Understanding Migration: Stories, Tragedies, and Challenges

1. Migration Prof. Hem Raj Subedee, Ph.D Conflict, Peace and Developmental Studies

2. Migration • “47 ‘clandestine’ immigrants drowned at sea off the coast of Mauritania trying to reach the Canary Islands, a group of islands owned by Spain and a stepping stone for migrating to Spanish mainland and eventually elsewhere in the European Union.” Le Monde (French Newspaper, Nov. 6, 2007)

4. This is a large scale human tragedy which occurs almost every day • Very less media coverage or world wide protest or remorse • Why did these people migrate with such an insufficient vessel instead of a land based route that is clearly less treacherous? • Why do people migrate and what sort of reception will they find in their new destination? • Why is there such an indifference to this kind of tragedy?

5. Migration is multi-faceted involving cultural, economic, political and social dimensions. • Migration, particularly, the unskilled migrants, the refugee, the asylum seekers • Often, the struggle, the personal stories are ignored • Some stories of migrants

6. Laika, the illegal immigrant in Malaysia • Laika, 22 years old, came to Sabah ( the Malaysian part of the island of Borneo) in 1990s • She came as a teenager from the island of Mindanao in the Philipines • Her passport were ‘fixed’ • She began work in a local restaurant and later married, Salim, partly because she could not live on her meagre wage of 300 ringgit

7. Additionally, her illegal visa had expired and it could not be renewed. • She could not obtain necessary documents to return home legally. • Laika, like so many others have avoided public places like hospitals, government offices, shopping centres, markets and public transport where police and immigration officials have tight scrutiny.

8. Asha, the assylumseeker in Finland • Asha was a assylum seeker from the middle east. • Asha was born in Mogadishu, got married and had 3 children. • Civil War erupted in Somali and Asha joined with her brother in Finland where she sought refugee status. • Asha was not joined by her husband and they eventually got divorced. • After 3 long years, she was given apporval to bring her three children from Somalia. • She studied to become a nurse while still taking care of her children. • Her son was frequently in trouble, and she could not reconcile the ways of her son with her Islamic religiosity so she took them to England with their grandmother.

9. Liliam, the low income immigrant in New York • LiliamAraujo, was born in El Salvador • She had two children and decided to leave the country- “ to keep the older one from being recruited by the military or the guerillas in their increasingly conflict ridden town and to save the younger one from being caught in the Salvadorian Civil War.” • The best job she could find in the wealthy towns on the north shore of the Long Island was a live-in domestic job at the rate of $165 a week for 65 hours of work- less than $ 2.50 an hour. • Liliam lives with the family, works in the kitchen, cleans their home, cares for their daughter; she has rented an apartment for hers sons two blocks away who live alone. • She often reminisces the days at El Salvador, the coffee growers ‘ cooperative where she worked as a secretary, her degrees in psychology, social work and teaching which she studied at night and the house she owned.

10. The stories represent a very small fraction of the different kinds of migration and the issues the migrants face. • Migration is complicated, challenging, involves changing statuses, multiple geographical trajectories. • Different categories of migration: Internal or International, temporary and permanent, legal and undocumented; different modes of entry: assylum-seekers, refugees, low-income, highly skilled workers, students etc.

11. The Geneva Convention on refugees • As a result of the events occuringbefore 1 January 1951 and owing to well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.

12. The Geneva Convention on refugees • Emerged out of the context of WWII and applied only to persons migrating before 1951 in Europe. • Geographically exclusive, and rested upon, “ Eurocentric, Orientalist, even racist constructions of African peoples and politics”. • 1967 protocol dissolved the geographic exclusion. • In 2007, 147 countries have ratified one or both of these legal instruments. ( UNHCR, 2008) • The determination of refugees is in part determined by how states interpret both the Geneva Convention and the 1967 protocol.

