Syrian Self‐Initiated Expatriates: Emotional Connections from Abroad

The relationship of an expatriate to his or her country of origin is complicated by reasons for leaving, ease of acculturation into the new country, nostalgia, loneliness and the ability to remain connected to his or her country of origin while abroad. Research on expatriate experiences has been limited to certain countries of origin and host countries, as well as a narrow definition of the term “expatriate”. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences and relationships with host and home countries of Syrian self‐initiated expatriates, an underrepresented group in the literature. Phenomenological interviews were conducted with 13 Syrian self‐initiated expatriates during an expatriate conference in Damascus, Syria. The results showed that Syrian self‐initiated expatriates have left Syria to advance their education and their careers. For many of the men interviewed, Syria’s mandate of military service was a factor in leaving. When in their host countries, they faced adjustment issues such as language barriers and difficulty remaining connected to Syria. Relationships with both countries were fluid and changing, based on factors such as adjustment and ease of communication. I make recommendations for improving travel, communication and cultural maintenance to support the connection between Syrian self‐initiated expatriates and Syrian society.     

Short-Term Skilled Labour Movements and Economic Growth

Economic models typically study the long-term effects of migration, and hence emphasise their impact on a country's endowment of skills using net migration rates. This approach however does not take into account the contribution of short-term movements of skilled labour on a country's stock of knowledge and ability to innovate. This paper develops a theoretical approach to extend the analysis to gross migration flows, which captures the volume of interactions and the potential for knowledge exchanges between a country's skilled labour and workers living elsewhere. One implication of the approach developed is that higher growth can be achieved through higher international labour mobility, even if there is no net migration. Countries that find it difficult or impossible to attract skilled labour on a permanent basis may therefore enjoy the growth effect brought by skilled temporary migrants.     

Cultural Responses to Changing Gender Patterns of Migration in Georgia

In this paper, we explore how individual women cope with the tensions between economic forces encouraging temporary labour migration and cultural norms tying “proper” women to their homes and families. Combining in‐depth interviews with returned migrant women in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi with secondary migration data for the region, we illustrate the recent increases in Georgian women’s participation in international labour migration. Deteriorating economic conditions in Georgia leave women with few local opportunities to financially support their families, while institutional changes have altered the accessibility and attractiveness of international destinations, leading to increasing motivations and opportunities for women’s migration. Focusing on the contradictions between growing female migration and persistent adherence to cultural norms stigmatizing migration in Georgia, we explore the cognitive strategies migrant women employ in an attempt to balance internalized perceptions of acceptable gendered behaviour with their migration choices. Two key pathways of adaptation emerge: framing migration as a necessity rather than a choice and stressing the unique and individually exceptional nature of their own migration experience. We posit that these strategies may serve to limit the norm‐challenging nature of women’s migration in Georgia. Although migration is often described as an empowering experience for women, if women migrants work to present their migration in a way that fits within the bounds of traditional gender norms, these norms may be strengthened rather than challenged.     

Intimate circuits: modernity,migration and marriage among post‐Soviet women in Turkey

The study of migration too often ignores the ways that labour migrants' emotional entanglements and complicated personal relationships factor into their experiences of being people on the move. In examining post‐Soviet migrant women's relationships with Turkish men and the ways these are regulated in Turkey, in this article I consider how intimate practices of marriage and performances of ‘love’ have emerged as key aspects of transnational mobility. These intimate practices both enable long‐term transnational circuits between post‐Soviet homelands and Turkey, and attest to the way global capitalism is redefining personal lives.     

