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In recent decades, the role of digital communication in the lives of migrants in Asia has greatly expanded, becoming integral to the decision to migrate, earning a living, and the practice of keeping in touch with left-behind families and friends. The papers in this Special Issue foreground how gender structures and practices within migrant households and the wider political economy shape migrants' digital communications. They expand the breadth of our thinking about the interlinkages among gender, migration and digital communication from a range of new subject positions including transnational families, international students, and marginalized minorities in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractDespite increasing attention to images in the study of world politics, the role of visual representations in transnational governance processes in general and migration governance, in particular, has received less attention. This paper aims to fill this gap by examining the visual representation of migration governance by the two Canadian government institutions responsible for it: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). Through a multi-modal analysis of their X (formerly Twitter) images, the paper shows how they tend to shy away from a visual representation of people on the move, privileging a technical communication in an aspiration toward a “neutral” representation of migration issues. Secondly, it sheds light on the discrepancies between the policies directed toward Afghani and Ukrainian refugees and the unexpectedly undifferentiated visual communication about the two groups. Finally, the paper explores what the pictures accompanying X (formerly Twitter) posts of IRCC and CBSA can tell about how these government institutions represent themselves. Findings showed that government institutions’ esthetic practices are not always in line with the institutional migration policies and text narratives, suggesting that different government implementation tools (i.e., regulations, practices, textual discourses) may not reinforce each other but advance alternative perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractIn August 2017, over 700,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh to escape the Myanmar Army’s persecution and are now living in camps. Among them, about 200,000 are adolescent girls. This paper examines the impact of forced displacement, gender, age, and camp environment in shaping Rohingya adolescent girls’ realities in camps. It combines intersectional and phenomenological perspectives to understand the girls’ camp-life experiences from their viewpoints. The paper argues that Rohingya adolescent girls’ life in camps offers them a complex set of experiences of loss, unsafeness, uncertainty, and acceptance, representing their deepening vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to and utilization of preventive health services are diversely distributed among immigrants. This paper aims to test the impact of structural, socio-economic, cultural, and contextual factors, and to test whether the acculturation theory holds true for migrants in Italy. Based on the "Social Condition and Integration of Foreign Citizens" survey (2011–2012), this paper shows that utilization of preventive health services among immigrants depends on structural characteristics and highlights the relevance of social interactions between foreigners and natives. Finally, the paper concludes that the acculturation model holds true for immigrants in Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been increasing attention to legal and political contention concerning refugees and asylum seekers in cities. However, there are further opportunities to analyze the relationship between civil society litigation and state institutions in Global South cities. In this paper, I analyze civil society litigation to re-open Refugee Reception Offices (RROs) in South Africa. Primarily based on legal research, I argue that civil society litigation to re-open RROs in specific cities represents an advocacy strategy to contextualize national rights and policies within urban spaces. The paper contributes to broader discussions on civil society advocacy and rights and governance in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refugee youth experience lots of challenges enrolling into, proceeding to, and transitioning from higher education to employment. Research on the youth's transition from higher education to employment is limited and is scattered around several fields. This paper offers a systematic overview of the current knowledge on the important topic pertaining on post-university experiences of refugee youth. The purpose of the literature review is to reveal what is known on the topic, to determine what methodological and theoretical approaches are most commonly used in the literature, to identify possible gaps in the existing knowledge and directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integration refers to socio-economic and cultural incorporation of migrants into a host society, which should adopt measures to encourage their adaptation by taking over its norms and customs. Recently, the 'local turn' has entailed studying migration and integration in cities. In this paper, I engage with the Pakistani middle-class migrants' lives in Dubai. It emerges that they feel integrated in their everyday life by sharing practices and experiences in a multicultural environment. Integration is conceptualized from a bottom-up approach meaning that it moves beyond the state intervention to focus on how people perceive and