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In the name of women's protection, Dutch immigration authorities police cross-border marriages differentiating between acceptable and non-acceptable forms of marriage (e.g. 'forced', 'sham', 'arranged'). The categorisation of marriages between 'sham' and 'genuine' derives from the assumption that interest and love are and should be unconnected. Nevertheless, love and interest are closely entwined and their consideration as separate is not only misleading but affects the exchanges that take place within marriage and, therefore, has particular implications for spouses, especially for women. The ethnographic analysis of marriages between unauthorised African male migrants and (non-Dutch) EU female citizens, often suspected by immigration authorities of being 'sham', demonstrate the complex articulation of love and interest and the consequences of neglecting this entanglement – both for the spouses and scholars. The cases show that romantic love is not a panacea for unequal gender relations and may place women in a disadvantaged position – all the more so because the norms of love are gendered and construe self-sacrifice as more fundamental in women's manifestations of love than that of men's. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My essay illuminates the plights of those who live on the southern shore of the Mediterranean under the antagonistic forces of globalisation, according to which the free movement of capital between Europe and North Africa is matched by a criminalisation of immigrants from the southern bank. My analysis of the discrepancy between the borderless economics and the bordered movement of people explores the representation of clandestine immigration in Fawzi Mellah's Clandestin en Méditerranée/Clandestine in the Mediterranean (2000), which depicts illicit passages from North Africa to Europe. Criticising European democracies' containment of the heralded dynamism of the global age and their diffusion of a discourse feeding fear about migrants, I show that globalisation has turned into a 'globalization of punitiveness' [Barker, Vanessa. 2012. 'Global Mobility and Penal Order: Criminalizing Migration, A View from Europe.' Sociology Compass 6 (2): 113–121]. My exploration of the migrants featured in the text demonstrates that globalisation's failure to achieve the spatial decentralisation ideal on which it has based its flat-planet premise makes undocumented immigration the last resort of those to whom the Schengen Area closes its borders. My spatial analysis of the paperless migratory enterprise reads the irregular crossing as an attempt to construct defiant identities that resist the global structure of domination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) are used in manufacturing food contact materials, including non-stick cookware coatings and oil- and moisture-resistant paper coatings. The chemical stability of PFCs poses an issue for human safety, as they do not degrade well naturally and hence may accumulate in the body. In terms of food safety, since dietary intake is thought to be a major source of exposure to PFCs, it is necessary to assess the migration of PFCs from food packaging articles to food under typical cooking and storage conditions. An analytical method was developed for assessing the migration of 16 PFCs from food contact materials to food simulants using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The applicability of the method for regular inspection was assessed by monitoring 312 samples. Based on the results of the exposure assessment, all food contact materials deemed to be safe for use, which evaluated migrated concentrations and dietary food intake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In my responses to Kahn and Ceccoli (this issue), I express admiration for the aesthetics of their formulations of the experience of immigration and that of the dance, respectively. I describe the impact of Kahn's understanding of the effect of immigration on my experience of dancing. I also elaborate on Ceccoli's account of implicit, non-verbal dimensions of our analytic encounters, and of the reparative impact of recognition with two clinical vignettes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary is a response to Veronica Csillag’s exploration of the influence of historical and transgenerational trauma on the lives of immigrants, and on the psychoanalytic process (this issue). Dr. Csillag’s paper deepens our understanding of the intrapsychic life of immigrants who have suffered collective trauma pre-migration and continue to suffer from “ghosts” from the past. Her ideas are critical to examining not only the specific traumas incurred in Europe related to the Nazi Holocaust and totalitarian and socialist regimes but also to contemporary traumas related to social identity and position in the United States. In this commentary, I elaborate three primary areas within Dr. Csillag’s contribution: (a) the illusion of choice in traumatic migration, (b) secrecy and privacy, and (c) experience of the outsider and the insider. My discussion underscores the importance of engaging with historical and ongoing trauma in psychoanalytic psychotherapy as a path to healing within individual and collective dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this introduction, the highlights of three papers addressing the questions of immigration, traumatic migration and exile are presented. The papers give clinical details of the work with persons inflight from dangerous and potentially fatal homeland situations, offer theoretical guidelines to thinking about the different implications of trauma upon refugees and migrating persons and families and also consider the particular demands on migration and exile in communities and families within the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, artificial intelligence (AI) has become omnipresent in migration control and mobility surveillance, with AI systems now deployed across all aspects of migration management. Critics of such trends typically examine questions of ethics and rights from the vantage point of regulatory mechanisms and the limited venues for the redress of grievances. But if legal frameworks are as of yet forthcoming and do not necessarily apply to migrants, are there alternative mechanisms to critique algorithmic decision making? To explore this and related questions, this paper engages one such alternative by taking a 'visual turn.' In asking 'what can AI see' the paper interrogates the role of images in constructing AI's capacity to both understand migration and make appropriate decisions about migrants. In addition, a visual turn allows for exploration of an emergent age of post-visualization: a phenomenon whereby the values and meanings of what we see will be increasingly imparted to us by AI systems. The paper examines what AI sees with the help of an experiment, prompting an AI generative platform to draw distinctions between migrants, refugees, and people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the position of migration in population studies, focusing on the period 1996–2021. It considers the reasons why migration remains problematic for demographers, but also how