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This article uses the lens of state control over mobilities of residents both migrants and citizens to move away from assumptions that position them as competitors for the privileges of membership. I begin by critiquing the migrant/citizen binary, claiming that it promotes as actuality Fantasy Citizenship of equality and accessible rights when the reality is one of banal citizenship. This Fantasy citizen is a Worker Citizen. However, the substance of the 'right to work' is the right to the welfare safety net and the banal citizen finds access to this safety net restricted by the 'duty to work'. Taking the example of the UK and specifically, England, I examine how citizens' mobility is restricted and controlled, firstly by social housing allocation policies which effectively turns citizens into 'migrants' via worker citizenship, and secondly through the restrictions of COVID-19 including its racialised policing. In this way, I suggest closer attention to state restrictions on the mobilities of citizens can help draw out connections in practice between the citizen and the migrant, connections that are obscured by Fantasy Citizenship and the migrant citizen binary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how wealthy countries' reliance on migrant workers is not restricted to migrants working within their borders but extends, through global supply chains, to migrants employed in lower-income countries. It provides an exploratory discussion of how migration, labour, and trade systems interact to argue for the expansion of research on dependence on migrant labour – a 'widening of the lens' – beyond national systems effects. Using the COVID-19 pandemic and associated concern with the provision of essential goods and services, we consider how the employment of migrants in global supply chains, and by extension societal resilience of higher-income countries, is shaped by trade policies and agreements regulating flows of essential products across countries; labour markets and conditions in low- and middle-income countries producing essential products for export; and migration systems between and within low- and middle-income countries. Thus, we tentatively explore how national systems and institutions interlock with those of other states, and also with transnational and international institutions. We illustrate our arguments with a case study of the Malaysian production and export of rubber gloves, an essential good during the COVID-19 pandemic that is heavily dependent on migrant labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kazakhstan, a country with relatively strong economic growth, significant natural resources and low population density, shares borders with countries of low economic growth, high poverty and unemployment. The lack of a coherent strategy for labour migration and a large informal sector have contributed towards a situation where large numbers of low-skilled migrants are working in breach of Kazakhstan's minimum labour standards. There is also evidence of significant incidences of unfree-or forced-labour. This paper considers the living and working conditions of Central Asian migrants in Kazakhstan and the applicability of the trafficking framework to their situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reproductive labour is increasingly globalised. The United Workers' Association (UWA), a migrant domestic workers' group based in London that has successfully campaigned for changes in immigration rules, is taken as a case study of transnationalism from below. Members link with their countries of origin through remittances and communications with family, and use the organisation to meet up with women from the same region and/or state. However, what is particular about this group is that gender, a common immigration status, and shared employment experiences have provided a basis for members to organise despite national, ethnic and religious differences. Their struggle for visas has met with opposition both by the receiving state and by their states of origin. For most, however, the struggle has been ultimately successful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]