New directions in exploring the migration industries: introduction to special issue

ABSTRACT

This Special Issue explores the directions through which we can take research on the migration industries. In this introduction, we review existing research on migration industries to look at how this explores questions on how migration industries foster, assist and constrain migration. In doing so, we argue that these questions have primarily been approached from three different perspectives: structuralist, labour market and mobilities, but these perspectives often speak past rather than to one another. In highlighting how these approaches can work together, the question that the Special Issue explores becomes how do the migration industries function and when/where/how do they intersect with other domains of migration. In highlighting the contributions that each paper in the special issue makes to answering this question, we show how an understanding of the migration industries is not just a research field in itself, but can strengthen our understanding of migration.     

Geopolitics as a migration governance strategy: European Union bilateral relations with Southern Mediterranean countries

ABSTRACT

The significance of regional consultative processes in the field of migration is well documented. Their popularity for states is typically explained by the opportunity they provide for largely non-binding discussions around sensitive, sovereignty-laden issues such as border control. Since the mid-1990s, a variety of intergovernmental meetings have been sponsored by the EU with the aim of discussing migration with neighbouring countries. European policy frameworks have specifically excluded the countries to the South from the possibility of membership, yet they are now absolutely crucial to the realisation of the EU's migration ambitions. Since the 1999 Tampere European Council relations with these states have been managed through a discourse of ‘partnership’, emphasising the regional ‘Euro-Mediterranean’ character of this relationship. This paper analyses EU relations with Southern Mediterranean states as a specific attempt to construct a geopolitical region—the Euro-Mediterranean area—from and through migration management strategies. It concludes that the development of policy in this area results from a huge number of poorly focused and sometimes contradictory initiatives that collectively make up a far more haphazard approach than the common externalisation critique suggests. This haphazard approach helps to explain the range of unintended consequences of this policy but may also lead to its limited successes.     

Emplaced mobilities: Lisbon as a translocality in the migration journeys of Punjabi Sikhs to Europe

The arrival in Portugal of recent migrants from the Indian subcontinent is normally a secondary movement from within Europe tied to the search for a regular pathway into legal integration in the EU. However, as favourable migration policy is not paired with easy economic integration onward migration is common. We argue that such complex migration strategies cannot be amply explored through an origin–destination model; instead we suggest that a translocal perspective provides a framework to examine connections and experiences of emplacement in places of passage/reception like Lisbon. Through a qualitative study of the migration journeys and emplaced practices of Punjabi migrants in Lisbon, our findings highlight relationality between multiple scales, elucidating how agency and structure interact at micro and macro levels in shaping migration experiences and outcomes. We show how the materiality of local community structures ensures the navigation of daily life in the city and provides pathways toward legality contributing to wider mobility regimes. Moreover, we illustrate how onward migration represents an individual strategy to realise different aspects of integration in other EU destinations challenging nation-state-bound understandings of citizenship/settlement and integration.     

Rituals of migration: an introduction

ABSTRACT

This introduction presents a framework for the articles in the special issue Rituals of Migration. First, it provides an overview of studies of ritual and migration, highlighting the fruitfulness of exploring the two fields together and arguing for the use of ritual as a cultural prism on processes of continuity and change in migration. In light of these analytical approaches, the introduction continues by outlining and discussing the three major themes that crosscut the articles (the interrelations between change and continuity, processes of placemaking and lines of social differentiation), demonstrating how the articles can shed light on these issues.     

Strengthening migration governance: the UN as ‘wingman’*

ABSTRACT

The plight of desperate migrants crossing the Mediterranean reached an inflection point in 2015 when an estimated 800 migrants drowned in a single day, painfully exposing dysfunctions in how States, regions, and the international community as a whole seek to govern a world with increased mobility of persons. By examining the response to the migration and refugee crises of recent years through the lens of the United Nations (UN), this article describes how States and the UN system are challenged to reconsider traditional hierarchies of power and influence since unilateral State action will not solve the migration problem. Migration solutions, particularly those providing greater protections for migrants in vulnerable situations, will require ‘coalitions of the willing’ between States, inter-governmental organisations, local governments and non-state actors. Still emerging, such coalitions are interdependent; and their objectives will be the result of negotiating and bargaining amongst their members. They reflect multi-level governance in the collective handling of migration, revealing a more complex interaction, one in which local authorities and non-state actors are in some instances bypassing State-led interventions. For its part, the UN – armed with recent institutional changes that provide it with more centralised ‘orchestration’ capacities – is best suited to serve in a ‘wingman’ function, buttressing rather than leading such coalitions.     