approaches to migration have changed over the last 25 years. While it has arguably become more important to both demography and population studies because of the transition to low fertility and mortality, migration has metamorphosed into a complex field in its own right, almost independently from changes in demography. Both internal and international migration form the subject of this examination and four main themes are pursued: data and measurement; theories and approaches; migration and development; and migration and political demography. The papers published in the journal Population Studies are used to provide a mirror through which to view these changes over the last 25 years. This paper concludes by looking at likely future directions in migration studies, demography, and population studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While all anthropological experts take pride when their evidence plays a vital role in securing protection for an asylum applicant, we also acutely remember the cases in which our research and reports were rejected, particularly when our reports appear to be unfairly rejected. In this paper, I discuss two cases in which the British Home Office argued that an asylum applicant was not entitled to protection because he participated in war crimes/crimes against humanity. However, the evidence provided by War Crimes Unit in the United Kingdom's Home Office took the form of assertions based on a very poor understanding of Ethiopian politics and limited research. In the first case, the Immigration Judge accepted the evidence submitted by the Home Office and refused the applicants claim for asylum, but on appeal the Home Office withdrew the case against the applicant. In the second case, the Immigration Judge adopted some of my evidence for the applicant but denied his claim. This paper explores the pitfalls of litigation and the ability of the state to tilt the scales of justice against asylum claimants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores experiences of temporary labor migration that entailed Yugoslav export of know-how (highly skilled knowledge and expertise) between 1980 and 1991, a result of industrial collaboration between Mining and Smelting Combine Bor, a state-owned copper-processing 'giant' in former Yugoslavia, and the biggest copper company in Iran, National Iranian Copper Industries Company. Based on interviews with individuals engaged in the Yugoslav project, supplemented by analysis of documents and historic newspapers from that period, the paper analyzes everyday practices of managerial bureaucratic improvisations and improvisations at work. The article shows how such improvisations helped overcome excessive and rigid Yugoslav socialist bureaucracy and made Yugoslav entrepreneurial capitalist ventures possible. Moreover, it argues that the export of know-how was constitutive of silent acceptances of reproduction of capitalist relations, which helped consolidate the process of liberalization of the socialist market in the late 1980s. We argue that such temporary labor migration and the often improvised work carried out by the Yugoslav workers cannot be seen as a resistance or alternative to the Western/Northern hegemonies. Rather, we argue that such practices were facilitators of the capitalist ventures at semi-peripheries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twelve qualitative case studies in German and Canadian hospitals and IT companies were used in this mixed-methods study analysing the labour market outcomes of immigrants. The reported case studies investigate the immigrants' recognition, integration process and the usability of foreign qualifications, skills and work experiences in the labour market. Furthermore, the strategies and rationales of employers and employees within the recruiting process are analysed. Here, the focus lies on the transferability and obstacles of cultural and social capital across country borders as well as the relevant framework conditions. This paper refers to Bourdieu's approach towards different types of capital as well as the rational choice theory. The results demonstrate that immigrants in both countries face more obstacles accessing the labour market within the health sector than within the IT sector. The context of the recruiting situation strongly affects the strategies and behaviour of the employers or the recruiters. Within these sector- and country-specific confines, individual factors determine the immigrants' labour market success. Furthermore, the sector and the country affect the relevance of each individual factor in the recruiting process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The project of progressive securitisation of the Polish – Russian borderland is implemented with huge support from local communities. Inhabitants of the Polish border area support all possible tools intended for the protection of the Polish – Russian border. The results also show that the war in Ukraine and potential threats of migration from the Kaliningrad Oblast change the social optics with regard to the border with Russia. The present paper seeks to investigate how the local communities of Polish border zone with Russia perceive the activities conducted in order to reinforce the defensive function of the Polish – Russian border. For this purpose, a survey was carried out among inhabitants of the Polish border area with Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the process of co-producing an animated film about the migration journeys of Colombian women resident in Antofagasta, Chile. It first establishes the relationship between feminist epistemologies and arts-based methodologies, which hinges on embodiment. It then turns to a detailed discussion of using film co-production as a research method for accessing and expressing embodied experiences of migration. This discussion highlights how moments of discomfort (Gokariksel, Hawkins, Neubert, and Smith, 2021) experienced by the researcher motivated the search for a more collaborative methodological approach that was better attuned to lived experience. This included striving towards more inclusive practices with respect to recruitment, anonymity, and confidentiality. Moments of discomfort also revealed how care and caring responsibilities are entangled with research, and how they gender possibilities of participation and production for community co-producers and artists, as well as for researchers. Finally, through discomfort, lessons were learned about the politics of representing experiences of migration, violence, and endurance, as well as joy. The paper concludes that, whilst by no means a panacea, collaborative arts-based research methods can offer an innovative toolset for exploring embodied experience and for navigating the relational and representational complexities attendant to research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experiences in the post-partition Indian subcontinent refute the conventional expectation that the ‘possession of citizenship enables the acquisition of documents certifying it’ [Jayal 2013. Citizenship and Its Discontents: An Indian History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 71]. Instead, identity papers of various types play a