experience integration in their everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK's 'Australian-style' points-based system (PBS), introduced in 2021, has been promoted by politicians as a strategy to 'take back control' of migration after leaving the European Union. However, the 2021 PBS is just the most recent of several initiatives since 2002 to introduce points into the UK's labor migration policy. Points tests in various forms have been repeatedly introduced, modified, and removed in the UK's immigration system. This paper examines what accounts for the enduring appeal and repeated reinvention of this policy tool. We argue that the main factor driving interest in points-based systems is not what they achieve in practice, but their symbolic value. Points systems have allowed policymakers to signal that labor migration policy is objective, rational, meritocratic and efficient. These objectives appear to outweigh the substantive policy benefits of points-based systems as mechanisms for accumulating human capital or offering flexibility in eligibility criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the contradictions and tensions in the governance of international migration that the pandemic has exposed. It starts by defining the pandemic emergency as a wicked problem. Even though wicked problems usually do not have solutions, we argue that building resilience and sustainability as key features in migration governance can help address this wicked challenge. We look at three types of resilience: situated, structural and systemic and discuss the extent to which they may form the basis of sustainable migration governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National equity policy debates in education are often driven by issues of disadvantage, opportunity, and achievement. However, little is known about how a disadvantaged position mediates people's ability to transform opportunities into valuable achievements. Using African refugees in Australia as an empirical case, and drawing on a mixed method of research, this paper aims to address this knowledge gap. The main sources of data were policy documents, population census reports, and national higher education statistics. The findings highlight limitations with existing higher education equity policies in Australia and the extent to which African refugees have benefited from generic equity programs. In making sense of the data, the paper develops a new conceptual model by innovatively synthesizing the capability approach to social justice and a theory of social reproduction. The model offers an analytical lens to understand the dialectical interplay between objective contexts and subjective conditions that mediate substantive opportunity, conversion ability, and educational choice of the refugee youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractProtracted displacement of refugees and IDPs (internally displaced people) is one of the most critical humanitarian problems today. Legislation often prohibits refugees’ rights to work, move beyond camps, or attain citizenship, while IDPs lack access to security and services. New approaches are urgently needed to overcome barriers to economic integration of displaced people’s livelihoods and enterprise as a stepping-stone to broader social integration. Drawing on refugee, development and informality literatures, this paper proposes a new Displacement Economies Framework, a theoretical and programming tool that helps bridge the humanitarian-development divide and highlight the agency and collective economic contribution of displaced people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The struggle for recognition of undocumented migrants is usually portrayed as a public affair involving the contestation of legal status. We advance a broader conceptualization that demands attention to the more intimate sphere where relational processes of recognition take place in interactions with significant others. Based on 70 in-depth interviews, we identify four recognition strategies adopted by Filipino undocumented migrant domestic workers in the Netherlands: being the breadwinner, taking pride in work, creating a sense of belonging, and being civically engaged. By illustrating the importance of personal recognition, this paper contributes to ongoing debates on recognition and migrant agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses data from interviews with immigrant youth in Ottawa, Canada, to explore early career-development and employment transition experiences of the youth. Framed by the Community-Interaction Theory of Career Development, the study explores the kind of influences and influencers, which shape career decisions and early on-the-job experiences of young immigrants. Thematic analysis of the qualitative data from face-to-face interviews reveals that some of the key influences on immigrants come from parents, siblings, and members of the ethnic community, in particular from teachers and peers from Sunday language schools, which create a unique climate encouraging students to pursue higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the meanings and practices of multiculturalism among young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds in one of Australia's most multicultural cities. It is based on a three-year ethnographic study exploring refugee and migrant youth engaged in sports and arts in the suburbs of Melbourne known as "migrant", "ethnic" and "multicultural" areas. The result of the study indicates that multiculturalism from below can happen differently from the "place making" strategy or "ethnic enclave" idea in which ethnic minorities