Prospective Migrants Research Articles

Putting places on the map? Marketing rural and regional Australia

Abstract Limited analysis of the promotion of migration to rural areas by local governments or regions, exists. In Australia a unique development strategy has emerged in Sydney and Brisbane. Originally, called Country Week when it began in 2004, the Country and Regional Living Expo attempts to encourage urban–rural migration via place promotion by local councils at an annual Expo. The approaches of two local councils, Glen Innes and Oberon, are the focus of this paper. These towns demonstrate the construction of place-identity to distinguish them from competing locations in the minds of urban residents, particularly in the initial phase of differentiation. As representatives of these towns learned, however, this does not address the most important stimuli that attract new residents. These stimuli are employment and housing, followed by services such as health and educational facilities. Understanding these stimuli, comprehending the process of urban–rural migration, understanding place-brand, recognising the relative strengths and weaknesses of “warm” and “cold” place marketing, and integrating communications and working to build relationships with prospective migrants are the factors that are most likely to generate success in marketing rural destinations to potential urban emigrants.

Visa problem: certification, kinship, and the production of ‘ineligibility’ in the Gambia

The article describes the documentary vicissitudes of young Gambian men of Soninke ethnicity. Normally the most mobile subjects in a milieu where international migration is central to subsistence and prosperity, these young men often fail to secure entry visas to the West and other desirable destinations owing to restrictive admission policies. Would‐be travellers cope with high rejection rates, but also struggle to secure financial and logistical support from relatives in order to meet the demanding requirements of visa applications. Since kinship mediates access to travel documents, the article suggests that visa ineligibility is a product of both state‐based and societal practices of certification. It shows how the visa regime plays into the kinship reciprocities and affects that produce, discipline, and select prospective migrants, thereby transferring and concealing the arbitrariness and uncertainty of legal‐political structures of mobility.

Happiness and the emigration decision

Happy people are healthier and more creative, productive, and sociable. Because of these positive effects of happiness, it is in the interest of countries to attract and retain happy people. With respect to the decision to migrate, the central question becomes whether people who are happier and more satisfied with their lives are more or less likely to migrate. The evidence so far is mixed. Correlational studies find that prospective migrants are less happy than people who are not intending to migrate, while one study controlling for reverse causality suggests that the desire to migrate increases with life satisfaction.

The Migrant Follows the Tourist: Australian Immigration Publicity After the Second World War

At the end of the Second World War, the Australian federal government’s Department of Information began producing international publicity aimed at attracting migrants. Previous research has considered this publicity solely as a response to the needs of the immigration program. Such an approach fails to register that governments had previously linked immigration and tourist publicity operations. This article shows that immigration publicity was not produced in isolation but rather as part of, and influenced by, a broader international publicity campaign also concerned with attracting tourists. The desire for a coordinated image, however, was tested by the constraints of the White Australia Policy. Tensions also appeared when the government struggled to balance the aims of attracting and informing prospective migrants. The difficulties the Department of Information faced in producing publicity that served both of these purposes remain unresolved for an Australian government that today still finds itself attempting to align multiple images.This article has been peer-reviewed.

Communicating attitudes: Ghanaian children’s expectations and experiences of Italian educational institutions

When facing the prospect of moving to a new country to join their migrant parents, children’s expectations and imaginings revolve around entering a new school environment. While prospective young migrants show awareness of the challenges that learning a language may entail, the possibility of facing discrimination is seldom entertained. However, children who have recently moved relate that episodes of discrimination and even racism within the school walls are not rare, nor are they confined to other pupils. This article highlights the importance of non-verbal communication in shaping young migrants’ perceptions, and argues that children’s outward adaptation to school demands may mask sustained feelings of marginalisation and exclusion.