vital part in certifying and authenticating claims to citizenship. This is particularly important in a context where the history of state formation, continuous migration flows and the rise of right-wing majoritarian politics has created an uncertain situation for individuals deemed to be on the ‘margins’ of the state. The papers that constitute this special issue bring together a range of disciplinary perspectives in order to investigate the history, politics and materiality of identity documents, and to dismantle citizenship as an absolute and fixed notion, seeking instead to theorise the very mutable ‘hierarchies’ and ‘degrees’ of citizenship. Collectively they offer a valuable lens onto how migrants, refugees and socio-economically marginal individuals negotiate their relationship with the state, both within South Asia and in South Asian diaspora communities. This introduction examines the wider context of the complex intersections between state-issued identity documents and the nature of citizenship and draws out cross-cutting themes across the papers in this collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The federal system has long been seen as one of the biggest obstacles to the digital transformation of the German state. With the enactment of the Online Access Act (OZG), a law that obliges all federal levels to offer their administrative services digitally in a joint portal network by the end of 2022, a new arena for multilevel collaboration has developed in Germany; the so-called digitalisation labs. The labs are intended to bring together representatives of all federal levels, external actors and citizens to promote problem-oriented policy design and the development of innovative policy solutions. Following a neo-institutionalist perspective and using the analytical concepts of multilevel governance and problem-solving, this paper investigates how the institutional settings, internal dynamics and actors' composition influence policy design processes in the labs. The empirical analysis is built on a qualitative case study of two digitalisation labs in the policy field 'Immigration and Emigration', and based on ten expert interviews as well as an extensive document analysis. The paper concludes that, by promoting problem-solving, the institutional settings as well as the organisational design and actors' constellations have influenced the policy design process in several ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyse the impact of immigrant preference status on tourism for a global sample from 1990 to 2019, every 5 years. We construct an international migration preference network and calculate some corresponding structural parameters. Then, the paper compares the impact of ordinary immigration relations and important immigration relations on tourism. We obtain the following results: (1) Countries are exchanging increasingly closely through migration, and the immigrant preference network extracts the backbone structure of the network. (2) In the migration network, when a country has more immigration and emigration, it will promote the development of its inbound tourism. (3) In the migration preference network, in addition to the impact of the number of immigrants on tourism, we find that countries with stronger immigration controls are more likely to attract tourists, as are countries in a tight immigrant community. As a result, we find important immigration relationship can reveal some problems generally immigrants can't reflect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do American men's attitudes about masculinity differ across intersections of race/ethnicity, immigration status, and education? This paper uses the NSFG 2011-2019, a large survey (n = 17,944) representative of American men aged 15-44. It analyzes white men; Black men; non-immigrant Latinos; and immigrant Latinos, with each broken down by less than a bachelor's; a bachelor's degree; or an advanced degree, for a total of 12 intersections. Most differences between men of different races/ethnicities/immigration statuses were between men with less than a bachelor's. Several groups were more conservative on some attitudes but not others. For instance, among men with less than a bachelor's, white men were more conservative than Black men regarding an attitude about going to the doctor, but less conservative than Black men on attitudes about showing pain or men's sexual needs. Additionally, the attitudinal differences that emerged were distinct for different levels of education. Among men with less than a bachelor's, most significant differences emerged regarding the attitudes about going to the doctor and men's sexual needs. In contrast, among men with a bachelor's, most differences emerged regarding the attitude about showing pain. Among men with the same racial/ethnic identity and immigration status, men with lower levels of education were more likely to endorse conservative attitudes about masculinity. All three intersections are meaningfully related to attitudes about masculinity, and future research about masculinity attitudes should not analyze social identities/statuses separately but rather as they intersect with one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the imaginary about migrant kin destinations and the lives of the family members left behind. It reflects on the mechanisms of connection to places the subject has never been that knows through stories told by people whom themselves have never been but have experienced separation and loss as remaining behind in a family characterized by a history of emigration. Through self-reflexive auto-ethnography, this article focuses on the development of virtual ties to imagined places through the establishment of emotional geographies in the second generation left behind. The paper engages with the theorization of two stages in the lives of those who remain in the homeland: (In)-decision to stay, (Re)-solution to stay, which can result in Hesitation about staying in second generation left behind and eventually can lead to an Exit-action. Applying the concept of 'familial habitus', it demonstrates how in belonging to a family affected by displacement, stories about distant kin operate as living entities that form bonds with people, places, events with which the subject is unfamiliar. The social remittances provided through visits back can enhance the left behind exitus and emancipation opening for a potential liminoid experience of break with the limitations of patriarchal culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this paper is to shed light on the link between 'onward migration' and 'onward precarity' as an experience of continuous precariousness by paying attention to crisis/post-crisis contexts and how these contexts have led to precarity becoming structurally embedded in migrant labour markets in Europe. Onward migration studies have centrally focused on crisis contexts, but very little attention has been paid to post-crisis contexts. Thus, this article contributes to complementing the previous research on onward migration and onward precarity. The paper follows a qualitative and multi-sited approach based on in-depth interviews and discussion groups with Latin American migrants living in