Albinism in Malawi: knowledge and beliefs from an African setting

This article is based on a qualitative project which has set out to examine knowledge, beliefs and behaviour related to people living with albinism in Malawi. Individual, in-depth interviews were carried out with 25 people with albinism and their family members. The findings show that most people with albinism, as well as their families, have very little knowledge about albinism, but many know and experience that the skin of people with albinism is very sensitive to the sun, and therefore take precautions to prevent injury. Stories of common myths were told, as well as stories of different relationships that are altered as a result of albinism. Stories were also told of love and approval of people with albinism. In Malawi people with albinism are considered, and consider themselves to be, disabled.     

Migration,Productive Return and Human Capital: Lessons from the new Governmental Policy on Migration in Ecuador

In 2008, the Government of Ecuador initiated a programme for productive return dubbed the Cucayo Fund, aimed at financing small businesses for migrants who were returning to the country. This programme has been a cornerstone in the new governmental policy on migration. In 2015, the IOM considered it an exemplary practice among the instruments enabling the economic and social reinsertion of returning migrants. In this article, based on the mining and analysis of the implementation data from the Cucayo Fund in the three provinces comprising Administrative Region No 7, we specifically examine the incidence of human capital accumulated by the migrants in the success of their ventures. Our results show that the experience and knowledge attained by the migrants abroad, and transfer of these to new activities, play a key and relevant role in the financed ventures and that, therefore, human capital must be incorporated with greater emphasis into debates on return.     

Rational Migration Policy Should Tolerate Non-zero Illegal Migration Flows: Lessons from Modelling the Market for Illegal Migration

The debate on the immigration policies in OECD countries has turned its attention towards illegal migrants. Given that migration flows are determined by immigration laws, the probability of potential detection, penalties for unauthorized migrants and their employers, and income differences between sending and receiving countries, this paper presents a new approach to the problem of illegal migration, grounded on the economic theory of illegal behaviour. The framework considers the interaction of potential migrants, citizens, employers, and the government. After introducing the supply function of illegal migration and its determinants, the trade-off between social costs and benefits of preventing and combating illegal migration is demonstrated. This trade-off results in an optimal level of migration larger than zero. A complete "market model" of illegal migration is offered by presentation of a demand curve of illegal migration, based on the tolerance of the society towards clandestine foreigners. Equilibrium forces predict a non-zero level of illegal migration. The rule of law of our legal systems, according to which any illegal activity has to be reduced to zero, bears the danger of producing inefficient disequilibria. A reasonable policy of wanted and unwanted migration should address the question of how to allocate scarce resources. Ignoring social optima and equilibrium forces means to abandon public resources that could be used for other public assignments, such as schooling or foreign aid, for instance, i.e., measures that could strike the problem of illegal migration at its root.     

Nonprofits and Democratic Development: Lessons from the Czech Republic

This article argues that existing concepts of the civil society–democracy relationship are misleading guides for analyzing political development because they incorporate limited perspectives on the nature and activities of civil society, particularly the nonprofit sector. First, three contemporary conceptualizations of civil society are critiqued, and a contradiction is noted between the importance assigned to ideational functions and the inadequacy of reliance upon elections and party systems. Particular emphasis is placed on civil society's involvement in policy formation, for it is there that a weak state–society connection may be discovered, with significant ramifications for democratic development. Second, recent political instability in the Czech Republic is related to negative trends in political attitudes, indicating a weak connection. Third, the general nature of Czech policy-making processes is examined, and then a closer look is taken at the formation of nonprofit legislation and environmental policy. Finally, implications for the future development of Czech democracy are drawn.     

Migration, Return, and Development: An Institutional Perspective

The development community has been rather reluctant in the past to integrate migration as a parameter for development policies, as often advocated by politicians and the migration community. The following analysis demonstrates that the position of development institutions on this matter has evolved, e.g., in the direction of increased interest among development practitioners to look at remittances as a tool for development. The article discusses the importance of brain drain and possibilities for using return migration as a brain gain. It introduces the concept "migration band" as an aggregate expression of Martin's "migration hump" for individual countries. Furthermore, it suggests policy options for a foreign input policy mix to developing countries composed of foreign direct investment, trade liberalizations, aid, remittances, return migration, and improved governance.     

Entry and Exit Strategies in Migration Dynamics

In this paper, we use a real option framework in order to study the role of combined entry and exit strategies in migration. The paper’s aim consists in investigating migrants’ behaviour and in particular their duration of stay in the host country. Our framework shows two threshold levels: the first triggers the migration choice, while the second triggers the return to the country of origin. The difference between these two thresholds defines a region of inaction (hysteresis) i.e. the length of the immigrant’s stay in the host country (duration). Our theoretical results show that: (a) the phenomenon of hysteresis is amplified by ethnic communities both in entry and in exit cases; and (b) migration policies that attempt to exacerbate entry could increase duration of immigrants and the migration stock in the host country. Furthermore, the community could reduce the minimum wage level required to trigger both exit and entry. This fact could explain why we sometimes see migration inflows with a low wage differential and also with underemployment.     

