Retired Tibetan migrants’ adaptation experiences in Chengdu,China

Diverse types of mobility have emerged in contemporary China, among which consumption-led ethnic retired migrants have received little academic attention. This study addresses the seasonal mobility of retired Tibetan migrants who previously had careers in governmental and public sectors in Tibet. After retirement, they purchase second-home apartments in Chengdu for health and leisure reasons. Through semistructured interviews, nonparticipant observation, and the application of Schnell’s multidimensional model, this article analyzes the migration and adaptation experiences of retired Tibetan migrants in Chengdu. It is revealed that, physically, they reside in mixed communities and share activity spaces with the local people, and, socially, maintain their life-long social relationships and form new local relationships. They feel satisfied and comfortable in their new situation, maintain their primary identity as Tibetan, and gradually establish a sense of home in Chengdu. Their political privilege and governmental support in the destination also contribute to their positive migration and adaptation experiences.     

‘A life path different from one of labour in the Gulf’: Ongoing mobility among Nepali labour migrants in Qatar and their families

Labour migration is commonly attached to the idea of a ‘better’ future for the migrants and their families, but there is less emphasis on how this does not materialize for many labour migrants. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among Nepalis working in Qatar and select families in Nepal, this article focuses on the intergenerational migration cycle or migration as open-ended and ongoing across generations. While the Gulf migration scholarship has mostly concentrated on low-skilled workers, I draw on the cases of migrants across different skill/income levels to show how the migrants’ and/or families’ desires for ‘ongoing mobility’ to the Gulf or the West panned out differently. I argue that despite wanting a different and better life path for the future generation, one unlike theirs of labour in the Gulf, many Gulf migrants are unable to meet these familial expectations; rather, migration histories repeat in a continual quest to overcome economic constraints.     

A PLACE TO CALL HOME: Identification With Dwelling, Community, and Region

The concept of place identity has been the subject of a number of empirical studies in a variety of disciplines, but there have been relatively few attempts to integrate this literature into a more general theory of identity and environment. Such endeavors have been limited by a lack of studies that simultaneously examine identification with places of different scale. This article addresses this critical omission by analyzing how residents of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, develop a sense of home with respect to dwelling, community, and region. Our results suggest that different social and environmental factors discriminate identification across place loci: specifically, that demographic qualities of residents and interpretive residential affiliations are critical to dwelling identity; that social participation in the local community is essential for community identity; and that patterns of intercommunity spatial activity promote a regional identity. Such understandings, we propose, are important to constructing an integrated theory of place identity, one sensitive to the complex ways the self is situated in the social-spatial environment.     

Irregular Migration and Informal Economy in Southern and Central‐Eastern Europe: Breaking the Vicious Cycle?

The flexible and cheap labour that European “post‐industrial” economies are in need of is often facilitated by undeclared labour. The undocumented migrant, from his/her part, relatively easily finds work that suits his ‐‐ at least initial ‐‐ plans. What lies behind this nexus between irregular migration and informal economy? To what extent can this nexus be attributed to the structural features of the so‐called “secondary”, as opposed to “primary”, labour market? And how does migration policy correlate with this economic context and lead to the entrapment of migrants in irregularity? Finally, can this vicious cycle of interests and life‐strategies be broken and what does the experience of the migrants indicate in this respect? This paper addresses these questions via an exploration of the grounds upon which irregular migration and the shadow economy complement each other in southern Europe (SE) and central and Eastern Europe (CEE) (two regions at different points in the migration cycle). In doing so, the dynamic character of the nexus between informal economy and irregular migration will come to the fore, and the abstract identity of the “average” undocumented migrant will be deconstructed.     