Temporary Skilled Migration to Australia: Employers' Perspectives1

With the 1996 introduction of a new visa making it easier for employers to sponsor skilled foreign workers, temporary skilled migration has become a significant component of international migration flows to Australia. This paper examines employers' reasons for sponsoring skilled workers from abroad, their modes of recruitment, the occupational skills they require, and their industry profile. We also discuss issues relating to the perception of a shortage of skilled workers, the extent that sponsoring foreign workers substitutes for investing in local training, and the role of networks in recruiting overseas workers. Many employers' now have a global view of labour recruitment. While this is understandable for multinational companies with global operations, many small businesses and public sector institutions are adopting the same strategy to obtain skilled labour which they say is in short supply in Australia. With the internationalization of the Australian economy, there is also an increasing demand for people with specialized skills and knowledge that is not available in Australia's relatively small labour market. An understanding of the demand factors motivating temporary skilled migration is crucial to effectively managing Australia's migration and labour trends.     

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.     

Emigration and development: the case of a Bangladeshi village

This article examines the developmental consequences of international labour migration in a Bangladeshi village. The data are from Hoglakandi, a village 30 kilometres south-east of Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh. A structured questionnaire with both open-ended and closed category questions was used among 50 Singapore returnees, supplemented with additional in-depth interviews. International labour migration has often been seen by many sending countries as a short cut to development because of its role in unemployment relief, balance of payments relief, and capital formation at national level. The study argues that the causes and effects of emigration can better be understood only when the process is placed within its local context, since what may prove to be advantageous at the national level may prove to be detrimental to a household or community or vice-versa. It demonstrates how the contribution of labour migration is merely the transformation of labour into a structural component of the international political economy. The Hoglakandi experience reveals that labour migration does not fuel the local economy from an external pipeline of remittances and skill acquisition, rather it drains local resources that retard the development.     

The need to import skilled personnel: factors favouring and hindering its international mobility

Skilled migration has become a major element of contemporary flows. It has developed in scale and variety since the 1930s and now takes many forms, including “brain drain”, professional transients, skilled permanent migrants and business transfers. Nevertheless, the data are poor, inconsistent and usually not differentiated by sex. The importance of policies, both national and regional, to control the movement of skilled migrants has escalated. Receiving countries have come increasingly to see the benefits from admitting skilled workers and have adjusted their permanent and/or temporary migration laws/policies to facilitate entry, usually on the proviso that it does not disadvantage their own workers by taking away their jobs. Another set of policy frameworks within which skilled migration is occurring is regional blocs. The experience of the European Union (EU) in promoting the flow of skilled labour, movement in this direction in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Mercosul, the Closer Economic Relations (CER) Agreement between Australia and New Zealand and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum are analysed. The article poses two sets of issues facing sending and receiving countries. For sending countries they are: whether to free up or tighten migration; whether to support temporary skilled flows; whether to introduce protective or preventive measures to stem skilled emigration; how to encourage the return of skilled nationals; and whether/how to pursue compensation from post-industrialized countries. For receiving countries they are: whether to encourage temporary or permanent skilled immigration; the level of entry to permit/promote; how to select/process skilled immigrants; whether/how to protect the jobs of locals; and how they ensure the successful labour market integration of skilled immigrants. The article argues that the neo-classical view that skilled migration leads to overall improvement in global development does not apply. “Brain waste” or “wasted skills” occur frequently, to the detriment of both individuals and nations. Improved data and constructive dialogue on skilled migration are needed. Within both regional and international contexts, countries have obligations and responsibilities towards each other which need to be taken seriously.     

The Colour of Poverty: A Study of the Poverty of Ethnic and Immigrant Groups in Canada

This article uses a case-study approach in relation to the migration of Indian doctors to the UK in order to illustrate the complexity and multi-levelled nature of explanations for international migration.
It argues that whereas, at the level of discursive consciousness, the movement of Indian doctors to the UK appears an economically driven and shapedphenomenon akin to other examples of highly skilled international migration, when the practical consciousness of participants is investigated through qualitative methods, the migration can also be seen as a cultural and social phenomenon.
Although migrants move to "better themselves", they also make choices based on factors such as the kind of novels they read as children or "taken for granted" familial obligations rooted in the everyday life of their culture.     

