EU and beyond. It became very clear that the requirement of physical distancing has become a privilege only available for the populations that have the capacity.Research shows that overcrowding and lack of sanitation in refugee camps continue to be problematic across the EU Member States. Somehow, it seemed unfair for the Member States governments to emphasise on the importance of constant wash of hands and social distance among its citizens, whilst ignoring the horrific living conditions of those displaced and stranded in the internal and external borders of the EU. Additionally, there are claims that Covid 19 has not fully manifested in the EU refugee camps, however with lack of information on corona virus testing in the camps it is difficult to legitimately evaluate the situation. This brief assesses the EU Covid 19 response in relation to the area of Asylum. Also serves as a reminder for the EU policy makers not to forget the migration discourse during coronavirus crisis. Particularly, for the asylum seekers and refugees as their presence will continue to impact major dimensions of the EU communities such as political, economy, and social, well beyond Covid 19.

Concerning the queer refugee: Staceyann Chin’s transient performance

Poet, performance artist, and activist, Staceyann Chin has created with her daughter Zuri an on-line “Living Room Protest” series. This work provides a focus to discuss the queer refugee and facilitates a broader inquiry into the spatial and temporal dimensions of transient performance as expressed through a digital platform. The Chins’ collaboration destabilizes assumed oppositions between child and adult, public and private, citizen and refugee. Their performances further investigate notions of home and subjectivity by highlighting some of the contradictions that obtain in relation to discourses of forced migration and related claims for asylum. Although the short videos of the protest series recall certain elements from Staceyann Chin’s larger oeuvre (specifically her spoken word performances, her solo theater shows, and her published writings), this dialogic form presented on YouTube participates in and potentially reshapes one particular family’s role in a public sphere constructed through new media.

Home Rule: National Sovereignty and the Separation of Natives and Migrants

Reviewer: Gregory J. Goalwin, Aurora University In Home Rule: National Sovereignty and the Separation of Natives and Migrants, Nandita Sharma develops a theory of international migration that situates current political debates within a deep postcolonial history of biopolitics, population control, and citizenship policies. Tracing patterns of colonial relations, Sharma emphasizes the postcolonial nature of the modern world system. Nations, she argues, are the core of a Postcolonial New World Order that have turned us all into National-Natives of some place, creating an expectation that each person belongs to a sovereign separated nation state. Such a system necessarily draws borderlines between members of the nation and everyone else, a distinction that is of critical interest to Sharma. By limiting national membership and creating “people of a place,” Sharma argues that the nation state system creates a new class of people as well, those “out of place” who lack their own sense of national membership or who can be found outside of their “natural” territory. It is this new form of governmentality and biopolitics that forms the core of Sharma’s argument. In tracing how these processes function in the postcolonial world, Sharma identifies a discourse of autochthony that restricts national membership even further: the only “true” nationals are what Sharma calls “National-Natives”: those who can in some way show they are Native to the nation. But this National-Nativity is native in a very specific way, that is, native to the postcolonial nation state itself, not the territory it occupies. This thus creates two other categories of humanity “Indigenous-Natives,” those who predated the nation state and thus do not share fully in its community, and “Migrant-Natives” subsequent settlers from outside the nation state’s territory. This distinction, Sharma argues, is central to modern discourses of migration. By reconceptualizing national communities in this way, indigenous peoples are set aside in favor of new National-Natives who themselves often argue that Migrants represent a new form of colonialism, one that threatens their “rightful” claim to national sovereignty.

Migration Linguistics: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to the Formation of the Direction

Migration researchers deal with various aspects of the proposed topics: political, economic, sociological, legal, cultural, psychological. In this regard, approaches to the definition of the concept of “migration” vary. It is not only the definition, which is a problem but also the determination of and finding the key concepts of migration linguistics such as, integration, acculturation, identity. The lack of a unified term system, and as a consequence the divergent use of the concepts of migration linguistics in various scientific fields, complicates the modeling of both migration processes and their key concepts. The object of migration linguistics is not only a model of dynamic language processes, not only a model of migration discourse, but also such aspects as motivation, circumstances, migration factors, consequences of migration processes. Each of these aspects can represent an independent sphere of research.

Does Islamic inclusion of Syrians represent a real challenge to Europe's security approach?: Dilemmas of the AKP's Syrian refugee discourse

ABSTRACT Drawing upon the critical geopolitics literature and discourse analysis, this article will explain how the ruling AKP in Turkey fashioned an alternative, Islamically infused migration discourse in response to the Syrian refugee crisis and how it depicted this as counter-hegemonic to the dominant depictions of East and West embedded within Europe's existing securitization discourse. According to the AKP's geopolitical discourse, the differing attitudes evinced in Europe and Turkey toward the Syrian migrants can be explained by civilizational values deriving from the history and religious composition of the respective regions, as between the Orient and the Occident. However, this article examines to what extent this self-promoted discourse of Islamic inclusion has succeeded in engendering a more progressive settlement and integration regime. It argues that it has actually fostered its own system of ‘Othering’ and has led to the development of selective admission and exclusionary practices similar to those in Europe.

Psychological wellbeing in diaspora space: a study of African economic migrants in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT African migrants in Hong Kong and the rest of Greater China are often confronted with numerous social and economic constraints. Notwithstanding, extant studies have not adequately examined how these challenges affect the psychological wellbeing of Hong Kong’s African economic migrants specifically. Using a qualitative research design underpinned by the concept of diaspora space, this article discusses the social aspects of psychological wellbeing among African economic migrants in Hong Kong. Specifically, it shows how the attitudes of local Hong Kongers (本地人) towards African economic migrants affect the psychological distress of the African migrants. The locals' attitudes influenced the Africans' psychological distress in three non-exclusive ways, namely confusion of personal and social identity (identity as black people); perceived discrimination; and difficulty in forming lasting relationships with the locals. The findings are discussed within the broader discourse of diasporic migration and wellbeing.