Migration and Development: Mexico and Turkey

Mexico and Turkey are among the world's leading labor‐sending nations, with about 11 million Mexican‐born and 3.5 million Turkish‐born persons abroad in 2006. After two decades of uneven growth and job creation as well as persisting poverty and inequality, there are debates within both countries asking whether economic reforms have gone far enough to put the economy on a stable footing for sustained and equitable growth, or whether emigration (pressure) will continue. Some Mexicans are seeking to deepen North American Free Trade Agreement, while most Turks support entry into the European Union as a way of speeding economic growth.     

Introduction: New Dynamics of Chinese Migration to Europe

This introduction provides a presentation of the articles in this special issue by framing the contributions in the context of new dynamics related to Chinese migration studies and the ongoing discussions of the impact of China’s powerful economic position. The articles offer new empirical insights to develop new understandings of recent migration and mobilities between China and Europe. By focusing on the changing socio-economic composition of Chinese migrants in Europe towards highly skilled professionals and investors, changes in Chinese entrepreneurship, increasing Chinese political engagement and activism, and new migration from Europe to China by Chinese descendants, these contributions reflect the importance of developing new theories to better grasp the causes and effects of China’s new global economic and political position for Chinese migration. The selected articles identify promising directions for future work on the global discussions of the impact of China as a diaspora state and ensuing policy implications.     

Lessons from the Public Sphere: Listening,Adversity, and Learning

As many scholars have discussed, when addressing divisive social issues many people immediately assume an adversarial posture, thus lessening the chance for productive dialogues about these issues and lessening the likelihood that people will listen to each other. One area that is keenly affected by our “argument culture” is the classroom; after all, students have been well-conditioned in the “adversary method” before reaching college classes. While some conflict is necessary for growth and learning, when that conflict blocks ideas and discussion, that conflict is not productive. Therefore, in order to make classroom interactions productive and to promote listening, practices by a group from the public sphere—The Public Conversations Project (the PCP)—can be used as a model for encouraging productive dialogues in the college classroom.     

Migration,masculinity and social class: Insights from Pikine,Senegal

In the shattered economy of Dakar, many young men feel stuck in prolonged bachelorhood. Handed‐down role expectations can often not be met due to dire economic prospects. Drawing on fieldwork in Pikine, an urban area within the Dakar region of Senegal, between 2011 and 2013, this article reflects upon the relation between risk, migration, social class and masculinity. Through migration to unknown destinations and by enduring the many challenges and hardships associated with it, in the hope of eventually reaching a higher social class upon return, young men wish to fix and rewrite their masculine identities. To pursue this aim even the oddest job in Europe becomes acceptable. At home, however, many work opportunities are considered to be beneath their social class. Most male urbanites seek jobs that are rewarded with respect and authority, and often assemble their choices about pursuing certain income‐generating activities considering notions of class.     

Some Migration Dynamics Specific to Southern Europe: South-North and East-West Axis

This article examines the magnitude and determinants of migration from east to west (Europe) following the collapse of communism, and from south (Africa) to north (Europe).
Special attention is given to assessing numbers and characteristics (including illegal) of the flows, and also to reasons for and success of bilateral agreements and cooperative projects by the governments of Italy and Spain designed to check and control the flows.
Notwithstanding tighter controls on visas for Third World nationals, migration to western Europe does not seem to have abated. In Italy, illegal migration from the east (Albania in particular) is connected, directly or indirectly, with the criminal underworld.
The inventory of legal texts and agreement protocols between Spain and Morocco designed to resolve many issues relating to migration, reflect long-standing relations between the two countries. Political and economic relations between Italy and Albania, on the other hand, have developed only within the framework of recent policies.
While the presence of Moroccans in Spain and Albanians in Italy is not yet demographically significant, the authors predict that, in the absence of further appropriate political and economic measures, numbers will increase.     

Migration and Development: A Theoretical Perspective1

The debate on migration and development has swung back and forth like a pendulum, from developmentalist optimism in the 1950s and 1960s, to neo-Marxist pessimism over the 1970s and 1980s, towards more optimistic views in the 1990s and 2000s. This paper argues how such discursive shifts in the migration and development debate should be primarily seen as part of more general paradigm shifts in social and development theory. However, the classical opposition between pessimistic and optimistic views is challenged by empirical evidence pointing to the heterogeneity of migration impacts. By integrating and amending insights from the new economics of labor migration, livelihood perspectives in development studies and transnational perspectives in migration studies – which share several though as yet unobserved conceptual parallels – this paper elaborates the contours of a conceptual framework that simultaneously integrates agency and structure perspectives and is therefore able to account for the heterogeneous nature of migration-development interactions. The resulting perspective reveals the naivety of recent views celebrating migration as self-help development “from below”. These views are largely ideologically driven and shift the attention away from structural constraints and the vital role of states in shaping favorable conditions for positive development impacts of migration to occur.     

Disaster,Time, and Dialogue: A Couple Lessons from Hurricane Katrina

There is much to learn about ourselves and the worlds we fashion “when all hell breaks loose” (W. Lloyd Warner 1947:1).

This brief paper is about The Katrina Bookshelf, specifically about a couple of the contributions several of the forthcoming books on The Shelf will make to the social study of disaster. It is both a collective and an individual achievement. Imagine The Katrina Bookshelf as a composition and each book on The Shelf a movement, a part of the composition that is more or less complete in and of itself. Any one of the books could be taken from The Shelf and read alone, independent of the others. Each has its own voice and reaches its own resolution. But examined together, The Shelf reveals the phenomenal human complexity that is Hurricane Katrina.