are viewed as creating their own ethnic colonies in isolation from the mainstream society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written about the prevalence and politicization of public discourses on migration. Less prevalent are analyses of the role of literacy mediators in making texts, and the discourses they invoke, accessible to displaced people. With this in mind, this paper takes a discourse-ethnographic approach to the analysis of discourses of displacement. Literacy mediation in humanitarian settings is explored as a means by which refugees and humanitarian actors negotiate the unequal power dynamics of humanitarian interactions. Findings suggest that the institutional complexities of humanitarian efforts are reduced when mediators translate discourses in their literacy practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates migrant representation patterns according to media political orientation, analyzing the coverage of key-events by liberal/conservative online newspapers of France, Greece, Italy, UK. From our textual and visual analysis, it is possible to recognize slight specificities between liberals and conservatives, but not indicative of a deep change of narratives. In both, we registered a prevalence of the "acceptance frame", an infrequent use of negative tones in texts and aesthetic topic in images, among the "topics of suffering" by Boltanski. Moreover, a domesticity approach limiting the possibility of new narratives of Europe and the rest of the world emerges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a steady inflow of humanitarian migrants to Australia, their socio-economic outcomes remain visibly poorer than those of other migrants and the general population. Therefore, understanding the factors contributing to refugee integration is an important endeavor. In this paper, we focus on refugees' labor-market outcomes and the role of a potentially important macro-level factor: gender inequality in the origin country. To accomplish this, we leverage high-quality longitudinal data from a probability survey (Building a New Life in Australia, n = 9,268) augmented with country-level data from the UNDP. Our results bear implications for gender and migration scholarship, and equity policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sheds light on the cognitive dimension of subnational migration policymaking, showing how policymakers' subjective understandings of migration dynamics can decisively shape the responses of subnational political systems to migration. It also reveals that these responses, in turn, can play a decisive role in the emergence of policymakers' understandings of migration dynamics, suggesting that policymaking processes can themselves produce meaning, constructing migration as a social and political problem. The paper illustrates these conceptual points by investigating the 'heuristic case' of three Italian regions that produced very different responses to the 'refugee crisis', drawing from 71 interviews with subnational policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using qualitative interviews, this paper explores the early housing and neighborhood experiences of Syrian refugee youth in St. Louis. The analysis shows how the respondents and their families ended up in poor quality housing in high poverty neighborhoods which had a profound impact on their sense of safety and interactions with their environments. Families who managed to move to better neighborhoods received support from former refugees or non-refugee volunteers. The findings raise important questions for future research and outline implications for policymakers interested in attracting and maintaining refugees in post-industrial cities like St. Louis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we provide a new approach to defining and operationalizing integration as "making place." We distinguish between making place for – a process of accommodation – and making place with – a process of co-production. We emphasize the potential of making place with as an alternative to top-down definitions of integration, and show this in practice through our research with migrants and migrant-supporting organizations in the Republic of Ireland. We conclude that making place with offers new insights into integration as processual, relational and practice-based, thus enhancing our understanding of migration and migrant experiences across diverse socio-spatial contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper unpacks 20 Vietnamese-Canadians' sentiments of indifference toward or opposition to Canada's resettlement of Syrian refugees. I argue that participants center their understanding of 'refugee' around their diasporic journeys on boats to memorialize their visceral suffering and to position themselves as deserving of entry into Canada atop a hierarchy of legitimacy. In doing so, participants police 'refugee' as an identity category to reassert themselves as refugees and Syrians as migrants, thus constructing Vietnamese refugees' pathways to citizenship as more legitimate. This article highlights how refugees' self-understandings may be relational and evolve as new arrivals hold the same identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper is based on a frame analysis of the media portrayal of Syrian refugees in the three highest circulating Canadian newspapers from 2011 to 2022. From 2011 to 2013 the focus was on the conflict being far away, confusing and complicated but not Canada’s concern. From 2014 to 2016, the conflict became urgent to Canadians and their politicians. From 2017 to 2022, as policy changed to actively soliciting