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Migrant workers tend to cluster in particular industries, occupations and geographical areas and to experience disadvantageous working conditions. This article discusses the role of migrants as social actors in the labour market by looking at how and to what extent they are able to actually influence the conditions of their working lives. I use quantitative data collected in four European destination countries (Portugal, United Kingdom, The Netherlands and Norway) complemented with qualitative data collected through interviews in the same countries. The analysis of this data indicates that despite the heterogeneity in the groups analysed and their globally intermediate-high level of qualification, migration leads to high levels of clustering in the low and unskilled segments of the labour market followed by limited progression thereafter. Involvement in classical collective labour movements is low but other daily strategies are employed to navigate the labour market mostly involving individual agency. Recognising these processes of mostly individual agency targeting self-improvement has implications for understanding the limits and potential of wider labour struggles seeking to tackle structural exploitation of migrant labour within destination labour markets. In addition, looking at distinct migration corridors, linking different origin and destination countries, also puts in evidence the specific contextual frameworks that shape migrants\u2019 agency in particular labour markets.
\n \n\n \n \nInternationalisation has become a central feature of academic careers as academics are increasingly expected to be mobile. Yet, we still know relatively little about the actual patterns and drivers of academic mobility across space and time. Using unique data from a recent survey of around 4,600 Indian academics across the globe, this article examines the dynamics of international academic mobility among one of the largest global academic diasporas. Overall, we find a strong \u201cpath dependence\u201d for academic career and mobility trajectories, demonstrating the considerable importance of prior career steps in shaping future mobility choices. Working abroad as an academic, particularly in an Anglo-Saxon destination, becomes very unlikely without some early international study experience. However, contextual and individual-level factors may moderate this path dependence. Younger generations of Indian researchers, men, high-performing students, and those with (Indian) degrees that are more valued internationally, have higher chances of breaking the path. In addition, socioeconomic background seems to be an important driver for early career and mobility steps but becomes much less relevant for later academic employment.
\n \n\n \n \nThe Global Migration Futures aims to assess future regional and global trends and their effects on receiving countries in Europe and transit and sending countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East through the elaboration of scenarios, taking into account future social, cultural, economic, political, demographic and environmental changes. The aim of this paper is to outline the background of the project, its methods and in particular the scenarios approach. While the latter has hitherto been applied primarily in the business sector, it can also be helpful to explore the future of world migration.
\n \n\n \n \nOn 25-26 April 2012 the International Migration Institute (IMI), in collaboration with the Regional Migration Secretariat (RMMS), held a workshop in Nairobi to promote discussions on possible long-term developments in the Horn of Africa and Yemen and to create scenarios for future international migration to, from and within this region in 2030. The workshop is an extension of IMI\u2019s Global Migration Futures (GMF) project, which explores possible political, economic, social and technological and environmental changes and their potential effect on international migration. With this workshop, the research team investigated the patterns and drivers of contemporary movement in the Horn of Africa and Yemen, potential future developments of migration, as well as the scale and scope of various protection and assistance mechanisms required for the near and mid-term future. This report offers reflections on the workshop.
\n \n\n \n \nPreparing for future changes in international migration requires an understanding of the different ways in which societies may change and how these will affect migration patterns. This requires us to move beyond traditional approaches of migration forecasting, which tend to focus on a limited set of relatively certain, easy-to-predict factors, such as demographic trends, and which assume structural continuity, by exploring methodologies that are suited to examine factors such as geopolitical shifts, economic restructuring, technological change and environmental change, which are notoriously difficult to predict, but which we cannot afford to ignore, since they will have a considerable impact on global migration patterns and trends. To this end, this paper presents the Global Migration Futures (GMF) Scenario Methodology developed at the University of Oxford\u2019s International Migration Institute (IMI). The GMF Scenario Methodology integrates insights from migration theory with techniques from the Intuitive Logics School of scenario planning to enable the simultaneous and systematic examination of relatively certain and uncertain migration determinants, their future evolution as well as their implications for population mobility. In addition, this paper discusses the key insights gained through the application of the GMF Scenario Methodology in different world regions as well as its main limitations.