13. Key Issues and Debates Concerning Migration • The causes and consequences of migration • The question of employment for migrants • The conflicted task of governing migration • The question of citizenship and belonging for and among migrants

14. The causes and consequences of migration • The policies of government in the richer countries- in unequal trading system and its effect on poor farmers • War, environmental stress, chronic unemployment, gender expectation and oppression • Cultural, political, and social marginalization of specific groups of people • Social networks among family members, asylum-seekers, students etc.

15. Migration-development nexus • Since the last 40 years in the rich countries, low skilled and low-income migration from poorer countries has been seen as a bad thing by the government. • Ways to stem such unskilled movements. • New ideas by authors such as Castles and Miller to focus on understanding the benefits of greater mobility for the origin and destination countries.

16. The question of employment for migrants • Work is a core dimension of migrants livelihood. • The character of work of the migrants. • Low-paid and arduous jobs in agriculture, care-work, construction, mining etc. • Key question- why are migrants relegated to such work, despite higher qualifications and skills? Obstacles in finding jobs?

17. Lack of necessary education, qualification or skills to compete with the citizens in that particular job market- a simple response • More rounded response- Stereotypes and racist assumptions of the employers • Network of information among migrants about the availability of job. • Work by migrants mostly informal in character- unregulated by the governmental authorities • Policy for widespread use of undocumented immigrants for informal employment

18. The conflicted task of governing migration • The views of various levels of government and their citizens towards migration. • For some governments and citizens- migration is a process to be actively encouraged whereas for others it is to be vigorously resisted. • Migration policies might be shaped by distinct geographies: Large concentration of citizens of immigrant origin may be more accepting of migrants than another region with very few residents born overseas. • Migration, migrants and pro-migrant non-governmental organizations also serve to shape migration policy. • Criminalization of asylum-seekers and security concerns on policies of those fleeing persecution.

19. Off shore detention centres and similar spaces • “Migration Management” due to the paradoxical nature of the government which recognizes the vital contribution of undocumented migrants to perform abandoned works of the middle class citizens but at the same time wants to restrict them. • Immigration politics of poorer countries- mirror image of the rich countries: how to retain skilled labour and how to export low-skilled labour in order to receive remittances and reduce unemployment.

20. The question of citizenship and belonging for and among migrants • Fundamental desires of many migrants. • Different laws for obtaining citizenship within different countries as well as states and even cities. • Destination countries question the value of migration and the ease with which formal citizenship may be obtained. • Obtaining a citizenship for a migrant is just one part of the process of ‘integration’. • Substantive Citizenship such as matters of family, adequate place to live and work challenged by racism or expectation of certain cultural behavior

21. Global tendencies and estimated patterns of migration across the globe • The globalization of migration • The acceleration of migration: greater number of people migrating • The differentiation of migration: Different types and modes of entry • The feminisation of migration: higher percentage of women migrating relative to men • The growing politicization of migration: migration has moved to the centre of global and national political debate • The proliferation of migration transitions: Some long time countries of emigration such as Poland and South-Korea

31. Explaining Migration: Different Theories • Deterministic Theories: Theories that on their own determine migration behavior and patterns • Integrative Theories: Theories that bring together different theoretical and conceptual propositions.

32. Deterministic Theories • Ravenstein’s laws and push-pull approaches • Neo-classical economic analyses • Behaviouralist approaches • New economics approaches • Dual labor market and labor market segmentation approaches • Structuralist and related understandings

33. Integrative or mixed approaches • Social-Network Analysis • Transnational arguments • Gender-sensitive analyses • Structurationist perspectives

34. “The various models reflect different research objectives, focuses, interests, and ways of decomposing an enormously complex subject into analytically manageable parts; and a firm basis for judging consistency requires that the inner logic, propositions, assumptions and hypotheses of each theory be clearly specified and well understood.” Massey et al. 1993, p. 433

35. Ravenstein’s Laws: the beginnings of migration theory • The group of migrants travel relatively short distances and develop into a ‘current’ of migration to the ‘great centres of commerce and industry’ and the current is a reflection of the number of people in the area of origin as well as in the area of destination. • The residents of a rural area will move to a surrounding and rapidly growing town or city. As a result, rural depopulation occurs and these areas are then attractive to migrants from even further afield. • The process of ‘absorption’ occurs at the expense of ‘dispersion’. • Every current of migration produces a counter-current. • Long-distance migrants generally migrate to the ‘great centres of commerce and industry’. • Those in rural areas migrate more than the natives of towns or cities. • Women migrate more frequently than men.