refugees to come to Canada, the focus emphasized the inadequacies of resources available to refugees and bureaucratic snafus. There was little reporting about Syrian refugees as people, but when given a voice they were portrayed as grateful and heroic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper investigates the under-explored question of how migrants in so-called ‘transit countries’ make sense of migration aspirations. Drawing from recent scholarship on migration-related ambivalence, we focus on how people reflect on the past and present of their migration aspirations, employing a migrant-centered approach. Based on semi-structured interviews with refugees in Libya and Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as complementary expert interviews, we find that ambivalence, which (re-)shapes migration aspirations, is a necessary reaction to the structures of uncertainty installed in current European externalization measures beyond EU borders. By adopting a migrant-centered approach and taking into account the multidimensional and processual nature of ambivalence, our research contributes to a better understanding of migrants as self-critical and reflective actors facing the challenges of making decisions in situations of uncertainty; thus, ambivalence is produced in a dialectic interplay between migrants’ agency and the opportunities/limitations of changing structures that surround them which, in turn, informs the interplay between forward and backward migration aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the combined impacts of COVID-19 and sanctions on Afghans in Iran. It draws on semi-structured interviews with Afghans and experts that were analyzed thematically using the human security framework. Findings indicate that Afghans without access to the internet and social media received no detailed and accurate information through national TV and radio. Patients with COVID-19 had difficulty accessing imported medicines, which were not affordable for Afghans with middle and lower economic backgrounds regardless of their immigration status. We argue that sanctions in combination with the COVID-19 pandemic have negatively affected the economic and health conditions of Afghans in Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the understudied situation of legally-resident migrants and their (in)ability to access employment rights that are otherwise available to Indonesians. In our analysis of the relevant institutional architecture and processes, we approach the issue of integration from a regulatory perspective. We used a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to examine how migrants as high-income workers interface with the labor dispute resolution system in Indonesia. Our findings demonstrate the mal-integrated nature of Indonesia's regulatory system in relation to migration and employment and its consequences for migrant workers' ability to lodge grievances and avail themselves of their employment rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The so-called refugee crisis of 2015–2017 has accelerated the diversification of frontline actors involved in the field of migration management. Although this shift has been widely acknowledged, its implications remain unclear. Focusing on the capital cities of Athens and Berlin, this paper examines the views and experiences of individual frontline actors from different organizational sectors. The findings suggest that the intensified inter-organizational collaboration at the street-level leads to the emergence of wider communities of practice, composed of diverse "front-liners". Although the front-liners develop a shared community membership, they simultaneously experience internal conflicts due to enduring sectoral divides and competing institutional logics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of immigrant health workers in OECD nations, and intensified debates about the current and future supply and distribution of such workers, particularly nurses. This review paper considers internationally educated nurses in the case of Ontario, Canada, and the policy responses developed during the pandemic to address the increased utilization of immigrant health workers. To further consider the evolving place of migrant workers within health, the broader issue of the future of health care work is examined to imagine what a sustainable and resilient health workforce agenda that integrates internationally educated nurses might look like. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe US Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM) is the most common survey tool to measure food security status at the national level. No previous studies have sought to establish its content validity for measuring food security among resettled refugees living in the US. This paper explores this dimension of the HFSSM through a qualitative grounded study of food management experiences among resettled refugees in Vermont. Analysis of the data revealed that non-financial barriers restricted participants’ food security, especially for recent arrivals. These findings present potential problems of content validity for HFSSM questions, and reveal the importance of considering food security through financial and non-financial domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a theoretical framework for the analysis of moments of openness toward refugees in the Global North. Four key types of representations and perceptions of the displaced are identified: deservingness, relatedness, perceived proximity, and connectedness to national identity. These representations and perceptions may enter policy-making through top-down and bottom-up mechanisms. This theoretical framework is applied to Germany's response to the 2015–2016 refugee "crisis." Findings highlight the fragility of some representational and perceptional registers, and set the stage for a broader research agenda on the emergence, evolution, and decline of moments of openness toward refugees in the Global North. