Representations Of Migrants Research Articles

Recent issues in Latino labor and migration around the globe: Interdisciplinary approaches

This special issue contains articles that examine Latino labor and migration issues in various locations around the world. The articles bridge research and theory across disciplines and include studies incorporating a variety of methodologies to examine these important areas. These articles begin to fill some of the voids where a systematic and robust corpus of knowledge is lacking. The contributions address topics ranging from issues of worker perceptions of organizational justice to contexts of reception to pedagogical representation of migration. Finally, each contribution delineates the policy implications resulting from the processes and literatures that are examined.

Ethnic Minorities in the Mass Media: How Migrants Perceive Their Representation in Swiss Public Television

Communication research highlights deficiencies in the media’s representation of migrants. The study at hand analyzes these deficiencies from the perspective of the migrants concerned: How do they perceive their representation in the media, especially on television? And how do they assess the perceived situation with regard to immigrant integration? This topic has been examined in a qualitative pilot study based on six group discussions amongst migrants and Swiss citizens with an immigration background in the German-, French-, and Italian-speaking parts of Switzerland. The results show a high discrepancy between the desire for more presence and participation on the one hand, and the wish to stand in the spotlight less often, on the other hand.

An outsider and the experience of migration: reflections on the representations of migrants in the fictional context of Samuel Rawet's work

Este artigo busca estabelecer uma reflexão acerca da representação sobre o migrante nos contos O Profeta e Gringuinho da obra Contos do Imigrante de Samuel Rawet. Para tanto, tomamos como referencial teórico trabalhos que se dedicaram a abordar os escritos deste autor, como os de Silva (2009), Brasil (s/d), Kirschbaum (2002), Chiarelli (2005), Engellaum (2006). E, a fim de problematizar a questão do migrante apresentada nos contos, nos fundamentamos na categoria de identidade e no debate sobre a migração. Observamos que o fato de Rawet ser um migrante e um outsider em relação a literatura dita canônica, de certa forma, interferiu na constituição dos seus personagens, sendo esta interferência capaz de colocar a possibilidade de utilização das representações que integram a obra ficcional para discutir aspectos relacionados à migração.

Representing Gender on the Move from Africa to Spain: Donato Ndongo's El metro

This paper argues that literary representations of migration from Africa to Spain hold the potential to create alternative visions of gender, identity, and the nation. I analyze the work of the Equatorial Guinean author, Donato Ndongo, whose novel El metro (2007) demonstrates how gender and migration intersect to shatter any fixed notion of the African migrant experience. The migratory journey from Africa to Spain becomes a space where normative notions of gender and sexuality are contested. Informed by postcolonial and gender theory, this article seeks to shed light on a number of questions related to gender and migration: How are the traditional gender norms strengthened or interrogated in these literary narratives? How do these representations challenge masculine hegemony by presenting alternative images of masculinity and femininity? Finally, what larger implications do these visions of masculinity and femininity have on the nation? In order to answer these research questions, I focus on the following themes: the role African gender relations play in the decision making process, the existence of gendered social networks; how the migratory journey reconfigures or reaffirms gender roles, and how the return of the migrant is a gendered performance of masculinity. My analysis reveals how Ndongo creates subversive gendered identities, which emerge from the migratory experience, that contradict the normative discourse in Spain surrounding the phenomenon.

Migration in German Textbooks

This article raises the question of how German textbooks should deal with issues of migration as one of the main challenges in a globalizing age. In order to prepare the ground for a well-founded answer it follows a twofold agenda. In a rst step, previous attempts at analyzing textbook representations of migration are critically scrutinized and read against the background of current debates on methodological approaches to textbook research. In a second step, anthropological research on the structure of public German discourses on migration is cited as a key to developing a truly multiperspectival mode of representing it. Ultimately, the article demonstrates that education alone cannot be given the responsibility of clarifying questions that politics have failed to articulate and that pupils must be taught to participate competently in the discourse on migration policy. They should be familiarized with the various positions advocated in the political sphere, and simultaneously equipped with the necessary tools for critical re ection.

Convicts and Coolies: Rethinking Indentured Labour in the Nineteenth Century1

This article seeks to shift the frame of analysis within which discussions of Indian indentured migration take place. It argues that colonial discourses and practices of indenture are best understood not with regard to the common historiographical framework of whether it was ‘a new system of slavery’, but in the context of colonial innovations in incarceration and confinement. The article shows how Indian experiences of and knowledge about transportation overseas to penal settlements informed in important ways both their own understandings and representations of migration and the colonial practices associated with the recruitment of indentured labour. In detailing the connections between two supposedly different labour regimes, it thus brings a further layer of complexity to debates around their supposed distinctions.

“Our England”: discourses of “race” and class in party election leaflets

This article examines two election leaflets distributed in Bradford, UK as part of the May 2006 local election campaigns of the Labour Party and the British National Party. Drawing on critical discourse analysis, the article shows that prejudicial ethnicist discourse is not solely the purview of marginal far-right political parties, but is incorporated by mainstream British political communications. Specifically, I argue the two leaflets share similar ideological assumptions and arguments: first, of English exceptionalism; second, a representation of migrants as “things” that we have a right and a need to manage in the interests of “Our” nation; and third, the complete elision of class identity and conflict when examining who benefits from the exploitation of migrant workers.

