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The International Migration Institute gathers researchers who are committed to develop new thinking about migration and mobility across the world.
Hometown Organisations and Development Practices
This working paper is part of a comparative research project looking at three immigrant groups (two North African Berber groups: the Moroccan Chleuhs and the Algerian Kabyles, and the Sikh Punjabis from India) residing in two receiving countries (France and the UK). This work seeks to explain the emergence of hometown associations committed to the development of their place of origin since the early 1990s. This research draws on a previous doctoral study on Moroccan Berber immigrants in France. Since then, I have extended this research to the other two groups. This choice has been underpinned by the prospect of comparing this first group with one which displays strong similarities (the Berber Kabyles from Algeria) and another which presents distinct features (the Sikh Punjabis). The three migrations have been spurred by British and French colonisation. They are three ethnic minority groups in their origin country which have become the forerunner of the Indian and North African migration systems. However, the conditions of their settlement in the arrival countries are obviously different. The Berber groups have predominantly remained working-class groups while the Punjabis have enjoyed a better economic integration into multicultural Britain. However, despite their common cultural, religious and historical features, Algerian Kabyles turn out to be far less committed to transnational practices than their Moroccan counterpart. Conversely, Moroccans and Indians both display a high level of engagement in cross-border development projects. Relying on Mill’s laws of comparison, my intent is to uncover the common factors which have led these two distinct groups to engage in similar practices. Conversely, the Kabyle/Chleuh comparison is likely to give us the possibility of highlighting the obstacles which explain why some groups form developmental hometown groups while others do not. The analysis initially rests on the structure agency approach. However, the research has been heavily influenced by the theory of communicative action of Jürgen Habermas, which offers a better framework to address the coordination of collective actions. This has led me to unravel the symbolic framework which underpins the implementation of a development project, a symbolic framework which allows migrants to use remittances as a means of expression of who they are and how they position themselves within and toward the spaces of departure and arrival. This paper is the second of three working papers addressing the different layers of structural constraints which were conducive to the implementation of collective remittances of development: the moral-practical infrastructures, the agential structures and the institutional superstructures.
Sharing the dirty job on the southern front? Italian–Libyan relations on migration and their impact on the European Union
Until recently, discussions with Libya on migration have taken place largely at bilateral level, i.e. almost exclusively with Italy. Since the late 1990s, Italy has engaged in a number of formal and informal diplomatic initiatives with the northern African country in order to bring under control irregular migration across the Mediterranean. This has started to change with the increasing role being played by the European Union (EU). Notably, on 12–13 November 2008 the negotiations for the EU–Libya framework agreement were officially launched. These aim to strengthen relations between the European Community, its member states and Libya. The deepening interaction between Libya and the EU alongside established bilateral cooperative arrangements is one of the main concerns of this paper. Our analysis seeks to unpack and understand the gradual intertwining of bilateral relations between two states – Italy and Libya – and those between states and supranational actors that we shall here qualify as ‘supralateral’. In questioning prevailing accounts of the manner in which the EU externalises migration control policies, this paper draws attention to the multiple reciprocal interactions at the levels of migration framing, institutional setting and modes of compliance.
Cultural and symbolic dimensions of the migration-development nexus The salience of community
Migration is not a natural phenomenon, completely independent of historical and political contexts on the one hand and individual and collective reactions to them on the other. And development does not appear suddenly, as the result of impersonal forces driving migrants to directly or indirectly support it. Migration can generate development only through intentional actions, with community wellbeing in migrants’ home countries acting as the anchor for individuals, associations and governments; and by providing a wider setting in which this ‘intention’ is played out, revealing the place for cultural, symbolic and moral dimensions of transnational community belonging and membership. Community acts as a cultural ‘compass’, determining migrants’ attitudes towards the development of their home country. Strong communitarian membership is generally associated with real engagement in the development issues of members left behind (as part of the collective self), but varies according to the structural features of the migrants’ networks, the way in which migrants define networks as their own communities, the results of past communitarian memories and future communitarian imaginations on actual communitarian experience and perceptions. I discuss these issues in the light of recent theoretical debates on structure-agency dynamics.