Structural violence and the state: HIV and labour migration from Pakistan to the Persian Gulf

This paper examines the biopolitics of HIV and labour migration from Pakistan (a country classified by UNAIDS as at ‘high risk’ of a generalised epidemic) to the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The remittances by the labour migrants in the Gulf are an invaluable source of foreign exchange for Pakistan and a large number of households are entirely dependent upon them. At the same time, the National AIDS Control Programme regards Gulf migrants as a key risk factor for an HIV epidemic. The majority of HIV positive people in clinics comprise Gulf returnee migrants and their family members. This paper suggests that in the process of migrating, prospective migrants are subjected to structural violence that increases their HIV vulnerabilities. In this process, they are subjected to regimes of medical inspection, reduced to their certifiable labour power, inscribed with nationalist ideologies identifying HIV as a disease that strikes ‘the other’, and exposed to exploitation that increases their vulnerabilities. After migration, they are made to undergo compulsory periodic medical examinations in the GCC and, if found to be HIV positive, they are forcibly deported without papers, proper diagnosis or healthcare – only to return as ‘failed subjects’. Taking a disaggregated view of the state, the paper argues that, in order to be effective, debates on structural violence and the HIV epidemic must make explicit the role of the state in producing migrants’ vulnerabilities.

Deciding to Cross

Why are there so many unauthorized migrants in the United States? Using unique survey data collected in Mexico through the Mexican Migration Project, I develop and test a new decision-making model of unauthorized labor migration. The new model considers the economic motivations of prospective migrants, as well as their beliefs, attitudes, and social norms regarding U.S. immigration law and legal authorities. My findings show that perceptions of certainty of apprehension and severity of punishment are not significant determinants of the intent to migrate illegally; however, perceptions of availability of Mexican jobs and the dangers of border crossing are significant determinants of these intentions. In addition, individuals’ general legal attitudes, morality about violating U.S. immigration law, views about the legitimacy of U.S. authority, and norms about border crossing are significant determinants of the intent to migrate illegally. Perceptions of procedural justice are significantly related to beliefs in the legitimacy of U.S. authority, suggesting that, all else being equal, procedural fairness may produce greater deference to U.S. immigration law. Together, the results show that the decision to migrate illegally cannot be fully understood without considering an individual’s underlying values and norms.

Becoming a Migrant at Home: Subjectivation Processes in Migrant‐Sending Countries Prior to Departure

ABSTRACTLabour emigration is not merely the business of states and governmental policies, but comes with a range of wider societal practices. This includes the production of – and contestation over – the ‘ideal migrant subject’. This paper examines the complex interplay of actors and practices involved in migrant subject‐making processes paying close attention to the pre‐employment temporary labour migration process step by step from screening, recruitment, pre‐departure training up to employment‐matching. It asks how prospective migrants are transformed into ‘ideal’ migrant subjects. This contribution primarily draws from data from the Philippines and India. It is argued that migrants actually become migrants before they ever leave their home country: Labour‐sending states set the regulatory frameworks and co‐produce ‘ideal migrant subjects’ from which other social actors draw or contest. In contrast to most studies on the governance of labour migration, the authors highlight the role of subject formation as an important element of modern migration management. To the scholarship that actually takes into account subjectivation processes, this paper adds material both on the labour‐sending state as well as on non‐state actors. The paper, moreover, draws out subject‐making from previous studies where it is less central and more implicit. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Beyond “Kamikaze Migrants”: Risk Taking in West African Boat Migration to Europe

In recent years, tens of thousands of young Africans have left the shores of Senegal and other West African countries in small boats headed for Spain's Canary Islands. Most have spent a week or more at sea, and unknown numbers have died in the attempt. Given the danger of the journey, we ask how it could become a large-scale social phenomenon. The analysis focuses on how prospective migrants assess and relate to the risks of migration. We show that risk taking is shaped by context-specific interaction of disparate factors. These include economic obstacles to reaching social adulthood, notions of masculinity, pride and honor, and religion, in the form of sufi Islam.

The Desert and the Garden: Climate as Attractor and Obstacle in the Settlement History of the Western United States

Abstract This article examines climate and perceptions of climate as factors in the migration and settlement history of the western United States. It focuses on two regions of great interest in the nineteenth century. One, the so-called Great American Desert, in the western Great Plains, seemed a potential obstacle to settlement. The other, the Mexican state of Alta California, which after 1848 became the US state of California, proved a definite attraction to settlers. By the late nineteenth century, both regions were attracting migrants. One, however, would experience climatic disasters that discouraged settlement, while the other would continue to grow, encouraging an even larger migration after 1945 to the southernmost tier of US states, from Florida to California, a region that became known as the Sunbelt. The Sunbelt drew migrants from the US Northeast and Midwest in part because of its warmer climate. By examining these regions, and the climatic migrations they spurred, this article illustrates how perceptions of climate changed in the US Climate was transformed from a problem into a commodity. For prospective migrants, climate, once a matter of profound concern, became a benign asset. Yet the Sunbelt region is subject to major climatic hazards, from droughts to hurricanes. By better understanding historical perceptions of climate, we can more clearly see how it could prove either an obstacle or an attraction for migration, and why people migrated to areas of environmental hazards, whether in the US or elsewhere.