The Quest for Family and The Mobility of Modernity in Narratives of Postwar British Emigration

In this article I focus on ways in which the postwar generation of British migrants to Canada and Australia construct their stories as epic struggles with family themes of both loss and triumph at the centre. While, during the postwar years, there is among some migrants evidence of the emergence of a more adaptable, sojourning ‘mobility of modernity’, most life stories told by the migrants suggest a more traditional pattern in which family themes dominate. In these narratives postwar migrants structure their accounts along traditional ‘epic story’ lines reminiscent of Oscar Handlin's long superseded thesis about dislocation in the old country, alienation in the new and ultimate triumph over material and cultural obstacles. But the ‘epic’ quality of these stories is deeply attached to family themes; the disruption of family networks and attempts to rescue the old or create new ones are central to the way the migration experience determines the structuring of life memories. The very act of migration focuses attention on its impact on kinship. The predominantly urban, nuclear family form of postwar British migration does contrast sharply with more traditional rural patterns based on extended family movements and ‘chain migration’. But British migrants' emphasis on the ‘quest for family’ and the refashioning of migrant identity in their narratives underlines the coexistence of traditional themes within countervailing trends towards the mobility of modernity.     

Sense of home in a transnational social space: New Zealanders in London

In this article, I explore the ways in which ‘middling’ migrant New Zealanders living in London and New Zealand discuss and identify with home. For these multi‐local individuals, the discursive and material aspects of New Zealand as home form a framework for their everyday life as migrants living in London. Interpretation of the interviews using thematic and narrative analyses works through a conceptualization of home, migration, and identity as interdependent, through three interrelated themes: the symbolic or political nature of home; the importance of family and familiarity for a sense of home; and the role of physical material objects and places. Participants in this study see New Zealand as their home, yet by being away from home they gain new perspectives on home. In London, they engage with or resist a collective imaginary of New Zealand as home that is both self‐perpetuated and externally imposed, and which both reveals and conceals ideas about individual and group identity and community. On returning from London, the idealistic and sometimes simplistic visions of New Zealand as home that structure their lives in London are often disrupted by the more complex yet more mundane version of home and self with which they are confronted.     

The framing of return from above and below in Ecuadorian migration: a project,a myth,or a political device?

Although return migration is a significant topic in current policy, the competing interests of sending and destination countries in promoting it and the prospects of making return strategies ‘from above’ a viable and desirable option for migrants are relatively neglected topics. In this article, I explore the distinct agendas, meanings and expectations underlying the prospects of return migration from Ecuador to Italy. I approach this recent migration flow through ethnography and an institutional analysis of the policy strategies and discourses emerging in the source country. The Ecuadorian government has recently developed a Plan Retorno aimed at facilitating emigrants’ return and economic reintegration. The narratives of Ecuadorian migrants generally reveal a deep‐rooted expectation to return home. While initially hoping to return home ‘soon’, however, migrants systematically tend to postpone their homecoming. When it does take place in the short term, it is likely to be through migration ‘failure’ rather than an actual accomplishment of their earlier objectives. Given the distinct interests and expectations driving them, it is possible to assess the relationship between the two approaches to return. I conclude that return migration, irrespective of its actual accomplishment, is relevant to a better understanding of emigrant policies and of immigrant life trajectories overseas.     

‘Knowing one's place’: gender,mobility and shifting subjectivity in Eastern Indonesia

Abstract In this article I analyse the gendered space of transnational mobility by problematizing migrant subjectivity in everyday practices. In line with feminist perspectives I highlight the significance of the micro‐scale experience of female migrants from Eastern Indonesia in acquiring mobility as a struggle for new subjectivity. I frame this migration as a production of the subjective space of power. Based on in‐depth interviews with returned migrants, I present reflexive accounts of two migrants on contract domestic work abroad to illuminate the changing contours of the relationships between gender, mobility and shifting subjectivity. Households take into account the cultural meanings of space in everyday life including local relations in the decisions on mobility. Strategies of ‘knowing one's place’ reflect women's agency in negotiating alternative roles and positions within the intra‐household dynamics and in the workplace. Women's personal accounts have the potential to illuminate spatial processes of migration as a contested space for the repositioning of self in networks of family, kin, local and global relations.     