Madrid, Lisbon, and London. Our empirical analysis elucidates that labour mobility and onward migration are embedded in intersectional dynamics of exclusion which entail a continuous experience of multifaceted precarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This symposium brings into conversation normative political theory on migration and critical border/migration studies, with a particular focus on digital border control technology. Normative theorists have long been concerned with questions about the extent and nature of control over migration that the state should exercise, and the balance of rights and duties between states and migrants. To date, however, there has been little reflection among such theorists on digital border control technology. Critical border/migration studies scholars, on the other hand, have paid considerable attention to the rapid development of digital technology in the border control/mobility management space, and revealed a range of problems with the technology itself and the ways it is deployed. What has thus far been lacking, however, is sustained ethical reflection on what should be done about the use of this technology. The papers in this symposium thus seek to bring these two groups of scholars together and to prompt what we hope will be a sustained conversation on these rapidly evolving and deeply problematic practices. This introduction contextualises the issue at the heart of this symposium – the rapid expansion of digital border controls and the ethical challenges that these pose – and offers brief summaries of the contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the effects of migration-induced male absence on the upbringing of children in selected communities of Zimbabwe. We argue that migration scholarship places more emphasis on the economic benefits of migration such as remittances and imported innovation, but is largely silent on the emotional hardships it causes for the family, especially the children who are left behind. We locate this work in the context of Zimbabwe where men from Matabeleland and the Midlands provinces have traditionally migrated to South Africa in search of employment in the gold mines and agricultural farms. We use the case of Tsholotsho district in Matabeleland North, Zimbabwe to explore the impact that the physical absence of fathers had in the socialization of children. Taking a historical narrative angle, the paper uses family histories gathered in Zimbabwe and South Africa over a 12-month period to explore the lived realities of families with migrant fathers. We use data from in-depth interviews with the affected children, the absentee fathers and the women who stayed behind to take care of the children. We observe that there are many children who grew up without their fathers and other male figures because of historical labour migration to South Africa. We conceive the migration-induced absence of fathers and other male relatives as the "missing masculinities", although we are cognisant that masculinities and masculine roles are not entirely constituted by the presence of men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the engagement of non-state actors (NSAs) in regional migration policy processes in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). It identifies four categories of NSAs – non-governmental organisations (NGOs), civil society organisations (CSOs), academia and the media – as the key actors engaged in regional migration governance processes in West Africa. The paper adopts a social constructivist approach and a multilevel perspective, drawing on interviews, surveys and an extensive analysis of ECOWAS policy documents. The paper argues that invented, invited and instrumentalised spaces for engagement between state and non-state actors in ECOWAS manifest in a complex web of regional and national interests contributing to regional migration governance from 'below'. Regional migration governance from below consists of transnational societal networks characterised by the interactions of NSAs across borders to influence policies and practices at the regional level. The analysis reveals that NSA engagement results in reinforcing regional policies, policy diffusion through regional processes and circumventing restrictive national agendas through adopting innovative regional approaches. These results contribute to strengthening the institutional framework for regional migration governance in West Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses race, racialisation and whiteness in relation to Eastern European migrants living in Western Europe. Focusing on Poles in the UK, it examines both Polish migrants' experiences of racism as well as their own investment into racial exclusions of other racialised groups. The paper interrogates how migrants navigate their peripheral whiteness in broader racial hierarchies of Eastern European in-betweenness that are both historically rooted and constantly negotiated. Benefitting from relatively easy access to the UK, Polish migrants occupy at once a racially privileged and racially marginal position that echoes historical tensions around the place of Eastern Europe in wider racial hierarchies of Europeanness. While being white enough to engage in racial exclusions Eastern Europeans are at the same time not white enough to escape racialisation. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with Poles in the UK conducted between 2019–2020 the paper offers insight into complex racialising practices of Polish migrants when they are both racialised and able to benefit from their position as 'paler migrants' to distance themselves from other migrants as well as 'darker citizens'. It contributes to scholarship on racialisation of East–West movers within Europe, in-betweenness and whiteness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines how senior figures in the UK Labour Party and wider labour movement discussed the topic of immigration in the immediate aftermath of the UK's vote to leave the European Union in 2016. Influenced by the Discourse Historical Approach, the paper is based on an analysis of 86 public interventions by Labour figures, over a 6-month period, delivered in speeches, articles and essays. The paper examines argumentative strategies adopted by Labour figures – including Members of Parliament, advisors and trade union leaders – who called for stronger immigration controls from an avowedly 'left-wing' perspective. Foregrounding their commitment to progressive politics, Labour politicians argued that restricting the number of migrants entering Britain was democratic, anti-racist and an expression of the Labour Party's commitment to the interests of working-class people. Nevertheless, it is the contention of this paper that the Labour Party's rhetoric tapped into right-wing populist discourses which constructed immigration as a threat to the racialised privileges of a 'white' working class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pope Francis has made the protection of our common home a central theme of his Papacy. This may be nowhere more important than in Africa, a continent that is already today highly vulnerable to climate shocks due in part to high levels of water stress in many