Female and foreign: An intersectional exploration of the experiences of skilled migrant women in Qatar

This article explores how the intersection of gender and foreignness shapes the experiences of skilled migrant women. Drawing on interviews with skilled migrant women working in Qatar, we situate their experiences in institutional, organizational and sociocultural terms to show how the intersection is articulated and mobilized to subordinate, marginalize and exclude them in work and social spaces. Findings show that the intersection is used to reinforce the status of the women as outsiders to the country (foreignness) and its cultural order (gender), resulting in structural and qualitative differences in the experiences of the group. In highlighting their nuanced experiences, we contribute to debates about gender, skilled migration and work in the Middle East. We also contribute to intersectionality debates by expanding the conceptual limits and analytical use of social categories of difference to explain experiences of work and unpack the simultaneity of subject positioning within institutional, organizational and sociocultural dynamics.     

Embedding or Uprooting? The Effects of International Labour Migration on Rural Households in Armenia

The impact of international labour migration on human wellbeing and socioeconomic development in communities of origin is an important yet understudied issue in contemporary migration research. This study examines whether men's labour migration from rural Armenia to Russia and other international destinations enhances the economic and social connections of the left‐behind households to their communities or, on the contrary, undermines those connections and encourages household members' own migration. Using survey data, it compares families of migrants and non‐migrants with respect to ownership of productive and major non‐productive assets in the community and women's non‐farm labour force participation, their social engagement in the village, and their desires to migrate abroad. The results of statistical tests indicate that men's migration is negatively associated with households' asset ownership and with women's non‐farm employment. The results for women's social engagement in their villages are less consistent. Finally, regardless of economic attachment, social engagement, and a host of other factors, wives of migrants were significantly more likely to wish to move abroad than women married to non‐migrants, and the difference in propensity to emigrate between migrants' and non‐migrants' wives increases with duration of husband's migration. We situate these findings in the context of Central Eurasia's international labour migration system and discuss their implications for future migration trends and for socioeconomic development of Armenia and similar settings.     

The Sonoran Desert’s Domestic Bracero Programme: Institutional Actors and the Creation of Labour Migration Streams

This paper traces the journeys of male migrants to Empalme, Sonora, Mexico to uncover the development of the often overlooked domestic bracero programme that operated in conjunction with its well‐known international equivalent. Drawing on interviews and observations with ex‐braceros who met at a park near the Mexico‐US border, I examine their experiences and participation in Mexico’s domestic bracero program, an unintended and unexplored consequence of its international counterpart. The study shows how regulation and control were constantly reinvented at every step of the selection process by state actors and their affiliates in Mexico. The paper reveals how the oversupply of labour and modernization of agriculture in Sonora resulted in the development of a migration industry where local municipal leaders, coyotes, the state, and Mexican agribusiness capitalized from men’s displacement. The migration industry during the bracero selection process controlled who gained access to the United States labour market by capturing migrant labour en route to the United States in the process fueling a thriving cotton industry in the otherwise stagnant Sonoran Desert economy. The study concludes by taking the lessons from the historic domestic bracero programme to show one instance in which internal and international labour markets were closely interwoven. In the end, I call for more research that examines the relationship between markets on both sides of the border that uncovers how networks are not only structured by personal ties but also by state and market relations.     

International mobility of professional knowledge from the Global South: Indian IT workers in the Netherlands

Although there are many studies on both expatriates and the phenomenon of brain drain, there are few on those professionals who move from a less to a more advanced economy through a transfer from one division of a transnational corporation to another. In a study of Indian IT professionals employed by the Dutch division of the producer‐service company Capgemini, we assessed the reasons for their recruitment and the type of professional knowledge they bring to the job. Our main findings are that the international mobility of Indian professionals is not just a matter of reducing labour costs and that, though some Indian IT professionals engage in routine programming activities, others are involved in activities that require tacit forms of knowledge. This applies to those who link the Dutch and Indian offices of Capgemini and to those who acquire assignments operating in the epistemic community of the international business milieu.     

