Migration Industry Research Articles

Assessing roles and strategies of public sector stakeholders in an evolving (lifestyle) migration industry: the case of the Dutch Emigration Expo

ABSTRACT This study focuses on local and regional governments using place-branding strategies to attract intra-EU inward migration for demographic and/or economic purposes. This forms an important aspect of contemporary migration industries, whereby the interlinking of lifestyle, work and economic investment is pivotal. Taking the case of the Emigration Expo event in the Netherlands, it draws on interviews with the organizer and with public sector exhibitors to assess their purposes, roles and strategies when participating in the event. In addition, this paper examines to what extent public sector agents perceive this Expo as a viable physical event, contributing to a lifestyle migration industry. Findings suggest a shift in public sector strategies from attracting residents to recruiting skilled workers or lifestyle entrepreneurs and businesses. Exhibitors that maintain a recurring presence at the Expo over several years can build meaningful relations with each other and with prospective migrant visitors, providing practical information and integrated ‘packages’ to promote their destination as an attractive place to work and live. This supports the idea that (e)migration expos remain relevant physical sites of an evolving branch of the migration industry, including public-private partnerships involved in place and relocation branding as part of spatial planning strategies beyond growth.

YouTubing Remittances, Revealing (Dis)connectedness: Copresence as Fiction, Ideal and Heuristic on the YouTube Channel of Western Union

ABSTRACTSending and receiving remittances is central to the negotiation of transnational family life, and to nourishing a sense of copresence among physically distant parties. Although the lived experience of this transaction has a very intimate and personal basis, it is also subject to increasing visual and public representation, as a part of the working of dedicated migration industries. Based on an in‐depth exploration of the advertising materials on the YouTube channel of Western Union (WU), we analyse how money circulation is made visible, emplaced in migrant life circumstances and co‐produced through visual narratives that illuminate the micro‐foundations of copresence and its structural limitations. While following the rationale of a commercial product, and despite their idealized contents, WU's stories are revealing about the relational affordances for virtual copresence, its shortcomings and the social embeddedness of remittances in family life.

Multidirectional mistrust: German female volunteers’ emotion work in the context of male deportation and return from Europe to Senegal

ABSTRACT This article investigates how German volunteers navigate the often conflicting and emotionally loaded European practices and discourses of removal when interacting with Senegalese returnees in Senegal. Following male Senegalese returnees and female German volunteers, it analyses the affective long-term entanglements the volunteers engage in to support Senegalese men after they have left Europe. It illustrates the importance of emotion work as volunteers deal with the multidirectional circulation of mistrust and frustration between returnees, institutions and donors in the return migration industry. In the circulation of affects in these engagements, mistrust is at times transformed into trust but may also fall back into suspicion.

Migrant services and the reconfiguration of social reproduction as capital accumulation

Much of past feminist theorization of social reproduction has concentrated on the domestic sphere. However, in multiple domains such as education, childcare, elder care, health care, the delivery of goods, and migrant settlement, first the state and non-profit organizations and increasingly corporate profit-making service industries emerged as significant providers. In this transformed world of social reproduction, the initial query of feminist theorists about the relationship between social reproduction and capital accumulation must again be addressed. This return to a theorization of social reproduction in what is often considered the humanitarian sector of capitalist economies must encompass the labor of precarious workers and unpaid volunteers. Building on but going beyond the feminist debate about social reproduction, this paper explores the relationship between the public–private domain of service delivery and capital accumulation in migrants’ services. In so many instances, humanitarian activities in sectors such as migrant services have become the local face of a multiscalar migration industry. Through an exploration of the delivery of migrant services in a disempowered city in eastern Germany, the paper explicates the dynamics through which social reproduction activities are commoditized and are increasingly linked to locations and mechanisms of capital accumulation through the extraction of surplus value.