countries, food insecurity, and forced displacement, among others. In this paper, we use household surveys from West African countries to explore the impact of covariate shocks (most of which are weather-related) and international migration as a potential response to shocks on educational outcomes for children of primary school age. The results suggest that shocks affect educational outcomes substantially, but that international migration may generate benefits for children of migrants. The paper also briefly discusses policy prescriptions on how to tackle climate change, arguing that education to sustainable development should be a priority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the 2020 regularisation of irregular migrant workers in Italy as a case study, the paper inquires about the role of Civil Society Actors (hereafter CSAs) in (de/re)bordering processes. Conceptualising borders as filters that draw distinctions through the sociocultural, legal and administrative constructs of deservingness entailed by immigration policymaking, the paper shows that, when implementing the regularisation programme, CSAs reproduce governmental distinctions between deserving and undeserving migrant workers and employers. However, CSAs can also find ways to challenge or circumvent internal borders, broadening the range of legitimate potential applicants through more or less visible and confrontational struggles, bending or even breaking the rules. In doing so, they redefine internal borders through alternative definitions of migrants' deservingness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This paper aimed to review and synthesise the qualitative research evidence on the experiences and perceptions of dementia in Vietnam and among the Vietnamese diaspora. Methods: Systematic searches were conducted in June 2019 using Medline, Embase, Emcare, PsycINFO and Cochrane electronic databases, as well as grey literature. Keywords and Medical Subject Headings [MeSH terms] for dementia and associated terms were combined with keywords for Vietnam and its provinces. Qualitative research articles published in English or Vietnamese were included to examine evidence on the life experiences of Vietnamese people with dementia using thematic analysis. Results: Our searches resulted in 3,940 papers, from which 21 qualitative research studies were included for final analysis. The majority of research has not been undertaken in Vietnam but with the Vietnamese diaspora in Western countries and has taken a cultural perspective to analyses. Research in Western countries has focused on the need for culturally adapted and culturally sensitive models of care. Emerging themes about the life experiences of Vietnamese people with dementia identified from the studies included: many people do not have diagnostic terms for dementia but use the descriptive language of symptoms; stigma was a reported problem and on occasions can be observed in the descriptive language used for people with dementia; cultural and traditional values create both an opportunity and a barrier, supporting compassion, family care and relaxation, but creating barriers to accessing health services or long-term residential care. Conclusions: This is the first systematic review reporting qualitative evidence on the life experiences of people with dementia in Vietnam and among the Vietnamese diaspora. Future research is needed on the voice of people with dementia themselves and their caregivers particularly in Vietnam, and low and middle-income countries with regards to living with dementia, pathways to care from diagnosis, treatment, care and support, additional social care and preparedness for end of life care for people with dementia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little attention has been focused on how the differing features of 'superdiverse' neighbourhoods shape the demographic process of 'staying'. Through drawing on research conducted in two different superdiverse neighbourhoods in the city of Birmingham, UK, the paper highlights how 'staying' is an inherent feature of superdiverse neighbourhoods and which is actively practised by migrants and non-migrants alike. Empirically, the paper identifies how staying is informed by a number of features associated with superdiverse neighbourhoods, such as local infrastructure and visible population diversity, as well as relational proximity to other areas (of the city), including the significance of city centre spaces and their role as multicultural spaces of adaptation. Conceptually, the paper informs recent work on 'arrival infrastructures' and 'differentiated embedding' for migrant (and non-migrant) settlement and provides new insights into the territorial, relational and temporal aspects of staying. This includes the importance of neighbourhood histories in staying processes, and which hitherto have been relatively neglected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aspiration-capability framework introduces four (im)mobility categories – mobility, voluntary immobility, involuntary immobility and acquiescent immobility – which have received considerable attention. However, few studies have examined how people move across such categories. Drawing on the migration experiences of 17 self-identified Latin American gay individuals, this paper shows how prospective migrants can be pushed into a state of involuntary immobility by their families, and how they can adapt to overcome immobility and fulfill their migration aspirations. The article finds, firstly, that heteronormative values and familial expectations regarding sexuality shape the possibility of mobilizing the family's economic, informative and emotional resources. Secondly, I discuss the adaptation strategies that individuals use to surpass involuntary immobility. To understand movement across (im)mobility categories, as well as the role of social boundaries for migration, this paper differentiates between individual and collective migration aspirations and capabilities. In doing so, the article introduces an approach to explore how interactions between social groups and their individual group members shape the (im)mobility projects of the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been exponential growth in research about the impact of Brexit on the plans and projects of EU migrants in the UK. Much research focuses on highly visible migrants, such as the Poles. By focusing on French highly skilled migrants in London, our paper offers the perspectives of those who, prior to the referendum, were relatively invisible and largely absent from anti-immigration discourses. In so doing, we consider how the shock of Brexit exposed but also threatened the previously taken for granted privileges enjoyed by this capital-rich migrant population. Moreover, our longitudinal data, gathered through repeated interviews over seven years (2011–2018), enables analysis of how participants' experiences and evaluations of life and work in the UK changed, over time, in response to Brexit. In analysing these longitudinal qualitative data from an under-researched migrant group, this paper also aims to advance our concept of embedding, in its differentiation across political, economic and relational domains, to