Migrant Assimilation in Europe: A Transnational Family Affair1

The paper advances our empirical and theoretical understanding of migrant assimilation. It does so by focusing on a very particular group of individuals who appear more likely than other migrant types to “go native.” We call these individuals “mixed nationality relationship migrants” (i.e., migrants who have committed to a life outside their home country because of the presence of a foreign partner). The paper argues that the transnational family milieus that emerge from this form of international migration are critical to the assimilation process. Empirical material from 11 in‐depth interviews with female migrants in Britain (Sheffield) and France (Paris) supports our argument. We also suggest that such “extreme” assimilation is more likely within a regional migratory system – like the EU – where the “identity frontiers” crossed in the formation of a transnational family are relatively shallow.     

Migrating for a profession: becoming a Caribbean nurse in post-WWII Britain

Youths from the Global South migrating for further education often face various forms of discrimination. This Caribbean case study discusses how conditions in the home country can provide a foundation for educational migration that helps the migrants overcome such obstacles and even develop a strong sense of agency and self-empowerment. In the post-WWII period, numerous Caribbean women trained in nursing at British hospitals that have been described as marred by race and gender related inequality and associated forms of exploitation. Yet, the nurses interviewed about this training emphasised its high quality and downplayed the problems encountered. This positive attitude, it is argued, must be understood in the light of the key ideological role of education, particularly for a profession, as an avenue of social and personal mobility in the late-colonial Caribbean societies and the ways in which it enabled these Caribbean women to stake out a new life for themselves.     

Managing multi-mobility and multi-layered identity in China: how ethnic Chinese-Venezuelan returnees cope with Chinese language,culture and identity

An increasing number of ethnic Chinese students born in Venezuela return to mainland China each year to study the language of their ancestors, Mandarin. This article examines how they expose themselves to multiple discourses of ‘identity’, develop a reflexive strategy to cope with a multi-layered identity and act out their identity in China. In order to do so three core topics – culture, language, and identity will be analyzed and elucidated. In today's world, different forms of mobility affect the negotiation of identity and belonging. Besides migration or the physical/corporeal mobility of people there are other forms of mobilities such as the mobility of commodities, the flows of information, ideas and beliefs, financial mobility as in the case of remittances, virtual travel through Internet. These mobilities intersect and affect different discourses of language, identity and culture. The identity and sense of belonging of this group will be elucidated in four interconnected realms of social life: (1) family, (2) school, (3) fashion and popular culture, (4) food practices.     

Alienation of the outsider: the plight of migrants

This paper compares the plight of international migrants with those from rural to urban areas, examining specifically the migration of Turks into Europe and into Turkish metropolitan centers. This allows comparison of migrant groups with the same point of origin in terms of national, ethnic, cultural, religious, and social characteristics, as well as the same traditional family culture. Economic factors are the main reasons for immigration into Europe. The migrant worker and his family often become marginal to both the country of origin and the country of sojourn. The migrant family must be flexible in dividing or reconstructing itself in various ways to accommodate time, space, and money requirements and to protect ties with the home country requiring intensive geographical mobility, resulting in structural instability and even fragmentation. For the 2nd generation, poor school performance decreases self-esteem and hinders the development of cultural identity; the higher the aspirations for the future and the perception of marginality, the greater is the child's orientation toward the home country. In Turkey, rapid change in traditional agricultural production and rapid population growth caused the movement of population from rural to urban areas. Through rural-urban migration and international migration millions become uprooted populations and become "outsiders." The distinction between 1st and 2nd generation is one of degree, based on the retention of the traditional culture and identity. Factors which interfere with the integration of the migrant population into the dominant society include 1) the unicultural nature of the dominant society and 2) the degree of similarity (or dissimilarity) between the 2. In Turkey, as well as in many other developing countries, the "traditional" family interaction pattern is characterized by relatedness and interdependence among individuals and between generations. Turkish rural to urban migrants are in a more favorable situation than immigrants to Europe to utilize the informal affiliations of family, kin, and community. Extended communal networks are recreated through congested slum living conditions and through friendship sometimes replacing family and kin; traditional identities are reaffirmed through strengthened religious and national sentiments and informal groupings.     

