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A spate of gender research in transnational migration at interdisciplinary interfaces has revealed powerful insights on how migration systems have co-evolved with geo-political dynamics of globalisation, revealing emerging forms of intersecting inequality and the need to clarifying the different epistemological positions in the debates about gender inequality. The international classification system used in the definition of rights and entitlements is now in conflict with the rapidly changing realities of migration in which local/global dynamics that have de-stabilised its established categories. Interpreting ‘gender’ in transnational migration today in defence of the human rights of migrants must go beyond ‘gender’ as a pre-given heuristic device handed down from previous theories. Aspirations for a gender equal world cannot avoid employing epistemic vigilance to discern where and which thinking about ‘gender’ is valid, and how unjustifiable biases may be corrected to ensure satisfactory treatments of th...

Since the end of the Cold War human trafficking has evolved from localized practices of labor recruitment into globalized and multidirectional forms of migration. These new forms of migration patterns have acquired considerable economic and political significance in terms of their regional and global magnitudes and complexities. Previously limited to the purpose of sexual exploitation trafficking now cross-cuts a multitude of female and male migrants searching for work in a wide range of low-skilled and labor-intensive economic sectors particularly construction light industries agriculture and fisheries. There has been a rise in autonomous migration by women young people and children within and outside traditional practices of migration. The growing migration business which takes place under conditions of information asymmetry and under the control of diverse brokers has produced major reactions based on human rights principles. These have contributed to new international regional and national legislative frameworks for prevention prosecution and the social re-integration of trafficked persons. However the implementation of such legislations has led to inconclusive debates about the issues of victimhood and agency on the one hand and the responsibilities of states on the other. The prevalence of differences of interests in the variant policy approaches and civic responses to all the issues-migration management crime control labor standards poverty reduction and particular needs of communities at risk-reflect a fragmented understanding of the situation. The securitization of migration policy which accelerated since 9/11 has reaffirmed the notion of state sovereignty in forceful ways further preventing meaningful negotiations about the discrepancy between the legal and social interpretations of human rights and well being in migration. (excerpt)

This article explores the interface between migration and human trafficking in sub-Saharan Africa from the two angles of governance and poverty. A salient feature in the emerging frameworks of migration management is its implicit bifurcated vision of mobility. Trade-connected mobility is well protected by government rules whereas mobility to sustain livelihoods is subject to a punitive regime with a limited scope for resolving the discrepancy between the legal and social interpretations of human rights and well-being. The rise of migration by women, children and young people within and outside traditional practices under risky conditions may reflect deeper structural transformations than are commonly acknowledged by policy-makers. Reactions based on human rights concerns have contributed to new international, regional and national legislative frameworks for preventing abusive and exploitative practices in migration. The prevalence of glaring differences of interests in the variant policy approaches to all these issues--migration management, crime control, labour standards, poverty reduction and the particular needs of communities at risk--requires the concept of best practices to address the relationship between dominant forms of social knowledge and the policy field to situate and tackle issues of rights violation in different scales of governance and their interrelationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (journal abstract)

Development ethics as practice-oriented thought has arisen at an intersection of theorising about norms and values with various streams of experience. New ethical questions are now triggered by changes that accompany the process of globalisation. The latter has tended to erode national boundaries, create new spaces and practices, and generate simultaneously new opportunities and forms of suffering. These emerging ethical questions require a corresponding social analysis and additional sources of ethical thought. In this paper, we will trace the progress of development ethics and suggest that the field would benefit from linkages to ethical traditions that emphasise the transformation of consciousness and attitudes in service of human security as a higher goal. We show the value of the addition to the human development discourse of ‘human security’, particularly its motivational basis and focus on right. But both human development and human security discourses require a further consolidation by way of grea...

textabstractThis paper presents a historical overview of feminist frameworks for analysis and advocacy on human trafficking. It traces the major differences and similarities in the forms of knowledge produced since the Anti-White Slavery campaigns nearly two centuries ago. It highlights how institutional and moral considerations – especially concerning the treatment of the female body as an instrument – have played a role in shaping the conceptual possibilities and directions of politics for change. By tracing the epistemological and ethical tensions in the body of knowledge about human trafficking and the power relations involved in interpreting the question of human dignity and agency, the paper hopes to open new lines for debate and cooperation to address the varying interpretations of the use of force as well as the nature of human agency, decision-making and choice in the business of human trafficking. Attention is given to how, under the forces of globalisation, the unprecedented re-writing the human body, and sexuality (as a source of labour, sexual pleasure, and life itself) demands innovative ways for rethinking the relationship between “sex”, “gender” and “power” – both in theoretical terms and as regards transnational social action.

This chapter provides concluding reflections from a set of nineteen case studies of transnational and intranational migration and mobility. It contrasts the ‘sedentary bias’ present in policy regimes and associated thought centred on nation-states, where movement is seen as exceptional, including normatively exceptional, with the centrality of movement in the processes of socio-economic change and evolution, particularly those promoted under capitalist systems of economic organization. While market capitalist and nation-state principles of organization differ, they combine in hybrid systems, such as those currently being elaborated in policy regimes for temporary migrant workers, to exploit migrant labour. Many of these arrangements mirror the indentured labour regimes of earlier eras. The chapter presents by contrast a perspective based on principles of human rights and human security that uses a global framework both for understanding and for evaluation and then adds an explicit gender-aware enrichment of that perspective, in order to do justice to the special vulnerabilities and exploitation of women’s migrant labour. A human security perspective, in particular, helps to base concern for human rights in an awareness of bodily and emotional needs, of global interconnections, and of the intersecting circumstances in people’s everyday lives; but it requires, and lends itself to, gender-enrichment through partnership with insights from feminist theory, as illustrated in the book’s various case studies. The systems of the nation-state, market capitalism, and gender power that are discussed in this chapter, that structure the experiences of migrant women workers, are very deeply established. The chapter suggests directions for possible re-cognition, to reduce and counter the invisibility and misframing of migration, and of women and their work; it also suggests priority areas for research and networking following the format employed for the book: linking researchers, policy practitioners and migrant advocates, South-South-North.

Historical and comparative studies have demonstrated that migration (as human mobility across geographical areas and regions) is a dynamic process, interacting with livelihood systems, regulatory norms and security-enhancing institutions, both materially and subjectively (Hoerder 2002; Schrover/van der Leun/Lucassen/Quispel 2008). Migration cannot be understood in truncated ways, in parts and fragments of reality rather than the totality of the universe in which the phenomenon rose, became institutionalized and transformed at different historical moments. A core issue today is the gradual practical and conceptual erosion of the legal boundaries set in the Westphalian framework of inter-state relations and the emergence of fragmented modes of regulation of the movement of people across border of nation-states. This reflects the inability of governments to reconcile the tension within global capitalism, which on the one hand prises national economies open and on the other remains unaccountable for the adverse human consequences of this openness. The architecture of global governance of migration today shows how diverse rationalities have played out one against another to produce a situation in which growth-driven norms are taking over from rights norms based on human dignity enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This calls for a reconsideration of migration and security as two key areas of state prerogative, in light of their transnational and trans-local implications.