Creating and destroying diaspora strategies
New Zealand, like many countries, has recently shifted from disparaging emigrants to celebrating expatriates as heroes. What explains this change? The new government initiatives towards expatriates have been attributed to a neoliberal ‘diaspora strategy’, aimed at constructing emigrants and their descendants as part of a community of knowledge-bearing subjects, in order to help the New Zealand economy ‘go global’ (Larner 2007: 80). The research in this paper confirms that the new diaspora initiatives emerged from a process of neoliberal reform. However, it also highlights that, in the same period, older, inherited institutional frameworks for interacting with expatriates were being dismantled as part of a different dynamic within the same wider neoliberalization process. In this way, the research builds on and refines the ‘diaspora strategy’ concept by placing it within a broader analysis of institutional transformation through ‘creative destruction’. At the same time, this study opens up a wider research agenda aimed at revealing, understanding and explaining how states have related to diasporas before and beyond the era of neoliberalism.
The determinants of international migration: Conceptualising policy, origin and destination effects
The effectiveness of migration policies has been widely contested in the face of their supposed failure to steer immigration and their hypothesized unintended, counter-productive effects. However, due to fundamental methodological and conceptual limitations, evidence has remained inconclusive. While the migration policy research is often descriptive and receiving-country biased, migration determinants research tends to be based on obsolete, theoretically void push-pull and gravity models which tend to omit crucial non-economic, sending-country and policy factors. More fundamentally, this state-of-the-art reveals a still limited understanding of the forces driving migration. Although there is consensus that macro-contextual economic and political factors and meso-level factors such as networks all play ‘some’ role, there is no agreement on their relative weight and mutual interaction. To start filling that gap, this paper outlines the contours of a conceptual framework for generating improved insights into the ways states and policies shape migration processes in their interaction with structural migration determinants in receiving and sending countries. First, it argues that the fragmented insights from different disciplinary theories can be integrated in one framework through conceptualizing virtually all forms of migration as a function of capabilities and aspirations. Second, to increase conceptual clarity it distinguishes the preponderant role of states in migration processes from the hypothetically more marginal role of specific immigration and emigration policies. Subsequently, it hypothesizes four different (spatial, categorical, inter-temporal, reverse flow) ‘substitution effects’ which can partly explain why polices fail to meet their objectives. This framework will serve as a conceptual guide for the DEMIG (The Determinants of International Migration) research project.
The effectiveness of immigration policies: A conceptual review of empirical evidence
In the face of the apparent dispute in migration research about the effectiveness of migration policy, this paper scrutinizes the nature, evolution and effectiveness of immigration policies and provides an analytical framework for future research. In order to reduce analytical confusion and reconcile apparently conflicting views, this paper defines what constitutes migration policy and distinguishes policy effectiveness and policy effects. It identifies three policy gaps which can explain perceived or real policy failure. First, the ‘discourse gap’ is the considerable discrepancy between the stated objectives of general public migration discourses and concrete policies. Second, the ‘implementation gap’ is the disparity between policies on paper and their actual implementation. Third, the ‘efficacy’ gap is the extent to which an implemented policy has the capacity to affect migration flows. The paper argues that studies should use concrete policies rather than public discourses as the evaluative benchmark. While we question the received idea that immigration policies have necessarily become more restrictive, available evidence suggests that migration policies have a significant effect on migration, but that the effect is limited compared to other migration determinants. Their effect might be further limited through various spatial, categorical and inter-temporal ‘substitution effects’. The paper hypothesizes that policies seem more effective in determining the selection and composition of migration rather than the overall volume and long-term trends of migration. However, robust evidence is still scarce and existing studies are generally unable to test for various ‘substitution effects’. The paper also suggests conceptual and methodological avenues for improving insights into policy effectiveness and effects.
Leaving matters: The nature, evolution and effects of emigration policies
Debates on migration policies are strongly focused on immigration control, revealing a general receiving-country bias in migration research. To fill this gap, this paper reviews the nature, evolution and effects of emigration policies. Only a declining number of strong, authoritarian states with closed economies are willing and capable of imposing blanket exit restrictions. Paradoxically, while an increasing number of, particularly developing, countries aspire to regulate emigration, their capability to do so is fundamentally and increasingly limited by legal, economic and political constraints. The attitude of states is often intrinsically ambiguous, as they face a complex trade-off between the perceived economic and political costs and benefits of emigration, in which who leaves greatly matters. This motivates states to adopt more subtle policies to encourage or discourage migration of particular skill, gender, age, regional or ethnic groups. Since state policies simultaneously constrain and enable migration of different groups to different destinations, states can play a significant role in structuring emigration through influencing the (initial) composition and spatial patterns of emigration. Even ‘laissez-faire’ policies require active state agency to create the structural conditions for ‘free’ emigration. However, the effect of emigration policies on overall volume and long-term trends of migration seems limited or even insignificant because of the preponderance of other economic, social and cultural migration determinants. This review reveals the need to improve insights into how states and policies shape migration processes in their interaction with other migration determinants in sending and receiving countries.