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration is a complex social process not simply a response to development imbalances, or a solution to problems like unemployment, poverty or population aging. As such migration and mobility are shaped by broader processes of globalization, development, technological transformation, urbanization and in turn contribute to shaping those. This collective paper raises and seeks to answer important research and policy questions about migration and social change in the next 20 years, reflecting on new forms of migration and mobility and their implications for identity, citizenship, and migration governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on ethnographic research on Lodge Lane, the main commercial street within Toxteth (Liverpool), this paper reveals how fundamental ethnic minority enterprises (EMEs) have been to the regeneration of this marginalized area due to public disinvestment. Acting as critical infrastructure, they have transformed the materiality of the locale, and by extension, they have afforded new kinds of encounter and convivialities. Ultimately, EMEs appear to have a critical emplacing and displacing power, which involves urban inhabitants in a differential way over time, depending on their positionality toward the material and discursive aspects of place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I attempt a novel interpretation of Brexit as a 'wicked problem'. Wicked problems are those which are unique and complex, full of internal contradictions, and defy solution, instead only creating other problems. After reviewing the lead-up to the 2016 Brexit referendum, particularly the role of immigration, the core of the paper takes the main criteria for the specification of a wicked problem and applies them to Brexit. Special attention is given to two propositions: that every wicked problem is a symptom of other problems; and that every attempted solution to a wicked problem produces irreversible consequences. Both are seen to apply to Brexit. In the conclusion, I explore 'wicked synergies' between Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration categories are powerful in shaping who migrates, how and with what rights. This paper outlines the who, why, how, where and when of current categorization and its limits. It then suggests four practices that can reshape migration categories: democratizing and decolonizing them by taking these categories beyond the countries of the global North; stretching their spatio-temporal referents; entangling them with other categorisations based on race and gender and how they are practiced so that their theoretical foundations, disciplinary insights and methodologies can be multiplied; and transversing them to see other processes and methods that cut across migrant categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines migration experience and migrant solidarity within a differential migration system. The paper unfolds how Hungarians living in Germany have become involved in refugee support (either in form of voluntary or paid work), and how their engagement relates to their own experience of migration. Concerning applied methods the paper is based on a quantitative online survey and qualitative interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is increased commitment to the participation and self-representation of people with lived experiences as refugees and asylum seekers in advocacy, especially at international, high-level events. However, we know very little about what opportunities and challenges such processes present. This paper reports on findings from a research project on youth participation and self-representation at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in collaboration with two young women and two young men from refugee backgrounds who live in Australia. We contribute new perspectives to contemporary debates on the potential for participation and self-representation in high-level consultations to effect policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refugees face a heightened risk of sexual and gender-based violence during conflict, transit and in countries of refuge. Despite long-term impacts on survivors, scholarship regarding effective responses remains limited. This paper presents a qualitative thematic analysis from in-depth interviews with 22 Australian service providers. Using a socio-ecological intersectional framework it explores the challenges faced in supporting survivors while highlighting features of effective practice. Findings emphasize the need for a holistic and integrated approach, responsive to socio-economic and immigration conditions, the impact of stigma and fear of authorities, service-system funding models, and the need for an appropriately supported culturally diverse workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at understanding inclusive capacity of legal system in Turkey by evaluating dynamics of professional advocacy in administrative detention for Syrian refugees in irregular positions. Our empirical study revealed Turkish judicial system, despite its push toward centralization and professionalization in the name of identification by the European impact, has a serious lack of translation and interpretation facilities, procedural