understand change over time. Specifically, this paper advances understanding of how processes of embedding, both in their reflexive and tacit forms, frame the complex and nuanced ways in which our French highly skilled participants have experienced, made sense of, and responded to, Brexit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of the legal rhythms and temporalities of migration on the specific temporalities of family life, under conditions of enforced temporariness. It apprehends enforced temporariness as a mode of governance infused with chronopolitics, which – by producing specific experiences of time – deprives migrants of the right/capacity to lead their family lives according to their plans and aspirations. Through a focus on highly qualified third-country nationals holding temporary visas in Belgium, it shows that these experiences of time result from the friction between the institutional timescale of administrative procedures and policies, and migrants' everyday and biographic timescales. Starting from the administrative timescales of highly-skilled migrants, the paper describes the existing Belgian migration legislation, with a focus on administrative procedures. It then explores the specific experiences of time those procedures generate, by highlighting different kinds of friction migrants experience as well as their effects. It presents some of the ways these migrants cope with them, and concludes by highlighting the fruitfulness of applying a friction lens to the study of intersecting timescales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the human rights and immigration lawyers in Russia inspired by the approach that embraces both human and non-human objects in shaping the everyday experiences of the law. Drawing on five months ethnographic fieldwork in Russian legal aid NGOs that represent asylum seekers and interviews with the immigration lawyers who worked there, this paper casts more light on the file-based model of delivering justice, whereby refugees and their stories cannot be constructed differently than through the materiality of the case file. This paper argues that the specific relationship between the immigration lawyers and their clients' case files has not developed in a vacuum, but can be traced back to the traditions of the legal profession in Russia. It is also illustrative of three specific traits of the broader Russian legal culture: legal formalism, the inconsistency of the legal process and the hyperbolic reality-mediating function attached to documentary evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gendered and generational understandings of circular migration are scant in studies of Chinese family migration. Filling this gap, this paper draws on in-depth interviews with twenty-six returnee families to examine the work–family transitions of previously employed, overseas-educated mothers who have re-migrated from Hong Kong to Canada, Australia, the United States, or the United Kingdom. These overseas-educated returnee mothers possess transnational backgrounds that differentiate them from most first-generation immigrant mothers. This paper shows that, despite this distinction, reverse migration leads to compromised careers and domestication for these women, although they accept, and in some cases embrace, such compromises. This study elucidates how both husbands and wives in these families justify women's post-migration changes in their work and caregiving roles. It argues that beyond economic rationalization, interrelated gender, cultural, transnational, and family lifestyle dimensions distinctively impact how second-generation returnee mothers negotiate work–family transitions. This paper offers new insights involving generational and gendered dimensions into the study of Chinese family migration. It also widens the discussion of the impact of family migration on skilled immigrant women in transnational circuits beyond its focus on the lives of first-generation skilled immigrant women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Images could be understood as a medium that does not only reflect and represent the socio-political dynamics but diffuses and perpetuates ideas and perceptions. Images, as an integral part of media, play a huge role in this dissemination through their framing, contents, signs, and symbols. In order to comprehend this power of photographs, the paper will look into the frames, as expounded by Judith Butler, which determine the visibility and invisibility of subjects in a photograph. This paper deals with the Assam Movement, which happened in Assam, a northeastern state of India, as a reaction to the migration from neighboring Bangladesh. The paper will also delve into how the newspapers, as a production of the class structure, impress upon the symbolic environment in which peoples' subjectivities are formulated. It is a study of how photographs published in newspapers can lay the foundations for the construction of an identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the extraterritorial processes of migration governance has developed a strong focus on immigration states’ externalisation management and the diaspora strategies of emigration states. In labour migration, the scholarship on migrant-sending states has largely focused on the systematic processes of recruitment and employment of migrant workers; in contrast, the question of how migrant workers are extraterritorially governed in return has received less attention, despite its importance for understanding migration governance beyond sending country jurisdiction. This paper contributes to this area of research by investigating how migrant workers are repatriated from host countries during disruptions. Using assemblage thinking as analytical lens, I consider repatriation as an extraterritorial, emergent process, shaped by the relations among state and non-state actors, material and technological resources, and the role of street-level actors. Focusing on the case of the Philippines, I draw from over 30 key informant interviews with repatriation actors to examine how the exit stage of the repatriation process is constructed, mobilised and negotiated for Filipino migrant workers, in ways that reveal the possibilities and challenges of migrant protection in host countries. The paper shows how assemblage and street level analysis can illuminate the different ways migration processes emerge amid disturbances in extraterritorial space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the number of asylum seekers grew, and flight stories became more complex, many Western governments deployed national research units, tasked with producing reliable Country of Origin Information (COI) to assist officials, judges and policy-makers in decision-making. Building on ethnographic research at Staatendokumentation, the COI unit at the Austrian Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum, the paper argues that country research practices can best be understood as 'tinkering' – e.g. making use of know-how, equipment, material sources at disposal to produce workable COI in conditions of uncertainty. The concept of tinkering is derived from science and technology studies (STS) and brings into view how the research