MIGRATION ONLY

• From origins in Africa 160000 Y/A to spread across different continents; evident in DNA that is different yet similar with e/o

• As a means of survival looking for food

• In history - colonization and survival

• A continuing process from the beginning of time until now

  • Migration of the past

  • Migration of the present - highly institutionalized; rules, organizations, etc. to just move

• Movement of a person or group of persons, either across an international border, or within a State. It is a population movement, encompassing any kind of movement of people, whatever its length, composition, and causes

  • Problem: temporal element of migration, lack of clarity of definition; lack of specific geographical movement

• Change in permanent or semi-permanent residence; something that involves an origin, a destination and intervening obstacles

  • Problem: spatial or geographical movement

• Involves crossing a political or administrative boundary for a certain period of time

  • Problem: not defined 

“broad diversity of migration phenomena;” literature lacks clear spatial definition of minimum distance

• People who are outside the territory of the State of which they are nationals or citizens, are not subject to its legal protection and are in the territory of another State

• Persons who do not enjoy the general legal recognition of rights which is inherent in the granting of the host state of the status of the refugee, naturalized or other similar status

• Persons who do not enjoy either general legal protection of their fundamental rights by virtue of diplomatic agreements, visas or other agreements

  • problem: differing levels of legal protections; ‘legalistic’ conception of migrants

• Descriptive Migrant Types

  • Based on primary reason of migration (environmental, political, demographic, economic, social)

• Temporal Migrant Types

  • According to the period of time they reside in their areas of destination (permanent, temporary, seasonal)

    • Permanent vs semi-permanent: intent

• Spatial Migrant Types

  • Reflect the origin and destination of migrants (rural-urban, internal, international, return)

• According to units of analysis (global, regional, state-level, individual)

  • ex. foreign policy (indiv), waves of migration (global), ASEAN (regional), migration policies (state-level)

• According to theoretical approach (general (phenomenon) > specific; specific > general (consolidation of themes))

• History

  • Temporality of migration, with an emphasis on periodization, focus on short and long-term cycles in migration

• Anthropology

  • Context-specific, focused on particular cases/ individual and group experiences (ethnological approach)

• Geography

  • Focuses on spatial and areal relationships: residential patterns, employment patterns, etc.

• Sociology

  • Focuses on social relations to understand the processes of migration and immigrant incorporation

• Demography

  • Deals with the nature of population change as caused by migration (change/ infusion of culture)

• Economics

  • Deals with macroeconomic and microeconomic drivers of migration

• Politics

  • Role of nation-states in controlling migration, impact of migration on the institutions of sovereignty and citizenship, r/s b/w migration, foreign policy, national security, and its incorporation

• Law

  • Institutions, processes, and rights as key variables for explaining immigration outcomes

• The wealth of approaches used to study migration, to create typologies of migration, & to determine its drives is a reflection of the interdisciplinary character of migration

• Migration is complex and may require differing perspectives to create a holistic understanding of the phenomenon

• Migration is a major part of human history, and trends will show that it will not cease or slow down anytime soon, necessitating a wealth of research on the phenomenon 

Theories explaining migration differ with regard to the thematic focus and levels of analysis.

• Macro structures - Global/ systemic (state movement is upwards)

  • Interstate relations

  • Waves of migration

  • Macroeconomic

• Meso structures (facilitators of migration)

  • Migration networks

  • Migration systems

• Micro structures

  • Individual/ households

  • Personal

  • Beliefs 

See society as a system, which is made up of interdependent parts, which is analogous to the functioning of an organism, which tends towards the creation of an equilibrium. 

• Migration decisions are determined by push & pull factors in the areas of origin & destination, intervening obstacles, and personal factors

• Push pull models identify economic, environmental, demographic, political, and social factors that are assumed to push (repel out) people out of origin countries and pull (attract) them into destination countries

  • Factors that push migrants to destination countries also solve problems in sending countries, creating equilibrium

  • Recent additions: intervening variables

    • Cost of moving 

    • Social networks

    • Political and legal frameworls

    • Personal factors (age, sex, religion, education, married status, wealth, ethnicity, preferences) 

• Assumption that social forces tend towards an equilibrium

• Sees migration as an intrinsic part of the whole development process, by which surplus labor in rural areas supplies the workforce for urban industrial economies.

• Macro Perspective

  • Migration as geographical differences in the supply and demand for labor

  • Migration as a process which optimizes the allocation of production factors 

• Micro Perspective

  • Individuals as rational actors who decide to migrate based on cost-benefit calculation that maximizes their income

• Balanced risk & benefit: equilibrium

2. x: wage difference b/w origin & destination

3. y: risks/ costs of migration

• Migration as an investment that increases productivity of human capital

  1. HC - differences in skills, knowledge abilities that can lead to differences in migration outcomes

     • Certain degree of capital required to migrate

• People decide to migrate if additional lifetime benefits are greater than the costs incurred through migrating

  1. Migration is not caused by absolute poverty but by relative deprivation (needing more)

• P-P models have difficulty explaining return migration & simultaneous occurrence of emigration & immigration

• NC theories & HC approach also assumes that migrants have perfect knowledge of wage levels, employment opportunities, etc., that would allow them to make cost-benefit analyses → not observed in reality bc most migrants are not knowledgeable

• Fails to account for some aspects of human agency that are important factors in decisionmaking abilities

• Rooted in Marxist political economy, emphasizing how social, economic, cultural, and political structures constrain & direct the behaviors of individuals that generally reinforce inequalities