\n \n\n \n \nOn 11 September 2011, the Global Migration Futures (GMF) project convened its third stakeholders workshop in Ponta Delgada, the Azores. The workshop brought together 11 experts from academia, international organizations, and the media. It was hosted by the 16th International Metropolis Conference on \u2018Migration Futures: Perspectives on Global Changes\u2019, as a preconference day. The primary objectives of the workshop were to challenge participants\u2019 existing assumptions about migration and prompt creative thinking about future migration drivers, patterns, and trends; improve GMF\u2019s understanding of future global megatrends and uncertainties and their implications for future international migration, particularly their potential roles as key structural migration determinants; and to collaborate with experts to identify new research initiatives for the field of migration futures. This report summarises insight findings for migration futures and for the project's innovative scenarios methodology.
\n \n\n \n \nThe Horn of Africa and Yemen is home to highly visible migration flows, whose numbers have been increasing over the last two decades. Migration in this region has been described as \u2018mixed\u2019, a term used to capture the varied social, economic, political, and environmental motivations of individuals who utilise similar migration channels and trajectories, and, as the insights from this project emphasize, the multiple motivations for migration that may co-exist within the same individual. The term \u2018mixed\u2019 migration may also describe migrants whose motivations for movement may have changed en route, causing them to switch between the different legal categories of migration for which they might qualify.\r\nFrom January to August 2012, the Global Migration Futures (GMF) project of the International Migration Institute collaborated with the Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat (RMMS) in Nairobi to promote discussions on possible longer-term developments in the region and to create scenarios for future international migration to, from and within the Horn of Africa and Yemen in 2030. Through this collaboration, the GMF research team investigated the patterns and drivers of contemporary movement and the potential futures of migration flows, as well as the scale and scope of the various protection and assistance mechanisms required for the near and mid-term future.
\n \n\n \n \nIn 2030, in the Pacific region, the total population of the island states and territories will exceed 14 million people, and the growth of the population in urban areas in Melanesia and Polynesia will be increasing steadily, despite the active discouragement of urbanisation for more than a century. In the Pacific, migration is a leading driver of urban growth, in contrast to other world regions where urban migration features less significantly and where natural increase is the leading factor fuelling urbanisation. \u2018A critical question for politicians, planners and policy makers in the island countries as well as in Australia and New Zealand is how best to deal with the on-going urbanisation of Pacific peoples, especially of the populations of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu\u2019, where more than 80 per cent of the population was living in rural areas as of 2010, and where the growth rates of the youth population \u2013 the most mobile of the age cohorts \u2013 are highest.\r\nBetween September and December 2012, the International Migration Institute (IMI) of the University of Oxford and the University of Waikato collaborated on a project that endeavoured to help fill this gap by employing a scenario methodology developed by the Global Migration Futures project at IMI to examine future migration in the Pacific region. Using a number of research tools, the project engaged a group of Pacific migration experts and stakeholders from a cross section of private and public backgrounds to think innovatively about potential future migration dynamics and develop scenarios using their varied expertise.
\n \n\n \n \nDespite the hegemonic existence of transnational corporations, there are still certain ways to challenge their hegemony and highly un-democratic behaviour, particularly in connection with labour rights. The labour movement can still, to some extent, confront globalised monopoly capital, constituting a counter-force to that of capital in the context of neo-liberal globalisation. Various methods, policies and organisational bases exist for the labour movement to target specific TNCs, building coalitions with the victims and opponents of the system. Transnational solidarity campaigns are one of the most important tools used by organised labour to overcome the barriers to organise and to achieve basic demands from TNCs and their supply chains. This article draws lessons from three such successful campaigns in Turkish companies concerning the common characteristics which made determining contributions, while also pointing to the need for efforts to continue in the postcampaign environment to ensure that workplace gains and union branch organisation are sustainable.
\n \n\n \n \nThe short-term character of European public debates on migration has long been recognised and seen as problematic (Skeldon, 1990; Dustmann, 2007). The anxiety-ridden environment which has led to the gradual \u2018securitisation\u2019 of migration-related issues (Huysmans, 2000) has impaired the ability of policy makers and academics alike to develop long-term and critical insights into drivers of international migration. To be sure, relatively narrow responses to any given issue at the top of national and international policy agendas are by no means unique to migration. Yet this paper focuses on migration as an increasingly salient topic in today\u2019s society. In particular it lays the basis for a theoretical framework of migration scenarios. The analysis herein stems from the Global Migration Futures project implemented by the International Migration Institute (IMI) at the University of Oxford.
