Transnational Labour Migration Research Articles

Austria and the Czech Republic as Immigration Countries: Transnational Labor Migration in Historical Comparison

Abstract This article is an introduction to the forum that compares Austria and today's Czech Republic as immigration countries.

Transnational Labour Migration and the Renegotiation of Masculinity by Left-Behind Men in Kerala

This article explores an understudied aspect of women’s transnational labour migration, namely how left-behind men negotiate the changes in their status in the domestic and public spheres when their daughters or wives migrate for work and become primary earners in the family. A case study of Syrian Christians in a village in Central Kerala with a long history of women’s transnational labour migration demonstrates how left-behind men refashion their masculine identities by reasserting their role as family protectors when they lose their traditional role as family providers. The article illustrates how left-behind men employ diverse social and discursive practices in domestic and community spheres to reconstruct their gendered sense of self and resist the social stigma of failed masculinity. It also demonstrates how the Church, which continues to be a dominant institution influencing the personal and political lives of Syrian Christians, has become an arena for left-behind men to reassert their patriarchal status at home and in the community.

Decentring migration governance: the complexity in capturing migrants’ voice in local governance in Nepal

ABSTRACT Migration studies have focused on the role of global, regional, and national actors in shaping transnational labour migration policies. However, how migrants and their families find avenues to engage in and shape migration governance in their home countries remain poorly understood. Drawing on the empirical evidence generated from a mixed-method approach involving in-depth interviews and surveys with key migration stakeholders in Nepal, this article examines various roles of international migration workers – prospective, current, and returnee – in shaping local public policies on migration governance. Findings reveal that Nepali migrant workers overseas have very tiny space in Nepal’ local governance to help (re)shape foreign employment policies. The article contributes to expanding the emerging scholarship on local migration governance in the context of labour origin countries.

Medical Deportation in the United States as an Extension of State Sovereignty: Immigration Enforcement, State Surveillance and Migrant Health


 
 
 Although the right to health is recognized by the World Health Organization as one of the most fundamental rights of every human being, migrants encounter particular barriers in accessing health services and attaining adequate health states. There exists an interconnection between access to healthcare and precarious migrant statuses that put migrants at risk of being deported when seeking medical treatment. Medical deportation—also called medical repatriation—refers to the extralegal practice of forcibly removing immigrant and migrant patients to their country of origin to avoid the burden of costly hospital care. This analytical essay will investigate the logics and mechanisms behind medical deportation in the United States which facilitate the state’s production of sovereignty through the control and surveillance of migratory populations. This knowledge will be utilized to understand the barriers faced by irregular im/ migrant populations in seeking medical care and the implications of transnational labour migration and medical deportation on migrant health. Not only do irregular im/migrants face the risk of deportation when seeking medical care, shaping their health-seeking behaviours, but they are also commonly positioned in undesirable work situations that heighten their vulnerability to health risks. Moreover, the act of medical deportation neglects to consider an im/migrant’s ability to access adequate healthcare within their ‘home’ country, further placing im/migrants in precarious health circumstances.
 
 

"SEASONAL MIGRATION AS LOCAL PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE: HISTORICAL CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN RURAL SOVIET TRANSCARPATHIA (1940S–1960S)"

Transnational labor migration from the western border regions of Ukraine is often explained by macro-economic factors: the unemployment that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and generally low wages. In this paper I argue for a more complex, culturally informed and historicized understanding of labor migration. I show that in Transcarpathia, labor migration has a history of at least one to one and a half centuries, from the second half of the 19th century to this day. I especially focus on the “translation” of the local traditionalized practices of mobility into the Soviet system in the late 1940s and early 1950s, following Transcarpathia’s annexation by the USSR. Understanding seasonal migration as a historically shaped competence of local communities and conceptually framing it in terms of “local practical knowledge” and “cultural reserve” allows to question the deterministic impact of macro-political factors and instead pay due attention to the grassroots knowledge and agency.

Convoluted mobility: on the precarious movements of transnational migrant workers

ABSTRACT This article explores how the precarity of migrants working in the national labour markets of the Global North is shaped throughout the entire transnational migration process encompassing the planning, the journey as well as the arrival, re-arrival, and engagement across the sending and the receiving societies. Introducing the concept of convoluted mobility, the article analyses how the mediation of transnational labour migration is uneven and filled with frictions of de-tours, stuckness, and obstacles leaving the migrant workers in precarious positions across the sending and receiving societies. Through the empirical examples of Ukrainian migrants working within the agricultural industry in Denmark and brokers in Ukraine, we argue that the precarity of the migrants is established through convoluted mobility characterised by the interlink between the transnational migration infrastructure that moves the migrants and the migrants’ autonomy moving through the migration infrastructure.