The role of internal and international relative deprivation in global migration
This paper analyses the role of internal (within-country) and international (bilateral and global) relative deprivation and absolute deprivation in international migration. It is argued that these three forms of relative deprivation need to be simultaneously taken into account in order to advance our theoretical understanding of the complex drivers of migration processes. Empirical analysis based on 2000 global migrant stock data suggests that absolute deprivation constrains emigration while international relative deprivation and internal relative deprivation in destination countries fuel migration. The effect of internal relative deprivation in origin countries is small and rather ambiguous. The results highlight complex and often counter-intuitive ways in which relative and absolute deprivation affect migration. The paper suggests that it would be unfounded to expect that decreases in international and internal relative and absolute deprivation will lead to massive reductions in the volume of international migration.
Migration and social fractionalization: Double relative deprivation as a behavioural link
This study proposes a link between inequality, social fractionalization and the emigration propensity of a population. By assuming that perceptions of relative deprivation may increase migration propensities, I can argue that more fractionalized societies are characterized by lower or higher emigration rates depending on whether social comparisons are made within or across social groups. For intra-group comparisons, the average level of relative deprivation is decreasing with the number of social groups, whereas the opposite is true for inter-group comparisons. Consequently, whether social fractionalization corresponds with higher or lower emigration rates depends on the relative importance of the two concepts, and thus, it is an empirical question. This study finds significantly higher emigration rates for ethnically fractionalized countries, whereas countries with a relatively strong linguistic fractionalization are unequivocally characterized by lower migration propensities.
Internal and international migration as a response to double deprivation: Some evidence from India
This study disentangles the effects of feelings of relative deprivation and the capability of households in realizing their migration aspirations. For this purpose I deconstruct the concept of relative deprivation into intra-group and inter-group relative deprivation and test their relative importance together with levels of absolute deprivation in shaping migration decisions on a household level. The migration decision itself is modelled as a two-stage process which separates the decision on whether to migrate at all, and the decision where to migrate in terms of an internal or international destination. Our empirical analysis is based on a unique dataset referring to the recent 64th round of the National Sample Survey (NSS) in India. This large dataset covers around 125,000 households and about 100,000 former household members counted as out-migrants. I hypothesize that intra-group as well as inter-group relative deprivation influences migration decisions and the choice of destinations. I identify two factors as relevant in this migration decision-making process. First, intra-group as well as inter-group relative deprivations are strong predictors for migration decisions in general, and in terms of possible destinations, for short-distance intra-state movements in particular. The likelihood of out-migration towards international destinations is significantly higher for households with lower levels of intra-group and inter-group relative deprivation. Second, besides the effects of relative deprivation, absolute deprivation plays an ambivalent role: while economically better endowed households have a higher migration propensity to send (primarily male) migrants to distant inter-state and international destinations, the inverse is true for moves of shorter distance that are mainly dominated by (female) migrants stemming from poorer households.
Discussing legal adaptations: Perspectives on studying migrants’ relationship with law in the host country
With immigration becoming a structural feature of nearly all industrialized countries, the twentieth century saw a development of a set of theoretical approaches to study the relationship between immigrants and the legal system of the host country. These frameworks – legal assimilation, legal transnationalism, legal pluralism, legal culture – legal consciousness – have developed largely in isolation from one another, sometimes but not always distinguished by disciplinary boundaries – law, anthropology, sociology, politics, international relations. The aim of this paper is to review and organize the scarce yet fragmented scholarship explaining the migration and law nexus in the context of migrants’ legal adaptations to the new legal environment.
Non-migrant, sedentary, immobile, or ‘left behind’? Reflections on the absence of migration
This paper explores the absence of migration and different frameworks for analysing it. The aim is to move beyond a sedentary perspective, which does not problematise immobility because it is considered to be the norm and therefore, not something to be explained or scrutinised. The paper starts with a discussion of the terminology denoting the absence of migration. Two opposed interpretations of different examples of the absence of migration are then presented, based on a functionalist and conflict approach, respectively. Finally, the paper discusses post-structuralist approaches, particularly addressing the role of power and hegemony in determining who does and should move. Throughout the text, various empirical cases are discussed, mainly drawn from contexts of transnational migration in West Africa.