\n \n\n \n \nLe Sahara central, espace de circulation ancien, est devenu depuis le d\u00e9but des ann\u00e9es 1990 le th\u00e9\u00e2tre d\u2019importants mouvements migratoires. En d\u00e9pit des obstacles qui entravent les circulations dans cette r\u00e9gion,\r\nreflets des dysfonctionnements des \u00c9tats sah\u00e9liens et du durcissement des politiques migratoires des \u00c9tats\r\nmaghr\u00e9bins, plusieurs dizaines de milliers de migrants originaires d\u2019Afrique subsaharienne franchissent chaque\r\nann\u00e9e ce d\u00e9sert pour se rendre en Afrique du Nord. La plupart d\u2019entre eux y travaillent quelques mois ou quelques ann\u00e9es avant de retourner dans leur pays d\u2019origine. Ces migrations, qui repr\u00e9sentent depuis quelques\r\nann\u00e9es un enjeu grandissant des relations entre les \u00c9tats d\u2019Afrique subsaharienne, d\u2019Afrique du Nord et d\u2019Europe, ne constituent pourtant pas un ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne nouveau. D\u00e8s les ann\u00e9es 1960 des Sah\u00e9liens se rendaient en Alg\u00e9rie et en Libye pour y travailler. Ces circulations vers et \u00e0 travers le Sahara \u00e9taient alors largement permises par ces \u00c9tats dont les besoins de main d\u2019oeuvre \u00e9taient importants. Mais depuis le d\u00e9but des ann\u00e9es 2000, la mise en sc\u00e8ne m\u00e9diatique des migrants qui poursuivent eur route jusqu\u2019en Europe et la focalisation des pouvoirs publics europ\u00e9ens et africains sur ces seuls flux migratoires transcontinentaux participent d\u2019un \u00ab mythe de l\u2019invasion \u00bb illusoire au nord de la M\u00e9diterran\u00e9e, tout en occultant la diversit\u00e9 des mobilit\u00e9s sahariennes ontemporaines (qui demeurent majoritairement intra-africaines) et de leurs incidences locales. Loin de r\u00e9activer le fonctionnement d\u2019un Sahara d\u2019antan, d\u2019une terre des nomades anhistorique, ces circulations migratoires contemporaines tendent au contraire \u00e0 red\u00e9finir une nouvelle g\u00e9ographie saharienne, en mettant en contact des lieux et des acteurs de fa\u00e7on in\u00e9dite, en red\u00e9finissant leurs fonctions et leurs relations selon de nouvelles logiques.\r\n\r\nAu Niger, de v\u00e9ritables r\u00e9seaux sp\u00e9cialis\u00e9s dans le transport des migrants \u00e0 travers le d\u00e9sert se sont mis en\r\nplace, conjointement support et produit de ces circulations humaines. Ces nouvelles pratiques de transport, associ\u00e9es \u00e0 des lieux g\u00e9ographiques sp\u00e9cifiques, contribuent \u00e0 d\u00e9finir de nouveaux modes d\u2019habiter l\u2019espace saharien, diff\u00e9rents de ceux des populations oasiennes ou de tradition nomade qui y r\u00e9sident. Dans une optique g\u00e9n\u00e9rale de compr\u00e9hension des incidences de la mobilit\u00e9 sur les modes d\u2019habiter, nous pr\u00e9senterons ici bri\u00e8vement les mani\u00e8res dont certains acteurs du syst\u00e8me migratoire saharien se repr\u00e9sentent, pratiquent et investissent les lieux de leur mobilit\u00e9, qu\u2019il s\u2019agisse d\u2019une mobilit\u00e9 habituelle (pour les transporteurs) ou du hors-quotidien (pour les migrants). Notre propos porte sur les mani\u00e8res de faire dans et avec l\u2019espace, le\r\nlong d\u2019un itin\u00e9raire saharien de plus de 1100 km qui va de la ville d\u2019Agadez au poste militaire de Madama \u00e0 la\r\nfronti\u00e8re nig\u00e9ro-libyenne.
