Guestworkers: A Taxonomy (original) (raw)
Related papers
The paper focuses on the (re)emergence in the late twentieth century of a specific form of cross-border labour migration--viz. guest-work or circular/managed migration--that is designed to keep migrants from settling in receiving countries. The paper is part of a larger project that situates this form of transnational work-mobility regimes within the larger historical debates over the slippery line between free labour and forced labour. Specifically, it traces the genealogy of guest-work, and makes some preliminary observations about the specificity of contemporary circular / managed migration as it becomes incrementally normalized as a desirable policy tool across the world.
The public and the private in guestworker schemes: examples from Malaysia and the U.S.
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2017
While discussions of state involvement in migration generally focus on restriction, states are actively involved in the promotion of labour migration through guestworker programmes, among other examples. While these programmes are state-sponsored, they often rely heavily on private actors in order to function. Drawing on the examples of the H-2 visa in the United States and the recruitment of foreign workers to Malaysia, this paper examines the common elements of state direction of migration combined with a focus on temporariness and an outsourcing of recruitment and supervision that are present in both guestworker schemes. In drawing on the geographically, economically, and politically distinct contexts of the U.S. and Malaysia we look to how these schemes contain a mixture of state and private authority which permits an especially potent form of control over the lives of guestworkers that is greater than what either state or private actors could produce individually. Such control raises important questions about the nature of public/private governance within migration more broadly.
Migration Industries and the State: Guestwork Programs in East Asia
International Migration Review, 2018
Studies of migration industries have demonstrated the critical role that border-spanning businesses play in international mobility. To date, most research has focused on meso-level entrepreneurial initiatives that operate in a legal gray area under a state that provides an environment for their growth or decline. Extending this work, the present article advances a taxonomy of the ways states partner with migration industries based on the nature of their relationship (formal or informal) and the type of actor involved (for-profit or non-profit). The analysis focuses on low-paid temporary migrant work programsschemes that require substantial state involvement to functionand examines cases from the East Asian democracies with strong economies that have become net importers of migrants: Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. The conclusion, incorporating cases beyond Asia, explicates the properties and limits of each arrangement based on the degree of formality and importance of profit.
The IMISCOE Research Network unites researchers from, at present, 29 institutes specialising in studies of international migration, integration and social cohesion in Europe. What began in 2004 as a Network of Excellence sponsored by the Sixth Framework Programme of the European Commission became, as of April 2009, an independent self-funding endeavour. From the start, IMISCOE has promoted integrated, multidisciplinary and globally comparative research led by scholars from various branches of the economic and social sciences, the humanities and law. The network furthers existing studies and pioneers new scholarship on migration and migrant integration. Encouraging innovative lines of inquiry key to European policymaking and governance is also a priority. The IMISCOE-Amsterdam University Press Series makes the network's findings and results available to researchers, policymakers and practitioners, the media and other interested stakeholders. High-quality manuscripts authored by network members and cooperating partners are evaluated by external peer reviews and the IMISCOE Editorial Committee. The committee comprises the following members:
The Migration and Labor Question Today Imperialism, Unequal Development, and Forced Migration
It is impossible to disentangle the migration and labor question today without a deep understanding of the nature of contemporary capitalism, namely, neoliberal globalization. One of the main features of the new global architecture, boosted by the emergence of one of the most distressing global crises since the Great Depression, is the assault on the labor and living conditions of the majority of the global working class, and in particular the migrant workforce, which is among the most vulnerable segments of this class. This essay will analyze some key aspects of the system that contemporary migration is embedded in, with emphasis on the process of segmentation and the growing precariousness (precarization) of labor markets worldwide. The aim is to unravel: a) the re-launching of imperialism (policies of global domination) in search of cheap and flexible labor, as well as natural resources from the South; b) the growing asymmetries among and within countries and regions; c) the increase and intensification of social inequalities; d) the configuration of a gigantic global reserve army of labor associated with the emergence of severe forms of labor precarization and exploitation; and e) the predominance of forced migration as the primary mode of human mobility under conditions of extreme vulnerability. From this perspective, the migration and labor questions are two sides of the same coin, whose currency translates into unbearable conditions of systematic oppression of the working class. To combat this, there must be, among other things, a unity of social organizations and