Trans-regional institutional cooperation as multilevel governance: ECOWAS migration policy and the EU*

ABSTRACT

Regional economic integration in West Africa establishes the framework for the movement of persons within the highly mobile region. Eighty-four per cent of the migratory movements is directed towards another country within the region. This article analyses the role of trans-regional institutional cooperation on intra-regional migration policymaking, exploring the role of the European Union (EU) in the formulation of regional migration policies in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) specifically in labour migration, refugee protection, and return/readmission. It examines the normative role of the EU in influencing policies of third countries and argues that in the case of ECOWAS, networks are increasingly important in enabling formal and informal diffusion. The article uses multilevel governance as the lens to examine migration governance between the EU and ECOWAS, concluding that power relations equally play a key role in trans-regional institutional cooperation. Included in this mix are bilateral agreements which stand between trans-regional and intra-regional institutional cooperation, exerting a strong influence on inter-institutional EU- ECOWAS relations.     

Race,migration and neoliberalism: distorted notions of Romani migration in European public discourses

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the migration of Roma based on recent public, academic, policy and political debates in connection with two specific case studies in France and Italy. Moreover, it aims to understand how contemporary racialized discourses and neoliberal social and political forces (re)create Roma as a racialized internal ‘other’ to legitimize subtle anti-Romani politics in Europe. By doing that, it argues that the current migration of Roma cannot be understood apart from the proliferation of the hegemonic neoliberal ideology that facilitates the racialization of Roma and normalizes their social exclusion in Europe. Moreover, it explores the role of neoliberalism in the racialization and subjugation of Roma in Europe.     

Multi-level governance and migration politics in the Arab world: the case of Syria’s displacement

ABSTRACT

In the context of Syria’s displacement, supranational ‘migration governors’ in the Arab region have sought – in different forms and capacities – to devise initiatives for responsibility sharing and to reinforce the capacity of Syria’s Arab neighbours to deal with refugee inflows. While the case of Syria’s displacement has witnessed the proliferation of collaborative networks, institutional complexity has yielded low effectiveness for the governance of such large-scale displacement in Syria’s neighbourhood. Supranational bodies have formulated dissonant frameworks and agendas. In the context of securitised responses to displacement, the discourse has not reflected the realities of refugee assistance and protection. Multi-level policy frameworks need to be embedded in the region’s geopolitical field of migration governance and refugee protection. While colliding policy arenas are to be grounded within the region’s historical trajectory of migration politics, an understanding of their effects requires gaining an insight into how they have interacted with the various refugee-hosting Arab states, influenced their refugee discourse, and impacted the issue of refugee assistance and protection on the ground.     

Multilevelling EU external governance: the role of international organizations in the diffusion of EU migration policies

ABSTRACT

The thematic and geographical expansion of EU migration policies has gone along with an increasing mobilisation of pertinent international organisations such as the IOM and UNHCR. Combining insights from the external governance approach with IR debates on international institutional complexity, this article examines the dynamics behind this ‘multilevelling’ of EU external policies. Three strategies of institutional interplay are distinguished: counterweight, whereby international organisations act as independent complement or corrector to EU policy; subcontracting, referring to the outsourcing of EU project implementation to international organisations; and rule transmission, a process in which international organisations engage in transferring EU rules to third countries. Whereas greater organisational authority and autonomy have allowed the UNHCR to keep an independent voice as counterweight to EU action, both the UNHCR and IOM have become increasingly involved in the implementation of the EU's ‘global approach’ to migration via subcontracting and rule transmission. In sum, these processes shed a new light on the role of the EU within the international migration regime complex.     

Almost the same stories: narrative patterns in EU treaty referendums

ABSTRACT

The article analyses narratives that favoured or opposed European integration in three referendum debates held during the constitutional process of the 2000s: in France and the Netherlands in 2005 (Constitutional Treaty) as well as the first vote in Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty in 2008. In all debates examined, speakers used similar narratives of European integration. While most narrative patterns have transnational character, however, they are also remarkably country-specific. They depend on the specific cultural context and the social positions of the speakers articulating them.     

