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Globalization has become characterized by its disjunctions, which the COVID-19 crisis has thrown into sharp relief (Steger and James 2020). The contradictions (and disjunctures) between the dependence of receiving countries on economic migration and the visible tensions associated with migration, and the precarious experiences of migrants at the COVID-19 front line marked new insecurities in migratory paths and shocks to already insecure work circuits. The fault lines revealed by the COVID-19 crisis identified in this article raise fundamental questions for globalization and migration scholars and policymakers around the sustainability of the “migration/value” nexus. We advocate an approach that moves away from a reductivist conception of migration as solely legitimized via the generation of economic value, toward a sustainable recovery and future after the COVID-19 crisis. We argue for a human rights–based approach to migration that fosters mobilities and that ensures that all individuals are deemed of value, of public value. We believe this can inform and help set a tenacious framework that “resettles” the current disjunctures of globalization, through acknowledging different formations of mobilities through globalization for an inclusive global society. This article is part of the Global Perspectives “Interrogating Global Studies” special collection, guest edited by Jill Timms and Alison Hulme, as a tribute to Dr. Paul Kennedy, an ardent pioneer in the field of global studies.

This chapter focuses on the impact of the COVID-19 health crisis on vulnerable female migrants with No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) in England. First introduced in Section 115 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, the NRPF policy prevents migrants with leave to remain from accessing most state-funded benefits. The UK Home Office's ‘hostile environment’ policies built upon the NPRF policy were created to problematise life for migrants in the UK. This resulted in a growing number of migrants and their families being driven into precarity and poverty with charitable organisations often being their sole means of support. Since its inception, the NRPF policy has attracted a growing number of criticisms, which peaked during the COVID-19 crisis and resulted in two high-profile court cases successfully challenging its lawfulness. Focusing on the gendered impact of the NRPF policy in the context of the COVID-19 crisis, this chapter explores the pervasive ramifications of this policy in vulnerable female migrants’ lives including an increased risk of poverty, homelessness, illegal work, degradation in physical and mental health, and vulnerability to exploitation and violence. Locating the policy in its wider context of existence within the nexus of migration, race, and gender subordination, this chapter argues that the NRPF policy entraps female migrants into interlocking systems and structures of oppression and violence, reinforced, but also made more apparent by the pandemic.

This paper questions if enough is done to tackle modern slavery within the ready-made garments (RMG) supply chains, through the lens of disclosures in improving work practices. Using evidence from Bangladesh, we find how there is a continuum of labour exploitation where the reality of forced labour is not a static one, but a continuum of experiences highlighting the complexity of the exploitative environment within the dominant neoliberal logic of transparency disclosures. It is imperative not only to make disclosures more robust through due diligence, but support capacity to address exploitation at the lower end of the supply chain.

Girls from single-parent households in South Africa (90 percent of whom are Black African or coloured) have significantly lower educational outcomes than other demographics. Through a methodology of life-history interviews, we explore the experiences of 30 women in single-headed households who have been successful in their educational endeavours as university students or graduates. Results show that pressures on girls from single-headed households to look after the family and domestic sphere and to protect their bodies from sexual abuse leave many girls depleted of the time, energy, and mental capacity required to study. Despite these challenges, these participants have escaped the perceived weight of their female burden in a post-apartheid, patriarchal society and reclaim their bodies and sense of agency through educational success.

Using the social anchoring approach, this article investigates the entrepreneur experience of one of the newest migrant groups in Britain, the Nepali Gurkhas. The findings derived from the semi-structured interviews show how these migrant entrepreneurs employ multiple ‘anchors’ to engage in family-based enterprises and to navigate structural constraints. Their military heritage, which has provided them with psycho-social resources in the form of subjective and mixed anchors, has been central to their exercise of agency and enabling them to gain a foothold in Britain. This has rendered Gurkha entrepreneurs a distinct group within migrant entrepreneurship. The article contributes to the literature on migrant entrepreneurship by delineating how agential capacity, by deploying different anchors, can cause variations in migrant enterprises, which in turn imbue migrant entrepreneurship with distinct characteristics.

The right to education is crucial for solving gender inequalities in developing countries. Set against the backdrop of persistent gender disparities starting from primary education level in Pakistan, using capability approach, this article analyses gender inequalities in education in the Punjab province through the effectiveness of the Girls’ Stipend Programme (GSP) on girls’ educational opportunities using a mixed methods approach. The GSP, aims to increase female enrolment in public schools, and targets families from lower socio-economic backgrounds. The findings show that the GSP has led to short-term impact on girls’ increased enrolment in middle schools, although issues of access to education such as physical safety, transition to secondary schools and the quality of schooling needed attention. The parental aspirations for girls’ education is high particularly among mothers from lower economic backgrounds and main driver for female education but the larger question of the instrumental role of education in transforming gender inequalities is still pertinent.