Leaving for living? Factors and dynamics behind Bangladeshi female migration to the Gulf states

ABSTRACT The paper explores the factors that cause female labour migration to the Gulf states from Bangladesh. Grounded on Amartya Sen’s concept of well-being in terms of capability and Marta Nussbaum’s further interpretation on that, the paper focuses on the cases of Bangladeshi returned and intended female domestic workers and analyses the factors influencing the decision of transnational labour migration. The study follows a qualitative method including in-depth semi-structured interviews, coupled with some focus group discussions, participant observation, and secondary data analysis. The paper unveils different external and internal factors influencing women’s decision on migration. Global demand for female domestic workers and caregivers is rising in many nations. In response to that, many countries including Bangladesh have relaxed restrictions on women’s transnational labour migration and facilitate their involvement in the global care industry. Furthermore, socio-economic, and personal drivers play a role for migrating to the Gulf states.

Utländska spelare i allsvenskan 1974–2021. Globalisering, kommersialisering och migration

Since the late 1990s, professional football players moving across national borders in search of the best possible livelihoods constitute a form of transnational labour migration that has grown enormously in scale and scope. The Swedish Premier Division has gradually been incorporated into this global player market. The development began in 1974, when Swedish clubs for the first time were allowed to sign foreign players. However, it was only after the Bosman-ruling in 1995, and the removal of restrictions on the number of foreign players, that the league was forcefully globalized. In this article, this globalizing development between 1974 and 2019 is analysed. The study shows that the development took place in three different phases, with the last phase (2009-19) constituting a break in the trend in globalization. From this point on, the number of players from countries in the nearby geographical area increased rapidly.

Queering the Global Filipina Body: Contested Nationalism in the Filipina/o Diaspora

Queering the Global Filipina Body: Contested Nationalism in the Filipina/o Diaspora

Contributors

Jessica Ball, MPH, PhD, is a professor with the School of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria, Canada. She has taught, consulted, and completed research on the determinants of marginalization of children and youth on three continents, focusing primarily on Southeast Asia. Her recent studies have addressed outcomes of transnational labor migration for children and families in Indonesia as well as the experiences of forced migration among young people from Myanmar and the Middle East who are living in Thailand and Malaysia (www.youthmigrationproject.com).Harriot Beazley is an associate professor of human geography at the University of the Sunshine Coast Maroochydore. Her research interests are located within social and development geography and children's geographies in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.Amanda R. Cheong is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia. Her research examines the relationships between legal status and inequality, with a focus on undocumented, stateless, and refugee populations. She is currently working on a book project, tentatively titled Omitted Lives, that explores the causes and consequences of exclusion from civil registration systems.Carolyn Areum Choi is a Guarini Dean's postdoctoral fellow in Asian and Asian American studies at Dartmouth College. Her research examines how race, class, education, and migration intersect across the Asian diaspora, and her current book project looks at the rise of South Korean labor and educational mobilities in intra-Asian and different Anglo-American settler contexts.Sari K. Ishii is a professor at the College of Sociology, Rikkyo University, Tokyo. Her research interests include minorities, transnationalism, citizenship, and statelessness. Her work has focused on migration and tourism in East and Southeast Asia, especially Thailand and Japan.Misaki Iwai is a professor with the Department of Asian Languages, Kanda University of International Studies, Chiba, Japan. Her research interests are in the fields of family relations, care, and transnational marriage migration, with a special focus on Vietnam.Maggi W. H. Leung is a professor of international development studies with the Department of Geography, Spatial Planning, and International Development at the University of Amsterdam. Her research focuses on the uneven geographies of migration and development, Chinese diaspora, and the internationalization of education.Rhacel Salazar Parreñas is a professor of sociology and gender and sexuality studies at the University of Southern California. Her areas of interest include gender, labor, migration, family, and economic sociology.Nicola Piper, formerly a professor of international migration and founding director of the Sydney Asia Pacific Migration Centre at the University of Sydney, Australia, is a Global Professorial Research Fellowship awardee, funded by the British Academy, at the Queen Mary University of London. Her key research interests are global and regional governance of labor migration, advocacy politics, and gendered migration.Charlie Rumsby is a fellow at the Sociological Review Journal, based at Keele University, and has a visiting research fellowship with the Anthropology Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her recent work explores identity and belonging among Vietnamese children living as de facto stateless in Cambodia, and it covers themes such as citizenship, human rights, morality, religious conversion, ethnicity, and intergenerational mobilities.Johanna L. Waters is a professor of human geography at University College London, where she is the codirector of the Migration Research Unit. She specializes in migration, transnationalism, and (international) education. Her work has largely focused on East Asia and trans-Pacific educational mobilities.