incompleteness as the issue of bureaucracy in overloaded functions, and incompetency in migration-specific jurisdiction. We claim these shortcomings associating with manifestation of discrimination toward Syrians disallow to overcome the exclusionary mechanisms toward irregular migrants, except for some attorneys' professional efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historical continuities of the Zimbabwe–South Africa crossborder migrations provide a context in which such movements have continued, despite securitized borders, in post-apartheid South Africa. Based on a qualitative study of undocumented Zimbabwean migrants in three places; namely, the Beitbridge border, South African border town of Musina and the city of Johannesburg, between December 2014 and March 2015, I argue that, securitizing the border between South Africa and Zimbabwe leads to human smuggling, which places smuggled migrants in liminality and marginality, which in turn militates against the goal of free human mobility in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a small-scale qualitative research project with Iraqis living in Jordan, this paper aims to shed light on how ethnic identity and social class intersect to shape Iraqi experience of displacement. It focuses on two major themes. First, it discusses the relationship between the shifting social and political landscape in Iraq and ethnoreligious identity of Iraqis in Jordan. Second, it explores the ways in which ethnicity and class intersect to affect the dynamics of Iraqis' integration into their host society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractNew Zealanders are currently the largest nationality group of people deported from Australia. When a non-citizen has their visa cancelled on character grounds under Section 501 of the Migration Act (Cth) by a delegate of the Immigration Minister, they have the opportunity to appeal at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT). AAT Members (decision makers) decide the fate of the applicant by weighing up the perceived risk of the individual to community safety against a series of mitigating factors that relate to the life the applicant has established in Australia. As a site of investigation into s501 visa cancellation decision making practice, this paper quantitatively and qualitatively examines a set of AAT visa cancellation decisions from 2015–2018 under Ministerial Direction No. 65, for 97 New Zealander long term residents. It focuses on how AAT decision makers considered and valued mitigating factors in a decision making process that is inherently imbalanced toward constructing non-citizens as a risk. Our analysis reveals that of all mitigating factors considered, evidence of rehabilitation and legal representation at the AAT hearing are associated with reduced perceptions of risk. When comparing two AAT decisions that are matched on all relevant factors but have different decision outcomes, we find that even where mitigating factors for reducing perceptions of risk are present, potential for inconsistencies in AAT decision making remains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper explores the role of calculated informality in the interplay of policies linked to Afghan migration and refuge in Turkey, particularly through the lens of their applicability to this population. Relying on a qualitative case study approach, this research utilizes legal documents, organizational reports, and academic research, supplemented by 44 semi-structured interviews with various key stakeholders in Turkey, including migrant and refugee advocates, donors, INGOs, and civil society organizations. This research finds that policies that are applicable cause informality by failing to be accessible, whether through temporal or spatial restrictions that limit access to economic opportunities, social and community integration, and state services, ultimately illegalizing this demographic. It therefore concludes that the policies and practices that apply to Afghans in Turkey form a strategy of calculated informality by the Turkish state, created through limitations of policy outreach, which maintain their presence due to their economic function as cheap labor yet manage their inflows through security practices including deportation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a comparative assessment of the state of asylum in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Uruguay. It argues that an accelerated weakening of refugee protection, exacerbated during the pandemic, has taken place across the region. Faced with growing mixed flows, the region’s refugee framework has either been used as an ad hoc regularization mechanism or not been broadly used. Also, pandemic mitigation measures have further weakened access to asylum, through militarization and border closures, and a platitude of deterrence practices. These regressive practices may result in the undermining, abandonment and/or replacement of the region’s widely praised refugee governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Global Compact on Migration and International Organizations pay increasing focus to fair migrant labor recruitment. By looking at the temporary migration of Guatemalans to Canada, this paper demonstrates that migrants play a crucial role in managing labor migration. Based on interviews with Guatemalan migrants, recruiters, and Canadian employers, I analyze the dual role of migrants, as both producers and subjects of recruitment practices. I build upon the concept of the migration industry to show how this phenomenon creates a grey zone of migration brokerage at the crossroads of