The Indian and Polish Transnational Organisational Fields
Although the cross-border engagements of immigrants have received an increasing attention since the 1990s, the role of migrant organisations in this process has spurred comparatively little interest. As a consequence, efforts to conceptualise migrant organising in the transnational sphere have been relatively scarce. This paper seeks to contribute to this effort by proposing a more systematic definition and use of the concept of transnational organisational fields. This endeavour is illustrated by two case studies based on research carried out within the TRAMO project (Diffusion and Contexts of Transational Migrant Organisations): Indian and Polish organisations in the UK. The intent is to show that much can be gained by adopting a bird’s-eye view on the networks that bind together migrant organisations within and outside the country of settlement. The two case studies display two opposite forms of structuring. In the Polish case, the formation of the field was managed by a central institution (the Polish government in exile) while, in the Indian case, there was a decentralised process. These discrepancies have consequences on the shape and contents of cross-border activities of migrant organisations.
African migrants negotiate ‘home’ and ‘belonging’: Re-framing transnationalism through a diasporic landscape
In recent years the volume and dynamics of migration from Africa to Europe have come under increasing study. The resulting breadth of research is impressive and includes such topics as gender and migration, migration and development, refugees and transnationalism. However, this work still suffers from the limitations imposed by existing migration theories that privilege the host context over the sending context focusing on linear processes and bounded conceptual frameworks. Through field work with Ugandan migrants and their descendants in Britain, this paper challenges existing theoretical limitations by proposing an inter-disciplinary approach that draws on transnationalism, diaspora and cultural geographical perspectives on landscape. Through this lens the concept of diasporic landscape emerges as an innovative contribution to migration theory as it highlights the embeddedness of migrants’ lives, within processes of production and reproduction of a discursive terrain that straddles Uganda and Britain. It captures the multi-faceted physical and symbolic impacts of migrants’ lived realities and privileges the continued impact of the sending context, cultural and temporal dimensions. The contours that emerge through migrants’ everyday practices of ‘belonging’ highlight asymmetric power relations. These shift in complex patterns disrupting such bounded notions as migration, immobility, the migrant, non-migrant, refugee, citizen or undocumented person.
The positive and the negative: Assessing critical realism and social constructionism as post-positivist approaches to empirical research in the social sciences
The argument developed in this paper holds that critical realism is stronger than many other forms of post-positivism but that it is itself open to criticism. While critical realists are polemical about positivism they do share with positivism the concern positively to develop knowledge. This stands in contrast to social constructionism which embraces relativism and scepticism in an attempt to delegitimize knowledge claims by exposing them as symptoms of underlying discursive power relations. For critical realists we need to defend knowledge from relativist and sceptical challenges while seeking to avoid the empiricist theory of knowledge that underpinned positivism. To do this critical realists turn from empiricism – and epistemology more generally – to ontology, and argue that the natural and social sciences need to be based on a coherent definition of reality. As regards the social sciences, critical realists argue that a meta-theory which defines social reality in terms of agents interacting with structural emergent properties is required to underpin empirical research. This non-positivist emphasis on generating knowledge about causal processes in society is stronger than social constructionism, which cannot move beyond the purely negative position of scepticism. However, we may consider problem-solving challenges to critical realism. These focus on the need for conceptual revision in contrast to the critical realist argument that the meta-theory of structure and agency is the condition of possibility of a mature social science.
A generic conceptual model for conducting realist qualitative research: Examples from migration studies
In this paper I propose a generic conceptual model for conducting qualitative research within the meta-theoretical premises of critical realism. I also make an effort to demonstrate the advantages of such a framework using examples from migration studies. Qualitative methods are predominately linked with meta-theoretical commitments related mainly to interpretivism, social constructionism, post-structuralism and post-modernism. Influenced by ‘cultural/linguistic turn’, qualitative research has followed a path towards discursive reductionism and relativism. I contend that this path circumscribes the inherent strengths of qualitative methods and limits their explanatory power. Recently however, there have been calls for other ‘turns’ which are more or less compatible with a critical realist alternative to strong social constructionism, post-structuralism and post-modernism – namely ontological, practice, complexity and materiality ‘turns’. Drawing on these developments, I propose a generic model for doing qualitative research the realist way. This model is based on ways of researching real causal powers (structural, ideational and agential) and their – synchronic and diachronic – interplay, in a qualitative manner. The model views qualitative methods as powerful means for the identification of complex, causal generative mechanisms which produce certain effects and (re)connect qualitative inquiry and research with reality and, especially, with the depth investigation of its intransitive dimension. It does that by utilizing the realist concepts of ‘emergence’, ‘emergent properties’ and ‘substantial relations’, which are predominantly concerned with qualitative changes and real connections characterized by causal powers of their own. The advantages of adopting such a model are shown by discussing its potentials for conducting qualitative migration research. More specifically, I use four examples from Greece which concern migration-related processes and phenomena. These examples concern informal immigrant employment in Athens, social mobility of immigrants in Greece, social capital and social incorporation of Albanian immigrants in Athens and the evolution of citizenship regime in the country. Through these examples I intend to demonstrate why merging realist meta-theoretical commitments with the inherent strengths of qualitative methods can result in more thorough and comprehensive understandings and explanations of migratory phenomena. The last part of the paper concerns a brief discussion of the urgent need to re-orient migration theory and research practice away from empiricist and relativist inclinations, and the central role that realist qualitative research can and should play in meeting this need.