Asian Transnational Families in New Zealand: Dynamics and Challenges

Since the 1990s, Asia has emerged as the major contributor of migration flows into New Zealand. Settler migration, tourism, international business and more recently, international education make up the diverse flows of Asian peoples into the country. This paper explores the changing dynamics of Asian transnational families over the last two decades, with a special focus on the experiences of young people within these families. In the early 1990s, bi-local families were commonly known as "astronaut" families, in which one or both parents returned to their countries of origin to work, leaving their children to be educated in New Zealand. Over time the structures of these families have changed, as many young migrants relocated back to their former homeland or re-migrated to a third country, while "astronaut parents" rejoined their spouses either in the origin or destination. More recently, the educational migration of international students from countries in Asia has given rise to another form of transnational family, in which young people enter New Zealand as international students and some subsequently become residents. In this paper, the experiences of these young people are explored within the wider context of family strategies for maximising benefits through spatially extended networks on the one hand, and government initiatives and immigration policy changes that have been taking place in New Zealand since the 1990s on the other.     

Best Practice in Temporary Labour Migration for Development: A Perspective from Asia and the Pacific

The dominant mode of international migration in Asia and the Pacific is temporary contract migration of low‐skilled workers. The potential for such migration to deliver significant development dividends to origin communities is substantial because of its large scale and the fact that most migrant workers return to their home community. However, there are a number of barriers that are intervening to dampen these potential positive effects, such as high transaction costs, high costs of sending remittances, and the fact that some areas of origin lack the infrastructure and potential for productive investment. Moreover, destination countries have been very welcoming of high skill temporary migrants but highly restrictive in their attitudes toward their low skill counterparts. This paper discusses the lessons of best practice in temporary labour migration programmes in the region, which can help to overcome these obstacles reducing the positive development impacts of migration. It assesses, in turn, best practice separately for each stage of the labour migration process ‐‐ recruitment and selection, and pre‐departure preparation ‐‐ at the destination and on return. In conclusion, a number of the barriers which impinge on Asian Pacific countries’ ability to introduce and sustain best practice are discussed. These include the need for capacity building, lack of cooperation between origin and destination countries, lack of data, poor governance of labour migration a failure among governments to recognise the significance of migration and the need for more “development friendly” migration policies in destinations.     

Migration and Policies in the European Union: Highly Skilled Mobility,Free Movement of Labour and Recognition of Diplomas

This article evaluates the relationship between highly skilled mobility (especially by individuals with university‐level degrees) and migration policies. Data from the European Union (EU) and Portugal (in particular) provide the empirical basis of the research. EU policies regarding the free circulation of individuals which aim to build the “common market” for economic factors (including labour) are reviewed, as are the more specific recognition of diplomas policies for professional and academic purposes, and recent levels of international mobility in both the EU and Portugal. The article also enumerates the main obstacles that, from a political and legal or social and cultural perspective, explain the low mobility revealed by those figures. Obstacles include the broad denial of citizenship rights; the necessity of assuring a means of sustenance; linguistic and technical exigencies for diploma recognition; the social attributes of work (more explicit in the service sector); and the institutional nature of national skilled labour markets. The main exception to the low mobility rule – movements of cadres in the internal labour markets of transnational corporations – together with flows in other multinational organizations, are also reviewed. In these, migrations are relatively exempt from political constraints and, significantly, avoid the recognition procedures adopted by the EU. In other words, it seems that the entry of highly skilled individuals in a transnational corporation, and not their citizenship in a Europe without frontiers, is what enables them to achieve effective mobility.     