Humanitarian capitalism: The labour regime of aid and the surrogate welfare state in times of global displacement

Recent literature on the geography and political economy of humanitarian migration governance has highlighted the diverse circuits of economic value being forged through ‘refugee crises’ across the world. However, there is a noticeable gap in the examination of what kind of labour relations sustain these new economic circuits. Additionally, there is limited analysis of how humanitarian labour practices intersect with existing geographies of labour precarity in regions where refugee aid operations are conducted. This article aims to address these gaps by exploring the dominant labour relations within the changing landscape of private and public service providers in Greece following the 2015–16 European ‘refugee crisis.’ The article argues that the growth of the refugee aid sector in Greece both capitalised on and exacerbated ongoing processes of labour market deregulation and public sector contraction. The burgeoning aid sector operated as a surrogate welfare state, relying on devalued local labour to address the basic social reproduction needs of global ‘surplus populations’. Extending discussions on the political economy of migration industries beyond profit-making to account for their role in transforming the welfare state and labour relations in spaces of accentuated capitalist crisis, the article demonstrates how the emergency temporalities of aid funding, the rise of public sector managerialism, and employment protection liberalisation impact migrant-facing services, effectively serving as both anti-labour and anti-immigration policy. Furthermore, it illustrates how politically induced migrant ruination is used as a lever to intensify and moralise humanitarian labour in a feedback loop detrimental to both working-class locals and migrants.

Migration industries around the nexus of mobility, immobility and settlement. An overview

This introduction aims to give a brief overview of research on the migration industries, based on our definition of the migration industry as all those eco-nomic and financial activities developing between people on the move and the border, we categorise the literature that focuses on this topic around the nexus of mobility, immobility and settlement. We suggest reading and interpreting the research along three main dimensions, depending on where migration in-dustry actors intervene in the relationship between people on the move and the border: a migration industry that facilitates mobility and border crossing and involves actors ranging from smuggling networks to global recruitment agen-cies; an immobility migration industry that involves state and private actors aiming to regulate and/or control the movement of people; and a migration in-dustry that is not concerned with the journey itself, but with the settlement of migrants. Various migration industry actors are present in all these stages, re-configuring their roles, shifting their activities, and responding to new and dis-tinct opportunities for/of the commodification and commercialisation of mi-gration. For these reasons, as will be argued in the introduction to this mono-graph issue, the notion of industries rather than a single industry better reflects the variety of actors and activities operating between migrant agency and border along the different stages of migration projects.

The regularisation industry: a qualitative analysis of the legal-administrative intermediation field

The bureaucratic management of the legal and administrative statuses of mi-grants is a pervasive yet scarcely researched aspect of the migratory experi-ence. This article describes the field of intermediation services for migrants, with a particular focus on legal and bureaucratic support. Using the 2020 regu-larization of irregular migrant workers in Italy as a case study, it shows that actors related to this emerging segment of the ‘migration industry' are not only concerned with facilitating migrants' physical border crossings but also that intermediation services increasingly involve the crossing of internal borders, particularly between different (il)legal migration statuses. The article describes the field of legal-administrative status-intermediation, highlighting the different actors involved, who differ widely in their legal competency and the degree to which they marketize their services. The article argues that the com-bination of legal uncertainty and the specific features of the institutional and regulatory framework concerning intermediation services in Italy creates space for the emergence and expansion of for-profit actors. These actors oper-ate on a sliding scale between legal and illegal, formal and informal service-provision, ranging from commercial intermediation to illicit practices and fraud. Additionally, the article shows increasing forms of competition and ten-sion between non-profit and for-profit actors in the field. The analysis is based on 45 interviews with different actors of civil society, employers and migrants involved in the amnesty. The article looks at the migration industry as a field of intermediation in a context marked by the pandemic and on the forms of embeddedness of irregular migrants in local society.

Migration management and uneven development: economic geographies of migrant camps on the Greek island

This article focuses on Lampedusa as an exemplary case study of economic transformation brought about by migration, as well as the creation of a ‘migra-tion industry'. On the basis of interviews with key informants and a reconstruction of the secondary literature, it shows how migration has given international visibility to the island, starting from the first arrivals of emigrants in the 1990s, through the increase in landings during the so-called ‘Arab Spring', and up to the pre-sent. This has fed various processes of conversion from an economy based on fishing towards an economy built around relatively recent tourism. Further-more, it highlights how the national, European and international policies of migration governance have contributed to creating an industry based on con-sumption by the military, police, volunteers, health and humanitarian person-nel present on the island and the impact this has had on the local service sec-tor.

