How does border enforcement affect the mobility of migrants and refugees in countries of transit? What impact does it have on migrants' bodily experiences of mobility and their reliance on actors of the migration industry? While the externalization of borders affects undocumented people by increasing their vulnerability to violence during transit, the impact of the migration regime on the social construction of inequalities in every-day interactions and its relationship to the capacity for mobility has not been studied in depth. This article intends to bridge this gap: based on ethnographic fieldwork I conducted between 2013 and 2019, this article analyzes the relation between immigration enforcement and the mobility strategies of migrants and refugees, particularly women. It focuses on the intertwining of border enforcement and violence and their impact on people's bodily mobility experiences in transit through Mexico along intersecting lines of inequality such as race, class, gender and nationality. First, I analyze how border enforcement contributes to internal bordering, thereby increasing the vulnerability and dependence of migrants on brokers for mobility; second, it looks at the bodily experiences of women in transit and the ways in which internal bordering shapes gendered power hierarchies among actors in the field of mobility. The analysis shows how women negotiate mobility and bodily integrity in social interactions with different actors and how they face constraints resulting from the gendered hierarchies to mobility on routes of transit. Furthermore, it demonstrates how women's bodies have become a privileged site for the construction of a 'body politic' exploitable by others, since border enforcement has contributed to weakening the possibilities of negotiating mobility and bodily integrity in transit.
Migration has been identified as a priority area for policy responses by both the federal and provincial/territorial governments yet, much of our knowledge about migration is not premised on addressing current xenophobic and racist narratives about migrants. The purpose of this research is an interrogation of Canada's colonialism, imperialism, and racialization, which produce specific oppressive policies and practices that have impacted my family. This research is premised on the understanding that in the space between what is known about migration in Canada and what is not, a great deal of narrative and interpretive work is done that makes assumptions about migrants, specifically forcibly displaced people from the Global South. Through a critical autoethnography focused on my lived experiences as a descendant of forcibly displaced Chinese-Vietnamese people living in a settler colonial nation state, this study critiques to what extent these assumptions are founded, and to what extent they represent a socio-political climate in which migration is set out as particular problems requiring a legal and policing solution. In particular, my analysis centers anti-colonialism and anti-racism, shifting to resistance to systemic violence and liberation, while considering the discursive and on-the-ground effects of racist, colonial, and imperial policies and practice. Set against the backdrop of the rise of white nationalism, xenophobia, and racism across all levels of government and academia, and the general public, the results of this study produce a counter-narrative focused on the intersection of forced displacement and race in a settler colonial context, which is both timely and urgent.
The aim of this article is to diagnose aid attitudes among those who potentially need help—help receivers, i. e., Ukrainian refugees—and help givers, i.e., Poles and Ukrainian labor migrants, during the initial stage of the escalation of the Russian war in 2022. By aid attitudes, we mean approaches to both the offering and the acceptance of help during the war in the short and long term. We conducted a small-scale exploratory web survey (Computer-Assisted Web Interview—computer-assisted interview using a website) from March to June 2022, in which the main aims were to explore the needs and offers for both, short- and long-term aid and the gaps between them. Respondents were asked about different types of aid without indicating from whom they wanted to receive this help: the state, NGOs or individuals offering their help. The survey results show discrepancies in what migrants need and what is offered to them in Poland, both from the short and long-term perspectives.
Through the “hostile environment” migration policy, the UK government has expressed its commitment to do whatever possible to deter and expel unwanted migrants. Faced with the loss of power in the context of globalization, the Conservative administration, elected in 2010, presented itself as a guarantor of citizens' security. The political discourse of “taking back control” of the nation's borders has resulted in increasingly restrictive immigration and asylum policies. In this paper, we present narratives of Afghans who arrived in the UK at different times and through different routes. As well as those evacuated from Kabul airport in 2021, we also interviewed participants who traveled via insecure routes over land and sea often taking months, or even years, and involving expensive people smugglers. While the evacuation from Kabul was a very public and highly reported event, often with celebratory tones in the international media as Western governments sought to “rescue” Afghan allies, those Afghans who travel to the UK via illegal routes are often stigmatized; demonized in press and political discourses. Building on the emerging body of literature that uses “journey as a narrative device” and drawing upon our novel dataset, we analyze how diverse migrants tell their stories and present agency, within contexts of extreme hazards, to achieve their imagined future. Moreover, applying a spatio-temporal lens we advance understanding of the intersection of place and time in how Afghans traveling to the UK, including recent evacuees, are framed differently with resultant consequences for how border crossings are negotiated and narrated. In so doing, we complicate simplistic categories of deserving vs. undeserving, genuine vs. fraudulent, evacuees vs. irregularised migrants.
Society in the 21st century has experienced a variety of crises, from the fiscal crisis and the migration crisis to the pandemic and the inflation crisis. This paper aims to explore societal dangers of migrant crises narratives. This paper forms part of the Horizon 2020 MIMY research projects with an expert stakeholder Delphi study from seven European countries: Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, Luxembourg, Sweden and the UK. It takes also into account contextual international and national public opinion surveys. We formulated a number of societal dangers related to the migrant crisis narrative, which are not sharp and exclusive but invite further consideration: (1) Societal fatigue, which relates to a rapid change in societal moods, usually from a positive to a negative attitude toward migrants, but above all this danger is connected with an aid burnout in a civil society; (2) Othering, which includes normativity, the labeling of migrants, double or multiple standards in the treatment of migrants and refugees from various origins; the societal danger of othering contributes to societal divisions, polarizations, tensions and conflicts based on ethnicity, religion, race and gender; (3) Political functionality, whereby migration as a political construct serves as a “whipping boy” for politicians to divert public opinion from recurrent problems; it also involves the creation of piecemeal, reactionary, ad hoc public policies, and the overuse of a protocol of a state of emergency in order to bring about a centralization of political power.
Introduction: This study sought to ascertain the macro governing policies and factors that influence the integration of female accompanying spouses in the Free State, into the South African labor market.
Methods: Utilizing a qualitative approach, thirteen one-on-one interviews, consisting of an initial purposive sample and a subsequent snowball sample, were conducted for data gathering. The study employed thematic analysis to interpret the data.
Results: The findings revealed that governing policies emerging from South Africa's migration legislation, and factors such as spouse dependence, reinforcement of traditional gender roles, and restrictive employment legislation which forced deskilling of qualifications, mainly impacted the conduct of accompanying spouses concerning the labor market.
Discussion: This study contributes to the literature on labor market integration (LMI) from an underexplored South-to-South standpoint by delving into the experiences of skilled female migrants in the family migration setting. A neglected facet of Michel Foucault's governmentality theory was used to investigate the labor market assimilation needs of female accompanying spouses. The study's qualitative approach renders the findings much less generalizable than a quantitative inquiry. It is important to note that LMI research is considerably setting-specific, despite some aspects of this study being applicable to other settings in the Global South. South Africa continues to be a pivotal regional hub for migration in the Global South, yet it has a complex migration governance framework that sets up a specific, while broadly exclusionary, macro context for accompanying spouses. This study zones in on issues that could inform more effective family migration policy.