36. Women is a greater migrant than man. This may surprise those who associate women with domestic life, but the figures of the census clearly prove it. Nor do women migrate merely from the rural districts into the towns in search of domestic service, for they migrate quite as frequently into certain manufacturing districts, and the workshop is a formidable rival of the kitchen and scullery. Ravenstein, 1885, p. 196

37. Neo-Classical Economic Approach • Began with the internal migration within poorer or richer countries rather than international migration. • Relationship between demand for labour in urban areas and the supply of labour in rural areas • The economic development of rural and urban areas due to such internal migration

38. Urban markets would absorb ‘supplies’ of cheap labour from rural areas which would decrease the supply of labour in rural areas thus raising wages. • On the other hand, in urban areas, the labour supply would increase, thus causing wages to fall. • Result- equalization of wages between rural and urban areas and when this happens migration ceases. • In the micro perspective, the migrants are ‘rational’ individuals responding to perfect or various pieces of information on economic opportunity. • Migrants may move with their longer-term total income in mind; the larger the expected income, the more likely are individuals to migrate.

39. Behavioral approach • ………not all individuals migrated for reasons relating to wage differentials. • Migrant’s cognition and decision making for choosing a particular place as a destination. • Migrants choose particular destinations because they offered the ‘highest place utility’ (or satisfaction) • Migrants are satisficers (seeking satisfaction) rather than ‘maximizers’ (seeking optimization)

40. The new economic approach • Emphasis on families, households and other units larger than households • Families and other units allow the maximization of income but they also allow for the minimization of risk associated with labor and other markets. • Labor of some family members stay behind while others migrate. If economic conditions deteriorate in the country of origin, then family members overseas can compensate through the use of remittances. • Risk Minimization Scenarios: Crop Insurance Markets, Future markets, Unemployment insurance, and capital markets. • Families wish to diversify the sources of their income to ensure against risks by using migration as a strategy.

41. Dual labor market and market segmentation approaches • Migration is driven by ‘pull factors’ namely the presence of dual labor market in richer countries. • Dual Labor Market: Primary and Secondary Sector • Primary Sector: native workers, high paid, stable jobs, firing workers may be expensive • Secondary Sector: mostly migrants, poorly paid, unstable jobs, poor working conditions, little training • The creation of these jobs precedes the migrants who fill them.

42. Structuralistapproaches • Dependency theory • Articulation theory • World systems theory • Globalization arguments • Global city arguments • Neo-liberalism • Migration-development nexus

47. Racism, Discrimination and Xenophobia • “ One in every fifty human beings- more than 150 million persons- live outside their countries of origins as migrants or refugees. They are highly vulnerable to racism, xenophobia and discrimination. The extent and severity of these phenomena are becoming increasingly evident in the reports of mistreatment and discrimination against migrants, refugees and other non-nationals, which are emerging from every region in the world. The fact that an increasing proportion of international migration today is irregular and unauthorised, facilitates abuse and exploitation. But, even when their movements are legal and authorised, non-citizens face high levels of discrimination.” Brunson Mckinley, International Organization for Migration Mary Robinson, UNHCHR Juan Somavia, ILO

48. Racial Discrimination • “ any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on a equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.” International Law

49. Racism and Xenophobia • Distinct phenomenon • Racism- based on difference in physical characteristics • Xenophobia- perception that the other is foreign or originates from outside the community or nation • Many a cases, difficult to distinguish between racism and xenophobia

50. Xenophobia • “ intense dislike or fear of strangers or people from other countries” • “ an attitudinal orientation of hostility against non-natives in a given population” • Xenophobia describes attitudes, prejudices and behavior that reject, exclude and often vilify persons based on the perception that they are outsiders or foreigners to the community, society or national identity.