professionals cobble together a workable version of reality with the methodologies and materials at hand. Moreover, it highlights how country research involves continuous modification and adjustments to satisfy the needs of the unwitting case officer as the end-user of COI reports. Finally, using insights from feminist science and technology studies, the paper shows how country experts foster care for some things – i.e. the workload of case officers – at the expense of others – i.e. the experience of the asylum seeker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identification of migrants and the creation of data identities lies at the core of datafied forms of migration and border control. In recent years, Frontex has made identification to one of its key tasks and conducted so-called screenings in many EU member states. Yet only little is known about the screening materials in use. Based on an ethnographic inquiry of Frontex' data practices, this paper analyses Frontex booklets, dossiers, questionnaires, images, and forms and studies how they structure the situation of identification. Making use of research in science and technology studies and recent research on suspicion and credibility assessment, it argues that those materials not only compile information but work as socio-material devices of suspicion that render migrants into fraudsters and translate peoples' actions, stories, and performances into accounts of truthfulness or deceit. As devices, they frame cases, script interactions, code statements, create stigmata of belonging, and produce purified accounts, and thus enact multiple forms of suspicion. The paper concludes with a critical reflection about the credibility of those materials and speculates about how devices could be designed otherwise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on oral histories of first-generation migrant women, this paper explores Chinese women's role in financing migrant households, mothering children and promoting the well-being of the British Chinese community after 1945. It argues that, with better educational attainment and wider participation in professional occupations Chinese migrant women played an increasingly essential yet unrecognised role in private and public lives. This paper expands knowledge of Chinese women's experiences in contemporary international migration and confirms the necessity of understanding migration through the lens of gender to reveal evolving gendered family roles within migrant households and migrant women's manifold but unrecognised merits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses whether the human capital levels embodied in immigrants can explain xenophobic trends for 126 regions in 14 EU-15 countries from 1998 to 2018. It tests if xenophobic regions may be rejecting immigrants because they are poor, a phenomenon recently defined as 'aporophobia'. The results indicate that larger inflows of low-educated immigrants working in low-skilled occupations are significantly correlated with a higher rejection of migrants, thus confirming the aporophobia hypothesis. The findings in this paper bring light to the discussion of a powerful concept which underpins the need for a more just society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the inconsistent law enforcement which only targets Chinese manufacturing firms active in the Italian fashion industry. Theory building is deeply embedded in rich empirical data and in a dialogue with concepts and theories developed in a wide range of fields and subfields such as urban studies, development studies, studies on local governance, and migration studies. While focusing on dynamics unfolding at the local scale, the paper positions selective law enforcement measures into a wider, multi-layered context which encompasses shifts in the global division of labour, processes of capital investment and disinvestment putting pressure on territories, local policies of migrant inclusion/exclusion, and the trajectory of local production systems. I analyse non-enforcement of the law as an ethnicised battle over economic accumulation, with significant redistributive consequences. At the same time, I point at the role of ethnically selective forced compliance as a tool used by the stakeholders in the territory to counter the potential loss of political authority engendered by the impact of crucial global shifts on the locality. In short, the paper proposes a political economy perspective: it teases out the underlying logic of selective law enforcement disentangling its economic, social, axiological, ethnical, and ultimately political dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This mixed-methods study examines school social workers' perceptions of immigration enforcement on the lives of immigrant students. The article builds upon previous sociological and education research about how the contexts of reception impact immigrant mobility, immigration enforcement, and the role of school-based personnel support for immigrant students. The paper examines the relationship between 517 school social workers' perception of the effects of immigration enforcement and their actions to improve equity for immigrant students. Relationships are compared using multiple regression analysis with and without state fixed effects. Findings reveal significant differences across some of the key constructs and relationships. Implications are discussed for school social workers in U.S. schools as they continue to promote equity for immigrant students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since time immemorial, Malabar, the fabled port region on the western seaboard of India, has witnessed several waves of migration owing to its expansive trade networks across the Arabian Sea. This paper traces the continuous migration of the Multani Shikarpuri from Multan to Kozhikode (formerly Calicut and part of Malabar). The study, in its entirety, attempts to document the lived narratives and experiences of the Multani Shikarpuri community in Malabar. As the study progresses, it strives to understand the varied homemaking practices embodied and employed by the community in the host city. The study employs ethnographic and archival research methods to address these concerns and delineate the polyphonous cross-cultural contacts traversing the three regions of Multan, Shikarpur and Malabar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introductory paper sets the scene for the special issue on migration in the Western Balkan region. First, we briefly outline the background to the research networking initiative in the Western Balkans—'WB-MIGNET'—which resulted in producing the set of papers presented here. Then we describe the context in which the analysis of migration, return and development in the Western Balkans takes place, highlighting the role of diasporas and return migration. The region exemplifies a wide range and interrelation of migratory forms, including temporary and permanent labour migration, forced migration of refugees, temporary displacement, high-skilled migration and transit migration. Quite apart from the scale and diversity of migratory phenomena in this region, the special relevance of the Western Balkans rests on mass emigration, predominantly