Situated Learning and Transnational Labor Migration: The Case of Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program.

Grounded in an analysis of interviews with migrant farm workers in Canada, this article explores how learning in the everyday contexts of temporary transnational labor migration is implicated in both migrant identity formation and the social reproduction of an established and growing labor migration regime. The article focuses on thinking through how workers negotiate the intergenerational workplace tensions that permeate life in Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program. The findings suggest that through their sustained participation in the everyday social practices that develop through dormitory-living, transnational laborers learn to become migrant workers. This formation of migrant worker identities in turn contributes to the reproduction of the social relations that support the ongoing practice of circulatory labor migration in the Canadian agricultural industry.

The Wealth of Ethno-Nations: Notes on the Identity Economy

The commodification of culture as intellectual property and the corporatization of identity — the two constitutive elements of what have come to be known as “ethnicity, inc.” and “nationality, inc.” — have intensified greatly across the world in the past few decades. Ethnicity has been repurposed in the process, animating new species of value, new claims to sovereignty, territory, and property, new kinds of sociality, sensibility, and political subjectivity. And nationality has, of late, come ever more to mimic ethnicity, albeit on a larger scale. This essay explores the commodification of difference, its material, political, social, cultural, and juridical implications. The 21st century identity economy, it is argued, is at once a political economy, a moral economy, a cultural economy, and an affective economy. What is more, its recent historical development has had significant implications not merely for the ways in which ethnic groups and nations capitalize on their cultural difference. It also has a direct effect on the nature of ethnicized/racialized labor, and transnational labor migration, across the contemporary world.

Influence of social structures on transnational migration duration: the case of Vietnamese contract workers returning from Taiwan

PurposeLimited previous studies about Vietnamese returned migrant workers reviewed that a relatively high rate of migrants returned home before their contract ended. This paper aims to explore how the decisions to return were made under social lenses.Design/methodology/approachThis paper analyses data obtained through in-depth interviews of contract workers who had worked in Taiwan with a focus on Phu Tho province in Vietnam.FindingsThe authors followed O’Reilly’s (2012) adaption of Practice theory in migration research to examine a group of Vietnamese labour migrants returning from Taiwan. Under this theory, external and internal structures are the two divisions of the social environment. The authors identified external structures that might enable or constraint migrant’s mobility. When negotiating internal structures, Vietnamese women might end their contract early in response to family obligations.Originality/valueThe findings provide insights into how women make their decisions when to return, which may contribute to a better understanding of how to assist women engaged in transnational labour migration.

Excavating agrarian transformation under ‘secure’ crop booms: insights from the China-Myanmar borderland

ABSTRACT This paper examines the transformation of agrarian livelihoods due to crop booms at the China-Myanmar borderland. A key finding is that local villagers have rented out their land to outside investors looking to make fruit boom investments. However, the villagers neither cultivated the same crops themselves, nor were they hired as wage laborers. Overall, this study finds that crop booms provide local villagers with opportunities to reallocate natural resources and adjust their livelihoods. We argue that the dynamics of agrarian livelihoods are co-produced as the result of transnational labor migration and state-led borderland repositioning under secure land tenure relations. This study contributes to the current discussion regarding the changes undergone by an agrarian society experiencing crop booms.

Maternal absence and transnational female labour migration; implications for the left-behind child

Purpose As migration of family members becomes an omnipresent phenomenon, the conventional norm of having a family and living under the same roof together is far from normal for many households. It produces transnational practices and multisite lifestyle configurations. This study aims to explore the implication of maternal absence as a result of transnational labour migration on the left-behind child in the context of transnational labour migration from Ethiopia. Design/methodology/approach It focusses on the perspective of those who stayed behind. The ethnographic fieldwork was carried out in two rural villages – Bulebullo and Bokekesa – of Worebabbo district in Northern Ethiopia. It involved in-depth interviews with children and their caregivers supported by interviews and group discussions with members of the community, local officials and traditional leaders. Findings Transnational mothering and other mothering emerge as new practices of mothering in the rural villages due to maternal absence have interrelated implications and meanings for the left-behind child. However, the rigidity of sending societies’ norms related to mothering and gendered labour dynamics exacerbated the negative implications of maternal absence on left-behind children. The absence of the fathers’ effort to redefine mothering or fathering by providing childcare is part of the equation in the relationship between maternal absence and left-behind children. Originality/value The findings of this study refute the notion that labels mother’s out-migration as “abandoning children”, “disrupting families” and “acts of selfishness”.