Social Class,Migration Policy and Migrant Strategies: An Introduction

The introduction to this special issue traces class at the interface between migration policy and migrant strategies. Scholarship on the politics of migration and citizenship has thus far largely neglected class. In contrast, we contend that discourses on migration, integration and citizenship are inevitably classed. Assessed through seemingly heterogeneous criteria of “merit” and “performance”, class serves as an analytical connector between economic and identity rationales which intersect in all migration policies, including those regulating family and humanitarian admission. Class‐selective policy frames can function as constraints maintaining some aspiring migrants into immobility or channeling different groups of migrants into separate and unequal incorporation routes. Yet, policy frames can also serve as resources to strategize with as migrants navigate and perform gendered and classed expectations embedded into receiving‐country migration regimes. We conclude that connecting policy with migrant strategies is key to reintroducing class without naturalizing classed strategies of mobility.     

‘There it will be better … ’: Southern Sudanese in Khartoum imagining a new ‘home’ away from ‘home’

At the time of the research, Khartoum was a multi-ethnic and multinational metropolis of 8 million people. A considerable part of the population consists of Southern Sudanese migrants and displaced persons that came during the 20 years plus of civil war in South Sudan to the capital. These people were categorised after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), as displaced people regardless as to whether they come to the capital as labour migrants, students or because of the war to the capital. The notion of displacement assumes that they are people who are ‘out of place’: thereby assuming a former situation of being in place, a place that can be called ‘home’. After the CPA from 2005, this frequently only imagined home became a real place for the IDP’s to which they are supposed to go back. Yet, many migrants and displaced people are reluctant to move to Southern Sudan. Their decision about going to the South or staying in Khartoum depends not only on the opportunities and perspectives in their respective ‘home’ areas but also on the perceptions of belonging and identity. The imaginations and aspirations about the future life in South Sudan, which I analyse in this article, reflect this ambivalent positioning.     

Ageing in the bush: The role of rural places in maintaining identity for long term rural residents and retirement migrants in north-east Victoria,Australia

As a consequence of local population ageing, which is more pronounced in rural areas, the issue of maintaining a positive quality of life for rural older people is attracting significant attention. While environmental psychology theory has advocated the role of place identity in defining the self, there has been little applied research exploring how this occurs in later life. This exploratory, qualitative study (n = 16) utilises 6 and 7 identity process theory to investigate how rural older Australians (retirement migrants and long-term residents) use place to sustain and build a sense of self at a time when many are susceptible to age-related loss. The paper draws on the concepts of distinctiveness, continuity, self-esteem and self-efficacy in order to explore how place identity is supported and maintained. Findings suggest that rural places are beneficial in terms of identity maintenance, with differences between long term and more recent rural residents. Furthermore, findings also highlight that place-related change or growth can potentially threaten older people’s identification as a ‘rural’ person.     

Leave the Fields without Leaving the Countryside: Modernity and Mobility in Rural,Ethnic China

Studies of internal migration in contemporary China frequently focus on the movement of rural people to urban centers, while studies of Chinese tourism concentrate on the mobility of urban travelers. These approaches to mobility coincide neatly with established understandings of modernity, despite the fact that the Chinese government has tried to promote certain forms of rural modernization without mobilization–hence the national slogan “leave the fields without leaving the countryside.” This article complicates the relationship between modernity and mobility in China by examining mobility from the perspective of returned migrants in rural, ethnic minority tourism villages. Through the analysis of five migrants' stories of travel, I explore the ordering of mobility, or how differing types of mobility come to be re-signified in times of immense social change and the consequences of these symbolic shifts on local understandings of ethnic identity and rural livelihoods. My argument builds on analytical frameworks of mobility in post-reform China by examining how mobility itself has been ordered in ways that reveal particular desire, inequalities, and power relations. By exploring how mobility both orders social relationships and how different forms of mobility, such as tourism or migration, come to be ordered in relation to each other, I draw attention to how mobility, and by extension immobility, generates the conditions of possibility for tourism village residents to make sense of the potential and paradoxes of rural, ethnic tourism development in contemporary China.     