“Dishonourably Postnational”? The Politics of Migrancy and Cosmopolitanism in Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance

This article explores Rohinton Mistry's novel A Fine Balance (1996), alongside his short story “Lend Me Your Light” (1987), focussing on the tensions between the politically-distanced cosmopolitan migrant and the socially-committed local activist. My readings draw on Radhakrishnan's notion of diasporic “double duty” — of accountability to, rather than irresponsible detachment from, the homeland. Mistry's representations of migrants, I contend, are centrally concerned not only with the necessity, but also the difficulty, of performing such “double duty” through a sustained engagement with India's history and politics. In this light, I argue that Mistry offers representations of migrants whose attempts to distance themselves from local and national politics are revealed as impossible and irresponsible. Moreover, I suggest that Mistry's representations reveal an anxiety over his position as a migrant writer, and his work seems to mobilize writing as a means of avoiding a problematically apolitical detachment from India. Thus, Mistry establishes a tension between his representation of the migrant within his fiction and his negotiation of his own migrant position through his fiction.

Ethnicity, Migration and the Lunatic Asylum in Early Twentieth-Century Auckland, New Zealand

SummaryIn recent years, scholars have utilised patient case-books to unearth the social experience of the lunatic asylum, particularly with reference to gendered dimensions and the role of the family. Where migration is considered, the focus is on whether or not mobility led to higher rates of committal. In other studies where place of birth is included as a category of analysis, no cross-referencing exists with other elements such as gender, marital status or religious affiliation. Instead, class and gender, rather than ethnicity, are the defining categories. This paper is a preliminary attempt to rectify this manifest neglect. It is based on information relating to 389 foreign-born migrants committed to the Auckland asylum between 1903 and 1910. The paper has two main objectives. First, it attempts to ascertain the key demographic features of the asylum's migrant population. What were their origins, gender and religion? How long had they been in New Zealand and what can we glean about their migration strategies and networks? Second, the analysis focuses on a number of issues pertaining to ethnicity. What do the case-books reveal about ties to place of origin, language and inter-ethnic relations? A broad conclusion addresses the complicated issue of analysing subjective versus objective perceptions and representations of migration and ethnicity, and establishes the benefit and significance of adopting a comparative approach to the study of migration and ethnic identities.

Digital storytelling as transformative practice: Critical analysis and creative expression in the representation of migration in Ireland

Digital stories are hyper short, personally narrated multimedia fragments. The process of creating a digital story offers points of departure for critical reflection, creative self-expression, collaboration and dialogue around issues that are often silenced and marginalised. These digital narratives centre the voice of the storyteller and utilise both moving and still images to visually accompany the spoken word. Individually selecting a story and collaboratively producing the audiovisual expression of that tale presents new possibilities concerning the politics and ethics of storytelling. Participants in this study are from a heterogeneous grouping of undocumented migrants to Ireland and are positioned as the central actors/producers of their migration stories, allied to the use of digital media technologies in the generation of documentary storytelling accounts.

Revista Generación: Mexican Regionalism and Migration in Tijuana and Chicago

In the United States, migration affects ethnic/racial identity politics, but it translates differently for Mexico, where not ethnic but regional identity is affected by emigration to the United States. The history of centralism has shaped how northern Mexicans have formed their identity in respect to Mexico City and the United States. Migration aggravates these tensions between northern Mexico and Mexico City. This article analyzes several cultural representations of migration within two issues of Revista Generacion, a literary and cultural magazine published in Mexico City, which is distributed nationally. The objective of this article is to see how migration and the emigrant population figure within the Mexican cultural imaginary.

Immigration and the aged care workforce in Australia: Meeting the deficit

Population ageing and low fertility rates are placing the Australian workforce in the twenty‐first century under pressure. Aged care is one of the key areas of the workforce in which labour shortages can be expected. This is likely to result in calls for these shortages to be increasingly addressed by the recruitment of more immigrant care workers, both skilled and unskilled. Using demographic projections and the limited data available on the current workforce, this paper examines the existing levels of migrant representation and considers the prospects for future increases in overseas‐born workers. The evidence shows that staff born outside Australia already compose a significant proportion of the workforce. Immigrants are not, however, equally distributed through the workforce, but are concentrated geographically in metropolitan areas. Those born overseas are also concentrated occupationally, although there is no simple pattern of confinement of migrants to low‐paid or unqualified positions.