Occupational continuity and international migration of skilled workers: the case of Mersey Port workers

"As part of a current concern among geographers to identify the local specificity of labour markets...and the regional impacts of international migration from [the United Kingdom], this paper considers one case of regional specificity--the Port of Liverpool--and how the traditional skills of the port and associated activities, on and off-shore, have provided important linkages with international demand for skills in these occupations, and have spontaneously maintained international but non-permanent flows of skilled workers from Merseyside." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA)     

The Migration–Development Nexus Evidence and Policy Options State–of–the–Art Overview

In September 2001, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs commissioned a study of the present and potential links between migration and development. In January 2002, the new Danish Government announced a decision to enhance the links between its aid and refugee policies as part of the overall focus on poverty reduction. The present paper provides a state–of–the–art overview of current thinking and available evidence on the migration–development nexus, including the role of aid in migrant–producing areas. It offers evidence and conclusions around the following four critical issues: Poverty and migration People in developing countries require resources and connections to engage in international migration. There is no direct link between poverty, economic development, population growth, and social and political change on the one hand, and international migration on the other. Poverty reduction is not in itself a migration–reducing strategy. Conflicts, refugees, and migration Violent conflicts produce displaced persons, migrants, and refugees. People on the move may contribute both to conflict prevention and reconciliation, and to sustained conflicts. Most refugees do not have the resources to move beyond neighbouring areas, that is, they remain internally displaced or move across borders to first countries of asylum within their region. Aid to developing countries receiving large inflows of refugees is poverty–oriented to the extent that these are poor countries, but it is uncertain what effect such aid has in terms of reducing the number of people seeking asylum in developed countries. Furthermore, such aid may attract refugees from adjacent countries experiencing war or political turmoil. Migrants as a development resource International liberalization has gone far with respect to capital, goods and services, but not to labour. International political–economic regimes provide neither space nor initiatives for negotiations on labour mobility and the flow of remittances. There is a pressing need to reinforce the image of migrants as a development resource. Remittances are double the size of aid and target the poor at least as well; migrant diasporas are engaged in transnational practices with direct effects on aid and development; developed countries recognize their dependence on immigrant labour; and policies on development aid, humanitarian relief, migration, and refugee protection are internally inconsistent and occasionally contradictory. Aid and migration Aid policies face a critical challenge to balance a focus on poverty reduction with mitigating the conditions that produce refugees, while also interacting constructively with migrant diasporas and their transnational practices. The current emphasis on aid selectivity tends to allocate development aid to the well performing countries, and humanitarian assistance to the crisis countries and trouble spots. However, development aid is more effective than humanitarian assistance in preventing violent conflicts, promoting reconciliation and democratization, and encouraging poverty–reducing development investments by migrant diasporas. The paper is a synthesis of current knowledge of migration–development dynamics, including an assessment of the intended and unintended consequences of development and humanitarian policy interventions. We examine whether recent developments in the sphere of international migration provide evidence of a “crisis”, as well as the connections between migration, globalization, and the changing nature of conflicts. We summarize current thinking on the main issues at stake and examine available evidence on the relations between migration and development. Then the consequent challenges to the aid community, including the current debates about coherence and selectivity in aid and relief are discussed and, finally, we elaborate on the four conclusions of the overview.     

Labour Migration in the Global Division of Labour: Migrant workers in Mauritius1

Workers who temporarily leave their country to perform semi‐ and unskilled work under contract in another country are a distinct category of labour migrants in the global division of labour (GDL). The small island of Mauritius is a relatively new destination for contractual international labour migrants. The Mauritian state is intimately involved in the labour migration system, playing a mediating role in positioning the island within the GDL and trying to optimise the routing of global production chains through Mauritius. The migrants originate mainly in China and India and are overwhelmingly concentrated in the island’s clothing and textile factories where they now comprise one‐fifth of the export processing zone workforce. The migrant space occupied by expatriate workers in Mauritius is tightly circumscribed, with little social interaction between them and Mauritian society. A chronicle of their collective protest between 2002 and 2005 highlights grievances that arise from the conditions they face as migrants. Pointing largely to the failure of industrial relations institutions, and having stirred xenophobic sentiments, these protests represent a catalyst for reform. While the numerical incidence and scale of labour migration to small islands may be small, their significance for GDL analysis and for the politics of migration demands attention.