\n \n\n \n \nMigration controls at the external EU borders have become a large field of political and financial investment in recent years \u2013 indeed, an \u2018industry\u2019 of sorts \u2013 yet conflicts between states and border agencies still mar attempts at cooperation. This article takes a close look at one way in which officials try to overcome such conflicts: through technology. In West Africa, the secure \u2018Seahorse\u2019 network hardwires border cooperation into a satellite system connecting African and European forces. In Spain\u2019s North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, advanced border fencing has joined up actors around a supposedly impenetrable divide. And on the EU level, the \u2018European external border surveillance system\u2019, or Eurosur, papers over power struggles between agencies and states through \u2018decentralized\u2019 information-sharing \u2013 even as the system\u2019s physical features (nodes, coordination centres, interfaces) deepen competition between them. The article shows how such technologies, rather than \u2018halting migration\u2019, have above all acted as catalysts for new social relations among disparate sectors, creating areas for collaboration and competition, compliance and conflict. With these dynamics in mind, the conclusion sketches an \u2018ecological\u2019 perspective on the materialities of border control \u2013 infrastructure, interfaces, vehicles \u2013 while calling for more research on their contradictory and often counterproductive consequences.
\n \n\n \n \nDepuis 2007 nous \u00e9tudions l'imaginaire symbolique des jeunes nord-africains qui migrent isol\u00e9es vers Aragon (Espagne) et le sud-ouest de la France. Dans le cas de Toulouse, la symbolique est tamis\u00e9e par la pr\u00e9sence des quartiers s\u00e9gr\u00e9gu\u00e9s spatiale et socialement et pr\u00e9sentant les imaginaires analogues \u2018d'exile\u2019. L'analyse des r\u00e9seaux sociaux virtuels et des entretiens montrent que l'iconographie de vandalisme et d'exclusion \u00e9manant des \u2018banlieues\u2019 agit comme facteur d'attraction, mais en m\u00eame temps de dissuasion dans les projets migratoires de nombreux jeunes qui pr\u00e9f\u00e8rent contourner la France soit comme \u00e9tape ou comme destination finale. Cette iconographie nourrit \u00e9galement l'imaginaire des jeunes qui, tout en restant dans l'Aragon, vandalisent leur esth\u00e9tique et leurs discours.
\n \n\n \n \nThe United Kingdom (UK) for the last few decades has been faced with a growing need for health personnel and has therefore attracted professionals, particularly overseas nurses. The country has been characterised by a historical migration policy favourable to the recruitment of foreign health staff. However, in the context of deep shortages and high level of diseases and health system weaknesses, international health professional recruitment from sub-Saharan Africa has created unprecedented ethical controversies, pushing the UK to the centre of discussions because of its liberal policies towards international recruitment that have been considered as aggressive. While the \u2018brain drain\u2019 controversy is well known, less attention has been devoted to the specific international health migration controversy and the pivotal role of the UK in the diffusion of an ethical code of practice. Using mainly the perspective of the policy analysis of controversy (Roe 1994) and the analysis of discourses (de Haas 2008), this paper comes back respectively to the nature of the controversy and the pivotal role of the UK. It also analyses how the implementation of UK ethical policies \u2013 the Code of Practice, the banned countries recruitment list, and restrictive immigration policies \u2013 have been considered as inefficient and unethical in their contents and their targets.
\n \n\n \n \nFor a long time female migrants were not considered as proper political actors in the field of diaspora studies. Looking specifically at the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in particular the East of the country, which has experienced a protracted conflict situation and is home to some of the world\u2019s most horrific documented cases of sexual violence against women, this article explores how this particular form of violence has contributed to the mobilization of Congolese women activists within the diaspora. By focusing on the use of art as a political intervention in addressing sexual violence, this article explores the work of Congolese women in Belgium, the ex-colonial power, and their engagement in several initiatives that promote peace and development processes (Godin and Chideka 2010). The analysis provided is centered on a theatrical performance entitled Heart of a Mother, written and performed since 2003 by Stella Kitoga, which moves away from overused and simplistic phrases such as \u201cDRC, rape capital of the world,\u201d and instead draws on the Congolese cultural production to address the issue of sexual and gender-based violence in a more nuanced and multifaceted way.