Of land and sea. "Interested solidarities" and the migration industry from below

This paper explores economic interactions between displaced people, local societies and spatial dimensions of migration management and border con-trols, most notably camps, focusing on the northeast Aegean islands of Chios and Lesvos. It explores the diverse activities, practices, transactions and rela-tions developing in, around and in relation to migrant camps, the array of eco-nomic actors involved, and the multiple spatialities operating at different scales. These actors intersect in various ways and occasionally interact in overlapping networks, stimulating "developmental" processes in fields of eco-nomic activities within but also beyond the migration industries. Building pri-marily on fieldwork conducted on the two islands in 2020, as well as on sec-ondary data and desk research, the paper argues that reception policies create value and mobilise resources in ways that may deepen existing inequalities or even produce new ones, capitalizing on the presence of the migrants them-selves.

Crafting markets of exclusion: Frontex and the border security sector

This article analyzes processes, networks and actors on markets for border control as they relate to the operational work and structures of the European Border and Coast Guard (Frontex). More specifically, based on data collection and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders, it contributes new research on migration industries and infrastructures, by examining how Frontex has been reconfigured towards a functionality of generating and developing mar-kets for border security, including surveillance deportations and infrastruc-tures through tenders, contracts and company relations. The article also exam-ines how this development has facilitated the creation of EUROSUR, and EU collaboration with Libyan authorities as well as the implementation of depor-tations from Greece and Turkey. It concludes with more general observations on the political economy of border control resulting from Frontex's crafting of border markets, and the implications it has for human rights and transparency.

The economic backstage of the landings of emigrants on the island of Lampedusa. An exemplary case of migration industry

The economic backstage of the landings of emigrants on the island of Lampedusa. An exemplary case of migration industry

The end of Mexico–US migration as we knew it – or back to the future?

Over the last decade, scholars have declared the collapse of the Mexico–US system of undocumented migration. The H2 visa programme, a regime of managed sojourning is replacing the system of unauthorized cross-border mobility. In fiscal year 2023, the US government issued nearly 370,000 H2 temporary work visas to Mexicans. This temporary migrant labour programme is also bringing back circulation, temporary legal stays, and mostly male cross-border mobility – features that are akin to the old Bracero Program (1942–64). We contend that the restoration of these legal and sociodemographic dynamics undermines critical pillars of the system of undocumented labour mobility, limiting and reorienting the role of social networks, and potentially ending the way Mexico–United States has functioned for the past half century. We use ethnographic, interview and survey data to analyse the expansion of this new regime of highly mediated cross-border mobility, the ascent of the brokerage apparatus, and its effect transforming the social infrastructure of migration. We ask, specifically, how does the H2 temporary migrant labour programme constrain and diminish kin and hometown-based social networks, previously seen as ‘the engine of migration’? How does the shift from migrant networks to a brokerage apparatus impact trust, reciprocity and the development of migratory social capital? How is the new regime changing the experience of migration – substituting risk and adventure for certainty and routinized movement? How does the H2 temporary migrant labour programme revert the locus of social reproduction of the labour force back to sending communities, preempting integration at the destination? We frame the answers to these questions in the emerging migration industry and infrastructures paradigm, which examines to the role of migrant and non-migrant actors in the facilitation, control and overall mediation and structuring of cross-border mobility.