Measuring the effect of bi-directional migration remittances on poverty and inequality in Nicaragua

This article examines the impact of migrants’ remittances on poverty and income distribution in Nicaragua. Nicaraguan emigrants are fairly evenly distributed between the US and Costa Rica. Poorer migrants overwhelmingly migrate to Costa Rica; richer migrants favour the US. This bi-directional flow provides an opportunity to examine the distributional impacts of remittances in a situation that offers distinct opportunities to different groups of prospective migrants. To this end, we use Heckman's (1979) sample selection method to predict counterfactual ‘no-migration’ consumption figures for Nicaraguan households whose members have emigrated. Using these estimates, we are able to compare the current situation to one in which migration had not occurred. We find that migration to Costa Rica results in increased per capita household consumption for poor households, while migration to the US leads to increase in middle class households. The rate, depth and severity of poverty as measured by the Foster, Greer, Thorbecke Indices (Foster et al., 1984) decrease, though only slightly. However, inequality appears to increase, likely because the middle class benefits from US migration, while the poor tend to make it no farther than Costa Rica.

Colonialism and Contemporary African Migration: A Phenomenological Approach

Scholars of international migration have paid scant attention to the phenomenon of bifurcated social identity of African migrants and their efforts to reinvent or re- and deconstruct a certain image of self in their everyday life. This article aims to offer a more nuanced approach to studying the phenomenon of Africans’ involvement in voluntary migration to the West. Drawing on Goffman’s idea of “dramaturgy,” the article enunciates ways that African immigrants and migrants manage their impression and represent themselves to their peers and social groups in home societies. Using selected cases of African immigrants and migrants in the West, the article enunciates, first, how African migrants (re) present their myriad of experiences to their peers and social groups in home societies as well as the effect of those representations on prospective migrants and, second, why African migrants construe themselves in a particular way to their peers and social groups in home societies. A speculative application of phenomenology to existing qualitative data on African immigration and migration is offered to explicate the lifeworld of African migrants in their oscillation between ancestral and current societies and their seemingly insatiable desire for Euro-American countries.

Protecting Europe and Protecting Migrants? Strategies for Managing Unauthorised Migration from Africa

This article addresses the management of unauthorised migration from Africa to Europe. We review eight policy measures and explore how they relate to prominent policy narratives, centred on security, co-operation and protection of migrants. We also examine the specific mechanisms through which the policy measures function: direct control, deterrence and dissuasion. Analysis of policy narratives helps explain the ascendance of externalised migration control, such as pre-border patrolling. Furthermore, our analysis shows how the narrative of protection can be aligned with direct control measures and constitute a double-edged sword for migrants. The text focuses on maritime migration from West Africa to Spain's Canary Islands. We draw in part on ethnographic data from fieldwork in Senegal in order to assess the impact of specific measures on the target population of prospective migrants.

Classifying the “ideal migrant worker”

This article analyzes the ideology and practice of multi-unit competition that pervades neoliberal subjectivities and produces the “ideal” flexible worker within contemporary global capitalism. It demonstrates how state and capitalist interests converge to influence the selection of the ideal transnational migrant worker, how prospective migrants adapt to these expectations, and the consequences of such enactments, particularly for migrants, but also for the societies in which they live and work. Multiple levels of actors—employers, state bureaucrats, and migrants themselves—collude in producing the flexible, subaltern citizen, which includes constructions and relations of class, race, gender, and nationality/citizenship. The case study focuses on Mexican and Jamaican participants in Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program, a managed migration program that legally employs circular migrant farmworkers from Mexico and several English-speaking Caribbean countries in Canadian agriculture.