European attempts to govern African youths by raising awareness of the risks of migration: ethnography of an encounter

Contemporary EU governance of migration outside its territorial borders aims to control mobility through policing measures, but also to shape the subjectivities of potential migrants so that they ‘discipline themselves’ to fit European immigration priorities. This is illustrated by the organisation by intergovernmental and non-governmental agencies, in several African countries, of ‘information’ campaigns and participatory activities to convince youths to stay rather than emigrate. Through an ethnographic account of my encounter with the leaders of a youth group involved in participatory activities in Dakar (Senegal), this article explores the assumption that youths can be governed in this way. I argue that awareness-raising initiatives had little hold over the thoughts of local youths, and were reappropriated by the association leaders I met. This was largely due to ‘discontinuities’ between agencies’ and local youths’ perceptions of migration and development, as well as NGOs’ past and present work with youth group leaders. Theoretically, these conclusions add to research emphasising the force of human mobility over EU policing measures, whilst also highlighting the agentive role of local dynamics.     

Rethinking the nation: Apology,treaty and reconciliation in Australia

In February 2008, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to Indigenous Australians for past injustices. The apology was presented as a turning point in the history of the nation. According to Rudd, ‘there comes a time in the history of a nation when peoples must become fully reconciled to their past if they are to go forward with confidence to embrace their future’. The apology marked a new step in the reconciliation process in Australia, but as this article argues, the treaty issue – another controversial aspect of reconciliation – remains a major challenge to the Australian nation.     

Redefining membership: restrictive rights and categorisation in European Union migration policy

This article analyses European Union (EU) policy-making on the rights of third-country nationals (TCN) against the backdrop of theoretical literature on the transformation of citizenship. The aim is to evaluate why and to which extent EU policy expands citizenship rights to TCNs, thus redefining the criteria for membership in the European polity. The research emphasises the role of norms and frames in policy-making and is based on secondary sources, primary documents and semi-structured interviews. The analysis reveals how the combination of a principled conflict over citizenship and a strategic conflict over competence led to a legal framework characterised by ‘restrictive rights’ and ‘politics of categorisation’. ‘Restrictive rights’ means that membership rights are granted to TCN in principle, but subject to very restrictive conditions. ‘The politics of categorisation’ refers to the political construction of migrant categories that are subject to different rights-regimes. Both phenomena have the ambiguous effect of enabling the expansion of rights to non-citizens while at the same time creating new lines of division and mechanisms of exclusion.     

改革开放以来欧盟国家中的中国大陆新移民

华人移居欧洲的历史悠久,但华人在真正意义上作为移民族群生活于欧洲始于近代,迄今仅有100多年的历史.1978年中国改革开放前,欧洲的华人主要有广东人、浙江人、香港人和东南亚华裔难民.早期欧洲华侨华人社会中占主导地位的是浙江人和广东人.浙江人是最早进入欧洲的华人之一,在欧洲的一些城市里贩卖一种叫"青田石"的石雕制品,他们有着很强的自谋生路的能力,是欧洲华侨华人社会中最持久也最有韧性的一支.     

Senegalese migration to Spain: transnational mothering practices

This article analyses the relationship between pre-migration fostering practices and the transnational strategies of a group of Senegalese mothers living in Spain. In Senegal, large households, residential separation of couples, and collective fostering are the norm; it is not unusual for children to be under the care of women other than their mother, even for long periods of time. Drawing from data collected during 2 years of transnational multi-sited fieldwork that followed Senegalese mothers between their households of origin and destination, we argue that these women sought to reproduce the Senegalese mainstream mothering ideology in Spain. They did this by adopting two main strategies: long-distance mothering and circular mothering. These strategies were used depending on the age of the child, the constraints imposed on mother and children by migration legislation, and the social capital available to the migrant. This article seeks to integrate a wider range of experiences and the influence of pre-migratory mothering ideologies, kinship systems, and household structures on transnational mothering practices into the existing literature on transnational mothering.     

Multilevel governance from below: how Dutch cities respond to intra-EU mobility

ABSTRACT

‘Intra-EU mobility’ from new member states provides a governance challenge to European countries like the Netherlands. Freedom of movement within the EU enables mobility but also has important social consequences at the urban level in particular. This article discusses to what extent local, national and European governments have interacted in the governance of ‘intra-EU movement’ and how this has affected their policies regarding migrants from Central and Eastern Europe in particular. Focusing on the Dutch case, including the cities of The Hague and Rotterdam, this article shows a development from a decoupled relationship, to localist governance and only recently evidence of emerging ‘multilevel governance’. Speaking to the broader literature on multilevel governance, this article firstly shows that in spite of its broad theoretical application, multilevel governance should be seen as one of the varied types of governance in a multilevel setting. And secondly, it shows how and why local governments can play a key role in the bottom-up development of governance in a multilevel setting.