Contextualizing Fair Migration in Malaysia: From Sovereign Migration Governance Toward Developmental Global Migration Governance

This paper proposes that fair migration governance in Malaysia reflects a gradual shift from sovereign migration governance towards developmental global migration governance. It examines three approaches the Malaysian government takes to enhance migrant rights protection: concluding a zero-cost migration memorandum of understanding (MoU), digitalizing the recruitment process for foreign workers, and introducing joint liability schemes for employers and private employment agencies. These approaches are a significant move towards rights-based solutions, consistent with Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 10.7: Facilitate orderly, safe, regular, and responsible migration and SDG 8.8: Protect labor rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers. Document analysis examines data from official documents and legislations, reports from international organizations, statements from migrant advocacy organizations and trade unions, parliamentary debates, and newspaper articles. The findings have two implications. First, it reflects a central shift in the conceptualization of Malaysia’s labor migration industry from a business model to a rights protection model through eliminating intermediaries. Second, it illustrates the transition of Malaysia’s migration policy from sovereign migration governance to developmental global migration governance. In the Malaysian case study, policy changes are both the consequence of a top-down statist approach and global and societal movements toward developmental global migration governance.

Formal and informal dimensions of housing allocation: housing actors and gatekeepers of low-income migrants’ access to housing in the Bronx, New York City

It is recognised that migrants’ access to housing in destination cities is shaped by a number of factors. This paper takes as its focus the processes of housing allocation for low-income West African migrants in the Bronx, New York City. Drawing on 37 semi-structured interviews with housing providers and intermediary organisations that perform housing-related functions, the paper builds upon literature on migration industries and informal housing solutions among migrant communities, and reveals the formal and informal systems which migrants must navigate in order to secure housing. The specific roles which housing providers and intermediary organisations – including housing advocacies NGOs, public institutions, and religious groups – play are highlighted. The paper shows that informal processes operating in the low-income housing market in the Bronx mirror the operations of formal institutional structures, but instead of financial and legal grounds for housing allocation, informal migration industries are centred on social ties within the established migrant community. Such arrangements provide much-needed access to affordable housing for low-income tenants and facilitate further migration.

The evolution of the migration industry – how have employers been supported in sourcing their workforce?

ABSTRACT The migration industry consists of actors and organisations (e.g. agents, brokers, agencies, corporations) through which migration is facilitated, organised, and accelerated. Although the migration industry gained prominence in the late 20th century within labour mobility, it has relatively rarely been the subject of historical analysis. This historiographical essay argues that employers’ needs and demands for foreign workers, often ad-hoc, have triggered the emergence and development of the migration industry. Rooted in modern historical debates on labour migration, this essay aims to critically assess various forms of cooperation between employers and commercial actors worldwide and place those strategies within the migration industry. Inspired by dichotomous approach to capturing the relationships identified between employers and actors in the migration industry (i.e. agents and partners), this essay investigates the larger spectrum of types of relationships that have taken place historically. We argue that since the mid-19th century, we have witnessed an evolution of these relationships: from acting as a provider of labour (supplier or agent) to a greater professionalisation and consolidation of the relationship between employers and actors in the migration industry (partners and then allies).

Between Marketization and Demarketization: Reconfiguration of the Migration Industry in the Agricultural Sector in Israel

This paper focuses on the consequences of the implementation of a bilateral agreement between Israel and Thailand for migrant workers in the agricultural sector. Its purpose is to shed light on the key mechanisms of the transition from the marketization to demarketization of recruiting migrant workers, and to show how this transition affects the forms of labor recruitment and its consequences for the labor migrants. The study is based on three face-to-face surveys conducted among 180 agricultural workers from Thailand. Fifty-five were surveyed in 2011 before the implementation of the bilateral agreement, and 125 were interviewed after the agreement was implemented. Relying on a “before” and “after design, we first highlight the ways in which the private recruitment industry operated in Israel in the context of a state-sponsored temporary labor migration program, identifying the actors involved in the process and explaining how they profited from the labor recruitment. Second, we shed light on the importance of bilateral agreements in eliminating illicit practices for recruiting foreign workers in Israel and its practical consequences for the Thai migrants arriving under the new arrangement. We discuss our findings in light of the theories presented in the paper.