The Kazakhs of Western Mongolia: transnational migration from 1990–2008

The Kazakhs are the largest minority group in Mongolia, a relatively homogenous country dominated by Khalkh Mongols. Since 1991, Mongolia has transitioned politically and economically and witnessed significant changes in internal and international migration flows. The large-scale movement of ethnic Kazakhs from Western Mongolia to Kazakhstan represents one such emerging international flow. This migration is influenced by economic motivations, historical cultural ties to Kazakhstan, and immigration policies of both countries. This paper assesses the local and national circumstances that shape migration decision-making in Western Mongolia during the transition years and highlights changes in the characteristics and directions of migration flows during this time. We identify three periods of migration with each period characterized by changing economies and national policies in Mongolia and Kazakhstan, as well as changes in communications technologies and extensiveness of social networks among prospective migrants. These periods illustrate how transnational migration flows evolve through time and are affected by national, local, and individual circumstances.

An Empirical Study of Recent Mainland Chinese Migration to Vancouver

One of the major changes in the last decade in the character of Chinese migration to Vancouver and to Canada as a whole is that mainland Chinese migrants have become the largest source of Chinese immigrants arriving in Canada. In Vancouver, mainland Chinese migrants have become the largest group within the Chinese Canadian community. This paper explains the historical background for the change and analyzes the motivations behind mainland Chinese migration to Vancouver and British Columbia. It points out that most recent migrants from mainland China have come from a middle class background. Poverty, family union, and political dissent are no longer major driving forces in peoples’ decisions to migrate. In the 1990s and 2000s, mainland migrants have sought to better their natural and social environments, and to achieve a higher quality of life for themselves and their children. Prospective migrants to Canada view the existence of a large Chinese community in Vancouver as an important attraction, providing new immigrants with certain conveniences in everyday life and various job opportunities.

Mobility at the Heart of a Nation: Patterns and Meanings of Cape Verdean Migration

AbstractCape Verde, an island nation off West Africa, is a country moulded by migration from the time of settlement until today. This article traces the shifting migration flows to, through and from the archipelago. These trends are related to developments in transportation technology and changes in the world economy, which have created fluctuations in the attractiveness of Cape Verde’s location. The article then proceeds to explore the Cape Verdean “migration ideology”, which has historical roots but became consolidated through large‐scale labour emigration in the 1960s and 1970s. By “migration ideology” we refer to the set of ideas that associate migration with specific meanings and causalities. The final section of the article addresses some of the contradictions and pressures that have become central to Cape Verdean migration over the past decade or two: restrictive immigration policies in destination countries increasingly prevent the departure of prospective migrants, a diverse flow of return migrants challenges established notions of migrant success, and the islands are attracting larger numbers of transit migrants and immigrants from China and the African mainland. The analysis raises the question of how the Cape Verdean national identity will evolve with the complexity of the migratory landscape.

Vulnerabilities of Highly Skilled Immigrants in Canada and the United States

Despite similar permanent status immigration categories (Economic, Family, and Refugee), the experiences of skilled immigrants in Canada and the United States are quite different. The point system used to select applicants for the Economic Class in Canada makes skilled immigrants vulnerable to a number of perils after the migrant lands. Foreign credentials and work experience are discounted by Canadian employers, who also impose a discriminatory income penalty on minorities. While previous cohorts of Economic Class migrants may have been warned of these perils via reliable migrant networks, new Canadian research suggests that recent cohorts have no such safety net. This article examines the economic integration experiences of Economic Class migrants in the United States in light of the Canadian experiences. The vulnerabilities reported in Canada do not appear to be transferable to the United States, because immigration policy in the US stresses pre-landing employment commitments via employer sponsorship. Accordingly, prospective Economic Class migrants to the United States do not migrate without first knowing how their credentials and “minority status” will affect employment opportunities. However, for the 85,000 skilled workers admitted to the United States on H-1B temporary visas each year, the perils noted in the Canadian experience are relevant, as are a number of additional concerns.

TALKING ABOUT…

TALKING ABOUT…

Introduction to the Special Issue: Media and Ethnic Minorities in Europe

Abstract Across the countries of Europe and within the European Union, there seems to be no end to discussions of policies related to migrants – from the labor migrants who came to Europe more than 40 years ago to the continued requests from prospective migrants who want to immigrate for asylum and family formation. The discussions on what those policies should be, range from multiculturalism to integration and assimilation. Shifts in policies have occurred because of the slow economic and educational progress made by some migrants; by the post-9/11 changes in attitudes and behavior among some Muslim migrants, and by concerns over the increased size of the migrant population.