From Labour Migrants to a Diaspora Community? The Case of Ukrainian Migrants in Greece

This paper discusses transnational labour migration from Ukraine to Greece since the end of the Cold War. It examines the migration context, motivations, and expectations. It then discusses the actual experiences of Ukrainian migrants, in Greek society and beyond, and their visions for the future. The paper touches upon the 2008 crisis in Greece and its impact on migrants and their choices. The paper also discusses the social organisation of Ukrainian migrants in Greece, as well as identity and belonging, in a globalised world. Whereas many Ukrainian migrants continue to perceive their stay in Greece as temporary, the emergence of a Ukrainian diaspora community in Greece is imminent. The paper is based on primary research conducted by the author in greater Athens, as well as secondary sources.

The implications of migration policies on migrant worker mixed families: The case of Filipinos in Israel

The ever-growing worldwide phenomenon of transnational labor migration has resulted in the increase of families formed by migrant workers in destination countries. While scholarly attention has mainly focused on the transnational families of migrant workers, the formation of mixed families involving migrants in host countries has rarely been studied. Based on a qualitative and quantitative study of the Filipino migrant worker community in Israel, this paper explores the dynamics of mixed families within this community. The family formation of Filipino migrants in Israel reveals two main categories of mixed families: one consisting of a migrant worker and a local citizen, and the other consisting of two migrant workers of different origins. I proposed the terminologies “suspect mixed families” and “fragile mixed families” to emphasize the crucial impact of migration policies on the dynamics of these families.

Brawn Drain from Cambodia: A Comparative Study of Transnational Labour Migration to Malaysia and South Korea

Abstract The paper examines and compares the transnational labour migration from Cambodia to Malaysia and South Korea, based on the first-hand data and information collected through in-depth interviews with concerned migrant labour. The study sheds light on that the Cambodian workers have changed to engage in new types of unskilled jobs when they move to work in Malaysia and South Korea, which are different from their occupations in Cambodia. The study demonstrates that labour migration to Malaysia and South Korea has helped maximizing the incomes of concerned households through sending remittance as a prevalent mode of risk minimisation. This study sheds light on the different patterns between the migrants in Malaysia and South Korea in two aspects: 1) remittance to home: the vast majority of the migrant workers in South Korea sent their salaries back home by remittance, while those in Malaysia sent limited remittance back home; 2) different mechanisms: scheme of Government-Agency (G-A) for emigration to Malaysia and Government-Government (G-G) for that to South Korea. The study enriches the literature on transnational labour migration by the evidence of brain drain from Cambodia to South Korea and Malaysia.

Transnational labour migration and livelihoods in rural Asia: Tracing patterns of agrarian and forest change

While scholars and policy makers have increasingly focused on transnational labour migration (TLM) in Asia, few comparative studies have analysed how TLM shapes poverty, livelihoods, vulnerability, and agrarian-forest change across different rural contexts. Based on focused comparative fieldwork and a critical review of the secondary literature, this paper identifies the salient patterns of TLM-led change affecting rural livelihoods and agrarian-forest landscapes in three migrant-sending Asian countries: Nepal, Indonesia and Laos. Depending on how social relations, including those based on gender and ethnicity, and how specific geographic places are integrated into migration pathways, TLM can result in patterns of changes involving agricultural deactivation and de-agrarianisation, as well as incipient re-agrarianisation. We also find that where remittances are integrated with diversified livelihood portfolios, and where state policies play a supportive role, transnational labour migration may improve household livelihoods. In the absence of these factors, the transformative potential of TLM can be overestimated, and TLM may end up reproducing underlying structural drivers of rural poverty and vulnerability. We, therefore, challenge the simplistic narrative that TLM provides an easy solution to the limitations of rural development in agrarian Asia. We suggest policy innovations that ameliorate critical issues of migrant vulnerability and precarity, and that support the mobilisation of labour remittances for agricultural development and livelihood diversification.

Migrant workers trapped between individualism and collectivism: The formation of union-based workplace collectivism

Transnational labour migration challenges collectivism as well as migrant workers’ labour market rights, due to employers’ strategies such as segregating workers, and the migrant workers’ individualistic strategies. This article, arguing that there are no intrinsic impediments to creating (instrumental) collectivist solutions encompassing both migrants and host-country workers, develops a dynamic, conceptual framework of four preconditions – workers’ closeness, feeling of unity, shared problem perception and reference groups – which are necessary for migrant workers to develop collective labour market strategies. The article then utilises the framework in three empirical cases to illustrate how the framework, combined with union strategies, helps explain the different degrees of migrant workers’ labour market inclusion and to help understand why gaps between migrant workers and host-country workers may form.