of educated young people, and their possible return, including to post-conflict areas, and role in the development of their home countries. Such processes within the Western Balkans also offer useful lessons for designing future migration policies in Europe and worldwide. The final section of this introductory paper summarizes the papers that follow and highlights their originality and key findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, one observes a surge in the number of city networks formed to address the welcoming and integration of immigrant populations. Drawing on a database of over sixty networks, the paper provides a global overview of their different types, scales and activities. Exploring the underlying factors explaining this worldwide expansion, it highlights two sets of congruent dynamics. This phenomenon has been elicited by the longue durée devolution to local authorities of powers and responsibilities pertaining to the management of immigrant populations on the one hand and the recent events of the 2015–2016 'migration crisis' on the other. It is also the outcome of the top-down influence of international organisations (including the European Union) and the bottom-up mobilisations of municipalities facing the growing contradictions between their welcoming responsibilities and security-oriented migration management. In the concluding section, the paper points to the challenges faced by international actors for the building of a 'glocal' migration governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accompanied by public demands to reduce migration by creating perspectives 'at home', employability projects have become an important component of migration and development policies. While research has revealed the sedentarism underlying these policies and questioned the effectiveness thereof, more recent work has found that stakeholders are, in fact, aware of the potential increase of migration. However, contrary to analyses that hold that such interventions are carried out because they meet the different interests of both migration and development actors, this paper argues that migration and development interventions are mutually implicated. Examining European employability projects in Tunisia and drawing on interviews with representatives of donors and implementing organisations as well as policy documents, this paper argues that employability activities operate through twofold depoliticised logics. Whereas the focus on employability enables isolating migration from politicised debates across Europe, these interventions promote depoliticised logics of neoliberal selectivity. In centring skills in these interventions, some subjects are rendered employable for the Tunisian and, potentially, European labour market. Others, in turn, are excluded from the participation in migration and development due to a lack of sought-after skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Syrian crisis began in 2011 in Daràa, near the southern-Syrian border, with the first refugees coming into Jordan thereafter. Over the course of the following years, nearly one million Syrian refugees migrated to Jordan and still reside there, some in the same areas in which they first settled. These settlement patterns are often portrayed in simplistic narratives of Syrian migration that emphasise mobility in a straightforward trajectory. This paper aims to unsettle such narratives by examining the role of Syrian family networks in mobility in Jordan's northern region, particularly in and between the cities of Mafraq and Irbid, as well as the Zaatari refugee camp. Based on mixed methods, this paper examines the network factors that made Jordan the country of preference and possibility for settlement, the family networks involved in domestic mobility within Jordan, and their influences on aspirations and worries about future movements. Ultimately, the paper finds that pre-crisis economic, social, and familial networks were often employed at key decision-making moments throughout Jordan in mobility trajectories. As time has progressed, however, Syrians in Jordan reported challenges to social capital in the form of mobility assistance from their long-standing family networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The kafala system of migrant sponsorship prevalent in the Middle East has long been the subject of scholarly and public scrutiny, due to the high level of reported abuse of migrant workers. Prevalent analyses of the kafalaview it as a rentier system that offers economic opportunities for both non-national migrant workers and citizen sponsor-employers, despite the inherent structural asymmetries that bias the overall economic benefits towards the latter. However, the racialised incorporation of African and Asian migrant workers within the kafala is rarely considered in such analyses. Drawing on intersectional, critical race perspectives, this paper 'de-centres the white gaze' in the scholarship on race and migration by first, shifting the geographic locus outside Europe/America to analyse racialisation of migrant workers in the Middle East, and second, by drawing on scholars from the global South who theorise systematic humiliation as a manifestation of deeply unequal societies. The paper illuminates the operation of the kafala as a racially stratified occupational hierarchy of migrant workers that is legitimated by an hegemonic ideology and practices of degradation, diffused coercion and state enforcement. The paper also 'de-exceptionalises the Middle East' to argue that while these racialised hierarchies of difference in the kafala sustain and expand the possibilities of capitalist accumulation through the expropriation of migrant labour, they are not unique to the Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International migration in general and the recent refugee crisis in particular are complex and much debated topics in European politics. Concurrently, education systems must operate under uncertain and unpredictable conditions. In this situation, migrant children become a group at particular educational risk of exclusion and marginalisation. This paper explores reflections of principals of schools with migrant students regarding how to navigate in those uncertainties related to how migrants are received in Denmark and whether current Danish policies on migration and integration affect the everyday practices in education. Thus, the paper looks at how problematisation and insecuritisation processes stemming from current immigration and integration policies in Denmark influence professionals' working conditions in the field of education. Drawing on methodological perspectives from narrative theory, a selection of five out of 15 interviews with school principals are analysed, focusing on their small stories about approaching the complex processes of risk production when providing education for migrant children. The conclusion drawn from the study is that immigration and integration policies that do not stem from the field of education still influence the field of education in a way that creates complex dilemmas for school professionals when navigating in the (co-)production of risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]