  1. NC: society as a system towards equilibrium vs HS: existing polit-economic structures serve to exacerbate global inequalities (rich become rich and poor are still poor)

• Interprets migration as manifestations of capitalist peneteration & unequal terms of trade b.w developed and underdeveloped countries

  1. Capitalism: maintains levels of development where main source of developing countries maximizes benefits of developed countries → increased profit in DC

• Migration mobilizes cheap labor for capital, w.c serves to increase the progits of industrial countries & depriving origin countries of valuable labor & skills

  1. Limit to how much UDC gain from this arrangement because of our cheap labor

• World economic & political system composed of core countries & periphery countries

• Underdevelopment is caused by advantage of core over periphery

  1. core exploits resources (including labor) of 3rd world peripheries through colonialism or unfair terms of trade

• Focuses on how peripheral regions are incorporated into the  o economy controlled by core capitalist nations

• Incorporation of peripheries into the capitalist economy has led to the penetration of MNCs in peripheries, leading to deprived peasantry → rural-urban migration & urbanization

  1. Semi-periphery: mix of high-tech industrial and agriculture

  2. Can also exploit P because they have industrialized

     • levels of inequality in global system can be mirrored in periphery countries due to MNCs 

• Widening, deepening, & speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life

• Ways globalization influences migration

  1. Migration as a consequence of better transportation & communication technology

  2. Transformed production structures, labor markets, & social inequalities

     • Economic globalization = social inequalities

• International migration is caused by structural demand in advanced economies for highly skilled workers & lower-skilled manual workers to carry out production tasks

• Outsourcing = move production process to areas with cheap labor

• In service sectors & constructions, work processes cannot be outsourced and cannot be met by domestic supply due to higher rates of education in developed economies → preference for white-collar jobs, not blue-collar jobs that are still essential for economy

• Labor market is segmented as result of differences in labor

  1. Primary labor market

     • high-skilled, high-wage occupations

     • selected based on their human capital (skills, knowledge, abilities), membership in the majority ethnic group, male gender, and regular legal status

  2. Secondary labor market

     • low-skilled, low-wage occupations

     • based on their minority status, irregular legal status, lack of education and training

• Rules out human agency by depicting migrants as victims of global capitalism = “victims of circumstance”

• Views that capitalism has uprooted migrants & created inequalities, ignoring the fact that migration itself is caused by inequalities 

• Focuses on primacy of economic considerations in migration, only marginally covering non-economic drivers & aspects

• Perspective of migrant, states, and migrant networks are very marginally covered 

• Migrants have shown their capability to actively and creatively overcome structural constraints

• Explain motivations, perceptions, and how they shape their identity - agency to want to make their lives better

• Unit of analysis: migrant, family/ household

• Main argument: migrant decisions are not made isolated but by context of families/ households → social connections/ considerations

• Reasons/ rationale

  1. Migration as a risk-sharing behavior by F/H to diversify income sources

  2. Strategy to provide resources for investment

  3. Response to relative deprivation rather than absolute poverty

• Unit of analysis: migrant, family/ household

• Main argument: poor cannot be reduced as passive victims of global capitalist forces but exert human agency by trying to actively improve their livelihoods despite difficult conditions

• Reasons

  1. Proactive & deliberate decision to improve livelihoods & reduce fluctuations in rural family incomes (seasonal)

  2. Strategy that households employ to secure their livelihoods 

• Meso-level theories on how migrants can provide feedback to perpetuate migration processes 

• MN: interpersonal ties that connect migrants in origin & destination areas

• Facilitates continued migrations

• Pioneer migrants → social ties w origin/ social capital (network) → increase in migrants in destination country

• Focus on interpersonal connections = reduce social risk 

• MS: linkages of migrants, families, & communities over space

• Intrinsically linked to other forms of exchange, flow of goods, ideas, & money = changes initial conditions under wc migration takes place in origin countries = social remittances

• Pre-existing link b/w origin & destination > migration > social remittances (flow of new ideas, new lifestyles, identities) > increase in migrants in destination country

• Creation of ‘migrant industry’ within system - other institutions that are not necessarily composed of ‘migrants’

  1. Recruitment agencies, remittance agencies 

• Cannot explain why most initial migration by pioneers does not always led to the formation of migration networks & systems

• Cannot explain the weakening of migration systems over time

• Depends on levels of development whether they send or receive migrants

• Unit of analysis: state

• Conceptualize how migration patterns tend to change over the course of the development process of a state

• Argues that further development does not necessarily lead to increased migration.

  1. Early transitions (high pop, decline in rural employment = higher rates of emigration) > late (pop decline, rising wages = decreased emigration, increased immigration) > advanced societies (low population growth, older pop, increased mobility w/in country, more urban spaces = increased immigration) 

• Core (high im, low em) > expanding core > labor frontier (high emi, low im) / resource niche (weak migration flows)

• Less capable of explaining why individuals would actually migrate more w/ increasing development

• Income growth, improved education and access to information can increase awareness on lifestyles and opportunities elsewhere, which increase aspirations to migrate 

• Migration is an intrinsic part of development

• Internal dynamics based on social networks & feedback mechanisms

• Acknowledgement of a migrant's agency should not obscure the real constraints that migrants face. Some migrants are eager to help other migrants, but some migrants do not welcome more migrants.

• Strongly-patterned process along a select number of specific spatial pathways as a result of networks & other migration system dynamics