Studying international migration in the long(er) and short(er) durée: Contesting some and reconciling other disagreements between the structuration and morphogenesis approaches
This paper contests some and reconciles other disagreements between the structuration and morphogenesis theories – two approaches in present-day sociology which aim at bridging the macro–micro gap in social theorizing, but whose advocates have been either indifferent to or openly at odds with each other, instead of engaging in a close intellectual collaboration. The empirical illustrations of my arguments come from local statistical surveys and ethnographic studies conducted in Polish villages from the onset to the decline of mass transatlantic migration in the period 1870s–1930s.
The effects of structural factors in origin countries on migration: The case of Central and Eastern Europe
This paper investigates the relationship between structural change, labour market imbalances and labour migration from the eight Central and Eastern European (CEE/EU8) economies during the transition and after their accession to the EU. The new accession states experienced markedly different migration patterns after 2004 enlargement which, given their similar wage differentials with the West, cannot be explained by the neoclassical framework. The paper deals with this puzzle by developing conceptual and empirical links between different transitional paths of CEE countries and varied migration rates. It argues that structural change that characterized their transition created different labour market imbalances across the CEE economies, hence creating different structures of employment and unemployment and varied risks and opportunities for workers of different demographic and skill profiles. These imbalances and labour market mismatches have in turn induced some workers to seek migration as an exit option more than others, and led to differences in migration rates and in the composition of migrants. In terms of theory, this paper contributes to literature which call for integrated approaches to researching migration that take into account social transformation, pointing out the limited ability of the neoclassical framework to understand migration patterns in their complexity.
The role of welfare systems in affecting out-migration: The case of Central and Eastern Europe
This paper analyses the role of welfare systems in shaping migration patterns in Central and Eastern Europe over the transition process and after EU accession. It argues that states have played a crucial role in affecting migration by creating and widening opportunities for potential and actual migrants through welfare system policies. This explains why CEE countries where social spending figures have been lower, unemployment benefit schemes less extensive, and where labour market mismatches remained unaddressed, experienced greater out-migration. Investigating the role of sending states’ institutions in a comparative framework and over time, this paper analyses migration as part of broader social and economic processes and contributes to our understanding of how sending countries’ institutional factors affect out-migration.
How the Dutch Government stimulated the unwanted immigration from Suriname
Increased population mobility has confronted the Western welfare states with various flows of immigrants varying from labour migrants to destitute refugees. A special category of migrants is formed by the immigrants from former colonies settling in their former mother countries. Welfare states have tried to keep control over immigration by implementing an increasingly refined set of laws regulating entry, residence and work of foreigners. The Netherlands have been no exception to this general trend. Moreover, immigration was a sensitive political issue in the Netherlands because the country was generally considered to be densely populated. In this context, the post-colonial migration from Suriname became an important theme in Dutch politics in the 1970s. The number of immigrants from Suriname was in fact small, but had increased from 13,000 in 1966 to 51,000 in 1972. The Surinamese immigration was a special case because the migration laws did not apply to Dutch citizens, and the Surinamese had been Dutch citizens since 1954. In 1973 Joop den Uyl, the leader of the Dutch labour party, became prime minister, and curbing the flow of Surinamese immigrants through independence was one of his top priorities. However, the results of his policy measures were contradictory. They caused a panic in Suriname and led to an unprecedented flow of immigrants. In 1975 the number of Surinamese in the Netherlands had already increased to 110,000. Den Uyl’s policy proved to be based on a total misunderstanding of the nature and dynamics of this migration flow.