Trans-Local Livelihoods and Connections -- Embedding a Gender Perspective into Migration Studies. (original) (raw)
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Conclusion ch Migration Gender & Social Justice book Gasper-Truong 2013/14
This chapter provides concluding reflections from a set of nineteen case studies of transnational and intranational migration and mobility. It contrasts the 'sedentary bias' present in policy regimes and associated thought centred on nation-states, where movement is seen as exceptional, including normatively exceptional, with the centrality of movement in the processes of socioeconomic change and evolution, particularly those promoted under capitalist systems of economic organization. While market capitalist and nation-state principles of organization differ, they combine in hybrid systems, such as those currently being elaborated in policy regimes for temporary migrant workers, to exploit migrant labour. Many of these arrangements mirror the indentured labour regimes of earlier eras. The chapter presents by contrast a perspective based on principles of human rights and human security that uses a global framework both for understanding and for evaluation and then adds an explicit gender-aware enrichment of that perspective, in order to do justice to the special vulnerabilities and exploitation of women's migrant labour. A human security perspective, in particular, helps to base concern for human rights in an awareness of bodily and emotional needs, of global interconnections, and of the intersecting circumstances in people's everyday lives; but it requires, and lends itself to, gender-enrichment through partnership with insights from feminist theory, as illustrated in the book's various case studies. The systems of the nation-state, market capitalism, and gender power that are discussed in this chapter, that structure the experiences of migrant women workers, are very deeply established. The chapter suggests directions for possible recognition , to reduce and counter the invisibility and misframing of migration, and of women and their work; it also suggests priority areas for research and networking following the format employed for the book: linking researchers, policy practitioners and migrant advocates, South-South-North.
Introduction: gender, development, and migrants in a global economy
Gender & Development
This issue of Gender & Development focuses on migrant women workers in a global economy, seeing their experiences through the lens of feminist analysis. We are making a conscious choice to adopt this framing-'migrants', not 'migration'-to emphasise the need to place human beings front and centre in today's debates. In an earlier 1998 issue of the journal, on Migration, we noted there was a pressing need for development organisations to 'respond effectively and coherently to the needs of the growing numbers of women and men who make their living using economic and social strategies that operate in different locations' (Sweetman 1998, 2). Nearly a quarter of a century after that earlier journal issue on Migration, we believe the need to 'humanise' debates around migration to be ever more intense. Currently, the scale of global migration is huge. In 2018, there were an estimated 258 million international migrants (IOM 2018, 9). Of these, 124.8 million were women and there were 36.1 million children. 150.3 million people are categorised by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) as migrant workers, while a further 25.4 million were categorised by the IOM as registered refugees (ibid.). But it is important to note that while the numbers are on the risethe total was about 173 million in 2000, and 102 million in 1980-the proportion of migrants in the global population is only slightly higher than in previous decades (ibid.). The fact that these statistics suggest the proportion of migrants in the global population is not rising dramatically may be surprising. This is a time of heightened concern about rates of movement across national borders, seen as spiralling out of control. Much rhetoric focuses on migrants in a depersonalised way, referring to the people who migrate to survive, or to find a better, in collective terms that denigrate them: as a 'flood', or a 'swarm' (Elgot and Taylor 2015), or emphasising 'their' difference from 'us', for example in race or religion. The movement of peoples across borders-characterised as poor and desperateis currently a huge political issue. This is not only the case in many wealthy countries of the world, but also in middle-income and low-income countries. As stated, this journal issue focuses on migrant workers. In anti-migrant rhetoric, or indeed in reality, the distinctions between different kinds of migrants are often arbitrary and artificial But there are moral hierarchies when discussing migrants. Terms used-'migrants', 'economic migrants', 'refugees', and 'asylum seekers'-are frequently used
Migration from a gender-critical, postcolonial and interdisciplinary perspective
The article introduces the special issue’s subject-matter. The intention of this volume is to overcome a number of major omissions and curtailed interests in the field of migration studies – deemphasizing gender and sexuality, ignoring the “intersectional” interplay of gender with other dimensions of inequality in migration societies, Eurocentric preoccupation, non-consideration of the agency of migrants and caught up in methodological nationalism. The authors come from different institutional contexts and academic disciplines and address quite different questions. However, all the contributions share a method- ologically transnational and postcolonial-feminist analytical perspective, the percep- tion of migrants as subjects provided with agency and a critical attitude towards the prevailing policies with regard to migrants and refugees in Europe.
Migration, gender and vulnerability
2006
Theorising in the field of research on migration and gender has been pointed out as one the greatest challenges for future research. This challenge is taken up in this article. I look critically and from a gender perspective at the theories on migration and settlement, and suggest an alternative theory.
Migrants: Suitable brokers of development?