A Gender-Aware Analysis on the Feminization of Entertainment Industry in Japan

This manuscript reexamines the institutionalization of the feminization of migration industry in the Philippine-Japan migration stream through a gender-aware approach. It interrogates on the reasons why Filipina migrants made their way out of the Philippines, through regular and illicit channels, to a host country like Japan despite its restrictive immigration policies. The study unpacks on the common notion that along with active state facilitation, Filipino women migrants’ mobility or those who are engaged in “nightwork” is basically mediated through the entertainment industry. This research is a product of long engagements with the respondents and various key-informants of NGOs and club owners from 2010 to 2015. The findings reveal that women migrants are able to exploit the migration industry as their personal network in alleviating their precarious status. The researcher agrees that the institutionalization of the migration through the entertainment industry from the Philippines to Japan perpetuates an exploitative woman-dominated migration stream. However, in most instances, Filipina migrants capably exploit their personal or community network formation which could also be found in the nightwork industry.

A “Migrantisation” of Borderwork? Emergence, Work Status, and Careers of Peer Intermediaries in Morocco’s Migration Industry: The Case of Voluntary Returns

This paper explores the idea of a “migrantisation” of borderwork through the case of peer intermediation in the provision of information to migrants regarding voluntary returns from Morocco. Under what conditions are people categorised as sub-Saharan migrants being employed in projects led by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM)? What are the trajectories, careers, and work status of these peer intermediaries? To what extent does peer intermediation shape social relationships and boundaries within the migration industry and migrant communities? Using ethnographic data and documentary sources collected during fieldwork in Morocco, the paper traces the emergence of peer intermediation and underlines its diversity through the in-depth study of three illustrative trajectories. It examines “migrantisation” in relation to issues of racialisation, work, and im/mobility.

"They don't care about people; they only care about the money": the effects of border enforcement, commodification and migration industries on the mobility of migrants in transit through Mexico.

How does border enforcement affect the mobility of migrants and refugees in countries of transit? What impact does it have on migrants' bodily experiences of mobility and their reliance on actors of the migration industry? While the externalization of borders affects undocumented people by increasing their vulnerability to violence during transit, the impact of the migration regime on the social construction of inequalities in every-day interactions and its relationship to the capacity for mobility has not been studied in depth. This article intends to bridge this gap: based on ethnographic fieldwork I conducted between 2013 and 2019, this article analyzes the relation between immigration enforcement and the mobility strategies of migrants and refugees, particularly women. It focuses on the intertwining of border enforcement and violence and their impact on people's bodily mobility experiences in transit through Mexico along intersecting lines of inequality such as race, class, gender and nationality. First, I analyze how border enforcement contributes to internal bordering, thereby increasing the vulnerability and dependence of migrants on brokers for mobility; second, it looks at the bodily experiences of women in transit and the ways in which internal bordering shapes gendered power hierarchies among actors in the field of mobility. The analysis shows how women negotiate mobility and bodily integrity in social interactions with different actors and how they face constraints resulting from the gendered hierarchies to mobility on routes of transit. Furthermore, it demonstrates how women's bodies have become a privileged site for the construction of a 'body politic' exploitable by others, since border enforcement has contributed to weakening the possibilities of negotiating mobility and bodily integrity in transit.

Exploring the Links Between Racial Exclusion and Human Trafficking of Migrant Workers in Qatar

Qatar has become a significant destination for migrant workers looking to escape unemployment in their home countries. However, highly active labour migration pathways create migration industries that exploit the increased supply of labour migrants, leading to trafficking. Human trafficking has been a longstanding concern in Qatar, especially with low-skilled migrant workers in the informal, domestic service and construction sectors. United Nations bodies and non-governamental organisations have criticised Qatar over the treatment of its migrant workforce, especially with concerns about trafficking for labour exploitation and forced labour. In addition to complaints of human trafficking, concerns have been raised concerning perceived racialised drivers of exploitation in Qatar. According to the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Ms Tendayi Achiume, Qatar battles with issues of structural racial discrimination concerning its migrant workforce. This article examines the links between race and the trafficking of migrant workers in Qatar.