“I FEEL I AM A BIRD WITHOUT WINGS”: DISCOURSES OF SADNESS AND LOSS AMONG EAST AFRICANS IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Using data from a qualitative study of understandings and experiences of “depression” among a number of East African communities in Western Australia, this article explores the dimensions of sadness and loss expressed by migrants and refugees. After discussing the parameters and cross-cultural (ir)relevance of the Western biomedical notion of “depression” (Kleinman and Good 1985) and its relationship to the hegemony of the Western “happiness” imperative (Wierzbicka 1999: 249), the article discusses methodological challenges involved in exploring understandings of “depression” among migrants. It then examines the ways in which sadness is expressed and the causes to which it is attributed, using extracts from interviews and focus groups with over 100 people from Ethiopian, Eritrean, Sudanese, and Somali backgrounds. The article argues that individualizing these concerns and reading them within the dominant Western biomedical framework of “depression” reinforces pathological representations of migrants and refugees, ignores structural disadvantage that produces negative emotional responses, limits settlement service responses, and may be recruited for the negative end result of arguing against immigration.

Images of exile: Tracing the past within the present in Henri-François Imbert's No Pasaràn! Album souvenir

Henri-François Imbert's No Pasàran! Album souvenir (2003) focuses on a lesser known episode of the Spanish Civil War; half a million Republicans fled their country after Franco's victory and crossed the border into France only to be ‘parked’ in makeshift refugee camps, ostracised by the host country about to fall into the hands of the Vichy government. The film is an illustration of the validity of cinema as a medium to help us understand history and offers welcome alternatives from the cliché-ridden representations of migrants in popular culture.

Imagining migration: Placing children’s understanding of ‘moving house’ in Malawi and Lesotho

Research pertaining to children’s geographies has mainly focused on children’s physical experiences of space, with their ‘imagined geographies’ receiving far less attention. The few studies of children’s imagined geographies that exist tend to focus on children’s national identities and their understanding of distant places. However, children’s lives are not necessarily static and they often move between places. Research has not so far considered children’s images of these transitional spaces or how such images are constructed. Through an examination of over 800 thematic drawings and stories, regarding ‘moving house’, produced by children aged 10–17 years in urban and rural communities of Lesotho and Malawi, this paper explores southern African children’s representations of migration. The research considers how ideas of migration are culturally-constructed based on notions of family, home and kinship, particularly in relation to the fluid family structure characteristic of most southern African societies. The results suggest that most children imagine migration as a household rather than an individual process, rarely including micro-migrations between extended family households in their drawings. Further, children’s images of migration are place-rooted in everyday life experiences. Their representations concentrate on the reasons for migration, both negative and positive, which are specifically related to their local social and environmental situations and whether house moves take place locally or over longer distances. The paper concludes by exploring the implications of these conceptualisations of moving house for children’s contemporary migration experiences, particularly in light of changing family structures due to the effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Schooling, symbolism and social power: The hijab in republican France

To fully understand the implications of the global climate of heightened suspicion about Islam we must also be aware of its expression through distinctive national discourses. Media debate leading up to the adoption by the French parliament of a law banning the hijab at school fits into a global discourse, but also presents local strategies of incorporation and silencing. The targets of scrutiny are primarily first and second generation migrants, a large and increasingly visible portion of whom live in rundown public housing and attend ‘problem’ schools associated with violence and failure. It is important therefore to consider the position, and positioning, of Muslims in relation to media representation. This article analyses the forms the dispute over the hijab has taken in France in terms of the role of the school in Republican ideology; the social and economic position of Muslims; and dominant representations of migrants and Islam.

‘NATURAL FAMILY CONDITIONS’: NARRATIVES OF STABILIZATION AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN COAL MINES, 1910–1970

ABSTRACT The historiography of migrant labour in Southern Africa focuses on explaining the origins and persistence of migrancy. Two alternative historical narratives of labour migration and stabilization have emerged, based respectively on the experience of the Copperbelt and the Witwatersrand. This paper first reviews these contrasting narratives and their historical representations of migration and stabilization. The paper then turns to the case of the South African coal mining industry. The history of labour practices on the South African coal fields demonstrates that Copperbelt-like stabilization could and did develop within the South African economic and political environment. Through a narrative account of labour migration and stabilization on the coal mines before the major mechanization programmes of the 1970s, the paper shows the inadequacy of the modernist model of unilinear transition. The actual outcomes were neither pre-ordained nor inevitable but the product of conflict and contestation. The coal mining companies, having ceded the right to their workers to live outside the compounds, were powerless to shape the form that stabilization took on the ground. Their grounding vision of a stable workforce living in ‘natural family conditions’ was a long way from the practical realities of migrants' lives.

The representation of migrants’ interests’ in the European Union

What impact does European integration have on the scope for representation of migrants’ interests in EU level decision‐making processes? This article explores this issue by examining the development of legal, political and institutional responsibilities at EU level that have emerged to manage a range of immigration and asylum‐related issues. The article then explores the components of a pro‐migrant interest group agenda that has started to develop at EU level and the avenues for representation open to such groups. Their activity and effectiveness is related to the frame for political action provided by the new configuration of responsibility within the EU for immigration and asylum policy. This does present some opportunities for pro‐migrant interest group mobilisation, but also places limitations on the chances for success of such action.

Going to Mugalan: Nepali Literary Representations of Migration to India and Bhutan

Going to Mugalan: Nepali Literary Representations of Migration to India and Bhutan