Migration: is the 21st century different? In recent years migration, again, has become one of the most controversial and emotive social and economic issues. This despite its being as old as human beings who moved around to improve their living conditions, for safety and even adventure! In previous phases of globalization and since the eighteenth century, the development of the rich 'North' depended on the movement of millions of people through slavery, indenture and wage labour.
In the context of the contemporary globalized world, international migration gained an increasing interest among social sciences scholars. Which are the main drivers of international migration? Who benefits more from migration: the host or the origin countries or communities? Which is the relationship between migration and social stratification or inequality? What is changing in the identity register for both migrants and natives in social contexts with significant communities of immigrants? Is there any relationship between migration and the new wave of terrorism in Europe? These are only some of the main questions which request the academic community's attention and intricate answers. From this perspective, The Routledge International Handbook of Migration Studies edited by Steven Gold and Stephanie Nawyn is an excellent up to date introduction in a range of topics related to migration studies and a useful tool for scholars interested in economic, cultural and social processes linked to international migration. The Handbook is organized in nine distinct parts covering theoretical and methodological aspects of several dimensions of migration phenomenon. This book review constitutes a brief overview on each of these parts aiming to emphasize some of the most interesting chapters of the handbook. Unauthenticated Download Date | 3/5/15 10:15 PM
Migration, Gender and Social Justice
Hexagon series on human and environmental security and peace, 2014
This book emerges from a collaborative effort between partners from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America, funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The empirical data of the book originate mostly from the IDRC research programme on Women and Migration (2006-2011) that was funded as a component of the larger Women's Rights and Citizenship programme (WRC). Whereas previous support for research on gender by IDRC has been integrated into broader themes such as agriculture, health, social and economic policy, science and technology, the WRC programme has used the concept of citizenship as an entry point and sought to bring Southern voices more fully into current international debates in the field of gender and development. Built on the vision of a just world where women in the South are acknowledged to have a sense of self that is connected to the ideals of citizenship, the WRC programme has supported work directed at undoing social discrimination based on gender and enabling the realization of the full range of rights and freedoms for women. With the support of IDRC, a team based at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam has led the work of distillation and synthesis of the research findings of the Women and Migration research programme, by way of a sustained exchange of knowledge and practice between partners over a two-year period (2011 and 2012). The synthesis project had the title Migration, Gender and Social Justice (MGSJ). It involved an opening workshop at ISS in The Hague in January 2011, followed by individual visits to The Hague for writing and discussion, and a concluding workshop at the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum (India) in February 2013. The synthesis of research findings has aimed at promoting long-term collaboration based on reciprocal and selfreflexive learning between partners. It is hoped too that by connecting communities of research and practice the collaboration can contribute to a change in attitudes and views in order to bridge differences in the understanding of migration and thus improve policy interventions. Against this background, the book is problem-oriented and multidisciplinary and connects the research results of international teams working across different research sites, with different emphases and on different scales of analysis. Given the diversity of research approaches, the richness of the findings, and the complex realities of rights claiming, the task of the MGSJ research project has been threefold. 1. The first task of the project has been to distil the research findings of WRC projects, and articulate commonalities and differences in the operation of different structures of power (gender, class, race/ethnicity, generation) and their interaction within the institutional domain of migration (with reference to organizational practices, legal regulations, circulation of material and ideational resources) which produce context-specific forms of social inequality. 2. The second task was to generate critical reflections on the intersection of the different power structures that circumscribe the space for migrants to claim rights, and to relate these perspectives with existing approaches to social justice. For this purpose additional contributions were solicited to cover core issues that had not been fully addressed by the WRC projects, including legal liminality and how the social construction of not only femininity but also masculinity affects all migrants and all women. IX x 3. The final task has been to jointly produce both an academic volume and a set of policy briefs 1 from the perspective of the South that can be used in engagement with policymakers. Such an engagement can help identify connections between different forms of rights violation and accountability in different locations, in order to improve the styles and structures of the administration of migration. We hope this book contributes to processes of change in the perceptions and values inscribed in the framing of policy, and those held by migrants and related actors, and will thereby contribute to improve inter-group interactions and respect for migrants' rights.
From Migrant Identity to Migration Industry: The Changing Conditions of Transnational Migration
Nordic Journal of Migration Research
In this article, I reflect on changes in the conditions of transnational mobility over the past 25 years. Drawing on continuous engagement with Dominican migrants in sending, transit, destination and return situations, I argue that increasingly strict migration control measures during this period have profoundly altered the existential option of living lives across borders. I specifically address changes in the right to move and settle, the absence of avenues for regular migration and the concomitant rise in high-risk irregular migration. Examples include the risk to life, safety and investments during journeys, the risk of exploitation in both transit and destination countries and the risks resulting from being subject to deportation and removal from family and community. I argue that the by now well-established tradition of transnational migration research, in particular the multi-local focus on the social relations that facilitate migration, can be fruitfully extended by paying e...