\n \n\n \n \nFor a brief post-Cold War moment, it seemed as if global division would yield to connectivity as marginal regions would be rewired into the world economy. Instead, the post\u20139/11 years have seen the spread of ever-larger \u201cno-go zones,\u201d seen as constituting a danger especially to Western states and citizens. Contact points are reduced as aid workers withdraw, military operations are conducted from above, and few visitors, reporters, or researchers dare venture beyond the new red lines. Casting an eye on this development while building on anthropology\u2019s critical security agenda, this article draws an ethnographic map of \u201cglobal danger\u201d by showing how perceived transnational threats\u2014terrorism, drugs, and displacement\u2014are conjured, bundled, and relegated to world margins, from the sub-Saharan Sahel to the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderlands. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Mali, it shows how a relationship by remote control has developed as Western interveners seek to overcome a fundamental dilemma: their deep concern with threats emanating from the danger zone set against their aversion toward entering it. As ambivalent sites of distance and engagement, I argue, such zones are becoming invested with old fantasies of remoteness and otherness, simultaneously kept at arm\u2019s length and unevenly incorporated into a world economy of risk.
\n \n\n \n \nWe introduce two pioneering databases in order to analyze the implications of the Global Economic Crisis on international migration. The first details inflows of migrant workers of 185 nationalities to 10 OECD destinations, disaggregated by skill level (highly skilled and otherwise), between 2000 and 2012. The second comprises immigration policies implemented by 19 OECD countries between 2000 and 2012. We distinguish between six skill-selective admission policies, six post-entry policy instruments and three bilateral agreements. Subsequently we present preliminary analysis of these data against the backdrop of the Global Economic Crisis. \r\n\r\nThe Global Economic Crisis negatively affected annual inflows of both highly and other skilled migrants between 2007 and 2009, although they resumed their upward trend thereafter. The starkest trends in policy terms include: the emergence and rapid diffusion of student job seeker visas, the relative stability in the prevalence of skill selective policies in the wake of the Global Economic Crisis, a greater use of financial incentives to attract high-skilled workers and increased employer transferability for migrants at destination.
\n \n\n \n \nBased on 68 qualitative interviews carried out in Senegal and DR Congo with beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of programs assisting migrants after their return to their origin country, this article investigates how these programs affect the reintegration of those migrants. It uses an original approach, combining a qualitative thematic analysis of the interviews with a quantitative assessment of the economic, psychosocial and physical dimensions of the reintegration experience. The analyses show that institutional assistance provided after return does not have a positive influence on the return migrants\u2019 reintegration. The research brings new empirical evidence to policy makers, demonstrating that when migrants do not return voluntarily, when they have not prepared their return on their own, and particularly when the context in their origin country is not stable, the chances of successful reintegration are low, even if institutional assistance after return is provided.
\n \n\n \n \nThis paper aims to set an agenda for more in-depth, holistic research on the relationship between migration and political change. The European policy discourse on migration and development has affected the academic analysis on this relationship. Almost invariably, the hypotheses on the link between migration and political change that are being tested are limited to whether migrants\u2019 transnational engagement contributes to democratization. Yet the operationalization of \u2018political change\u2019 as \u2018democratization\u2019 fails to capture the different temporalities, dimensions and directions of political change. This paper takes the case of Tunisia to illustrate the complexity of political change in relation to mobility and immobility, which appeals simultaneously towards hopes and fears of migrants\u2019 contribution to political changes. Through a historical narrative approach, the paper (1) give a descriptive overview of the different temporalities of political change throughout the history of Tunisia and (2) apply an actor-oriented analytical framework to deconstruct the different interrelated dimensions of political space and political change, as a process that changes over time and is both steered from below and from above, in order to establish (3) what the role of migrants and (im)mobility is in these processes, revealing a dynamic and changing role of migration and mobility. Based on this exploration, the paper highlights five questions to bring research on the relationship between migration and (political) change further. The paper concludes that a more holistic take on change itself allows for a much more interesting view on the role of mobility and immobility in processes and outcomes of both change and continuity. A policy question that arises is therefore how the right circumstances can be promoted that lead to the desired \u2018change\u2019.
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