Mothers and Daughters in Historical Perspective: Home,Identity and Double Consciousness in British Pakistanis' Migration and Return

Scholarly interest has increasingly focused on the predicament of second-generation counter-diasporic return migration to an ancestral homeland. The present paper portrays two generations of Pakistani middle class women migrants: two mothers, who arrived in Manchester in the 1970s, and their daughters, who both returned to live in Pakistan, one at the age of 11 and the other in her twenties, to marry. The latter in particular experienced Pakistan as culturally alien and unhomely. In Britain one mother has become extremely pious after 9/11. The paper looks at the moral careers of mothers and daughters, starting from the fact that migration initiates an irreversible process in which everyday, taken-for-granted intimacies and socialities of home and identity are subverted. Refuting simplistic theories of a continuous “transnational field”, it argues that migrants experience “double consciousness”, an awareness of competing rules, expectations and a doubling up of a subject's sense of belonging and alienation, which no return home can reverse.     

Do the most successful migrants emulate natives in well‐being? The compound effect of geographical and social mobility

A growing body of research has been focusing on the well‐being consequences of migration, yet most of this has overlooked the fact that many migrants experience intragenerational social mobility alongside geographical mobility. Without accounting for the effect of social mobility in working life, the impact of geographical mobility on well‐being cannot be clearly examined. This paper focuses on the most successful migrants, who have started from the bottom and have achieved upward social mobility in the course of their careers, and compares their well‐being with that of native non‐migrants who have experienced a similar intragenerational social mobility trajectory. The analysis is based on a recent national survey in China, which has a representative sample for both the overall population and migrants. Findings show that migrants, whether from an urban or rural origin, have better incomes but significantly lower levels of well‐being than natives, even with a similar career advancement trajectory and the same destination class position. Further exploration shows that the well‐being disadvantage of migrants is mainly due to institutional and sociocultural barriers, rather than to reward differentials in the labour market. This may have a wider implication for migrants across national borders.     

Post‐return experiences and transnational belonging of return migrants: a Dutch—Moroccan case study

In this article we explore the links between return migration, belonging and transnationalism among migrants who returned from the Netherlands to northeast Morocco. While transnationalism is commonly discussed from the perspective of a receiving country, this study shows that transnationalism also plays a vital role in reconstructing post‐return belonging. Return migration is not simply a matter of ‘going home’, as feelings of belonging need to be renegotiated upon return. While returnees generally feel a strong need to maintain various transnational practices, the meanings they attach to these practices depend on motivations for return, gender and age. For former (male) labour migrants, transnational practices are essential for establishing post‐return belonging, whereas such practices are less important for their spouses. Those who returned as children generally feel uprooted, notwithstanding the transnational practices they maintain. The amount of agency migrants are able to exert in the return decision‐making process is a key factor in determining the extent to which returnees can create a post‐return transnational sense of home.     

Life on the Edge: Balancing Gendered and Occupational Identities among Unauthorized Mexican Migrant Roofers

Scholars have addressed the economic, gendered, and emotional dimensions of migration, especially as migrants move from origin to destination. However, scholarship on return migration and the subjective experiences of reintegrating to origin communities is poorly understood. In this paper, we examine the return migration of formerly unauthorized migrants who labored as roofers in the United States. We argue that the migration process redefines men’s masculinity as they attempt to balance family life in Mexico and their occupational lives in the U.S., all of which are essential for their identity but remain separated by an international border. We draw on 40 in-depth interviews with return migrant men in a small city in Guanajuato, Mexico to examine the emotional tensions men experience regarding the decision to remain in close proximity to family in Mexico and a desire to return again to their economically and emotionally fulfilling occupations in the U.S. We find that migrants’ nostalgia for prior U.S. labor market experience, in juxtaposition to reentry into the Mexican labor market, competes with current feelings of happiness and contentment obtained through family reintegration. These competing feelings, together with economic need, help explain the complex meaning of migration for return migrant men. We conclude by suggesting that once men have been exposed to U.S. life, the occupational identity becomes a “pull” that encourages future migration trips.