business and social networks, problematizing the global discourse on fair recruitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we argue in favor of expanding the reflexive turn in Migration Studies, which has neglected migratory phenomena in the Global South, to political migration research on Latin America. The existing literature has pointed to exceptional generosity in the region’s immigration legislation, especially regarding refugee protection, migrant regularization, and naturalization. In parallel, policy implementation gaps and restrictive shifts persist in these areas. Departing from our research on these issues over the past 15years, we critically discuss implementation, research gaps, and data accessibility in the abovementioned areas. Focusing on Venezuelan displacement, we further point out critical questions for future research from a reflexive perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction outlines the need for a Special Issue on the topic of the migrant/refugee binary, discusses the contributions of the six papers that make up the issue, and outlines an agenda for future research on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pathway to aging well is not always clear for older migrants living in a foreign country, who must navigate a range of challenges resulting from differences between the cultural expectations of aging in their country of origin and the realities of aging in their country of residence. Transnational migration scholars indicate that digital media are important resources for maintaining relationships and support networks across 'here' and 'there'. They say relatively little, however, about the experiences of maintaining a sense of home, particularly for older migrants. In this paper, we draw on ethnographic interview data with older migrants from Sri Lanka and Burma (Myanmar), who live in Australia, to examine how their practices of 'digital homing' help them to manage the challenges of aging well in a foreign land. Three key findings are proposed. First, older migrants are active and skilled in using digital devices to create spaces of belonging and home. Second, older migrants' access to and uses of digital media are structured by gendered, ethnic and generational roles, expectations and obligations. Third, the practices of digital homing that enhance migrant experiences of aging well tend to simultaneously reinforce and reproduce gendered inequalities within families and communities. We conclude by arguing that it is the very capacity of digital homing practices to reproduce ethnic and generational selves in host societies that simultaneously contributes to the reproduction of unequal gendered obligations and expectations, including in later life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In South Africa there is a conflation between refugees and other migrants at a legislative, policy and narrative level. Based on 32 interviews and four focus groups conducted in Johannesburg and Musina in spring 2020, we show the conflation between refugees and migrants through changing legislation, a bureaucratized system which makes access to any legal status difficult and political narratives that serve to construct a threat. This results in dangerous, sometimes violent consequences for migrant communities themselves. The conflation is however a political non-distinction that is made purposefully in the interest of increasing domestic legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covid-19 is a global health emergency and a systemic human development crisis. Marginalized populations' ability to respond tends to be low and associated impacts can be serious for already vulnerable communities. The virus impacts vulnerable populations unequally. Pandemic containment measures can render vulnerable populations to multiple interacting stressors. In this paper, we report on an investigation into health and social vulnerability of Rohingya refugees in Malaysia. Results suggest that the Rohingya refugees are highly vulnerable. Factors contributing to their vulnerability are Covid-19 response, resilience, susceptibility, basic need conditions, anxiety, social stigma, awareness of Covid-19 prevention and isolation and fear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore the association of the characteristics of abused immigrant women and approval of legal immigrant status. The research is based on 44 month follow-up data of a subsample of 94 abused immigrant women in the U.S. The findings show that there is a significant relationship between acculturation, anxiety, and emotional support and legal immigrant status. The paper concludes that abused immigrant women who apply for legal status are more acculturated, more anxious, and have less emotional support. Implications for front line providers are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In this paper, we explore Colombian secondary students’ views on Venezuelan migration. Despite contradictory feelings on the topic, our findings show the prevalence of (perceived) economic and security threats associated with migrants. Tensions emerged over perceptions that Venezuelan migration has shifted attention from unresolved domestic issues, contributing to nationalist and xenophobic sentiments. Young people also exhibited concerns about xenophobic discourse and showed efforts to resist the harms of mainstream narratives. We suggest that critical openings for curricular inquiry and dialogue in classrooms are needed to engage explicitly with young people’s concerns and to mitigate potential discrimination Venezuelans experience in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]