Digital work is often associated with higher levels of earning and increased social mobility. Working in the digital economy will not benefit all women equally or act as an enabler of broader social change. The article draws attention to the intersection of gender and class in work in the IT sector of India, where women have increased their visibility and participation. Through a gender capital approach and intersectional analyses, the article points to the incontrovertible impact of class and gender when women from low-income backgrounds engage in IT- based group enterprises in the state of Kerala. A central insight from the study is the need to disaggregate types of IT work as women’s experiences in IT are shaped by the simultaneity of working practices, intersectional inequalities and gendered behaviours, often with limits to gender capital and spill-over impact on broader gender and social relations.

This article discusses the potential for schools as sites of foster-ship and empowerment for all children, including children from migrant backgrounds. It draws on social justice theories to explore how educational practices can contribute to creating socially just societies. Through semi-structured interviews with seven school educators, coupled with field notes from school visits to three schools in Manchester (UK), the article explores the ways in which educators develop and improvise culturally responsive educational approaches in order to enhance the representation of their migrant children. However, such approaches require navigating and negotiating educational structures and policies, which could leave some educators with sentiments of professional anxiety. The article concludes by recommending the importance of professional training on diversity that critically engages with the subject of who we are today and how this diversity can be utilized to create solidarity bridges and social ties. Fundamentally, this requires schools to regain some level of agency to support the decisions made in response to local needs and aspirations. En este artículo se explora el potencial de las escuelas como centros de acogida y empoderamiento para todos los menores, incluidos los menores de origen migrante. Nuestra investigación se basa en las teorías de la justicia social para explorar la posible contribución de las prácticas educativas a la creación de sociedades socialmente justas. A partir de entrevistas semiestructuradas con siete docentes escolares, y de las notas de un estudio de campo consistente en visitas a tres centros escolares en Manchester (RU), en este artículo se exploran las formas en que los docentes desarrollan e improvisan enfoques pedagógicos culturalmente sensibles para mejorar la representación de sus alumnos migrantes. No obstante, estos enfoques requieren sortear y negociar las estructuras y políticas educativas existentes, que pueden causar sentimient

Mobility always involves change and upheaval: in general, child migrants will experience a greater upheaval than those whose context changes little, and their choices are also more constrained than those of adults. Integration is not an either/or process, nor is it necessarily specific to any domain, but is instead a complex pathway through life. In the lives of child migrants, integration is experienced simultaneously in education, health, local community and other domains, shaped by accompanying family or lack of family, community structures, and racist and anti-migrant currents of politics and culture.

This research is motivated by the norms and practices of femininity that individuals create through performances and bodily practices. It investigates the levels of women’s acceptance of the femininity ideology and neoliberalism in the upper middle class, their effects on aesthetic labor and the objectification of their bodies. It examines how the logic and techniques associated with neoliberalism shapes the construction of current femininities and shifts in the relationship between the self and the body. Through the use of quantitative analysis from data based on young middle class women in Monterrey, Mexico, this study aims to determine how women are making sense of their bodies through selfdiscipline and self-regulation, as well as the ways in which neoliberal and postfeminist constructions of the sexual self and body are made meaningful in women’s everyday lives., Esta investigación está motivada por las normas y prácticas de feminidad que las personas crean a través de actuaciones y prácticas corporales. Investigando los niveles de aceptación de las mujeres de la ideología dela feminidad y el neoliberalismo en la clase media alta, sus efectos sobre el trabajo estético y la objetivación de sus cuerpos. Examinando cómo el neoliberalismo configura la construcción de las feminidades actuales yla relación entre el yo y el cuerpo. Se utilizó una metodología cuantitativa para analizar los datos recopilados de 100 mujeres jóvenes de clase media en Monterrey, México, este estudio tiene como objetivo determinar cómo las mujeres dan sentido a sus cuerpos a través de la autodisciplina y la autorregulación, así como las formas en que las personas y construcciones neoliberales postfeministas del yo y el cuerpo sexuales tienen sentido en la vida cotidiana de las mujeres.

This research is motivated by the norms and practices of femininity that individuals create through performances and bodily practices. It investigates the levels of women’s acceptance of the femininity ideology and neoliberalism in the upper middle class, their effects on aesthetic labor and the objectification of their bodies. It examines how the logic and techniques associated with neoliberalism shapes the construction of current femininities and shifts in the relationship between the self and the body. Through the use of quantitative analysis from data based on young middle class women in Monterrey, Mexico, this study aims to determine how women are making sense of their bodies through self-discipline and self-regulation, as well as the ways in which neoliberal and postfeminist constructions of the sexual self and body are made meaningful in women’s everyday lives. Resumen: Esta investigación está motivada por las normas y prácticas de feminidad que las personas crean a través de actuaciones y prácticas corporales. Investigando los niveles de aceptación de las mujeres de la ideología dela feminidad y el neoliberalismo en la clase media alta, sus efectos sobre el trabajo estético y la objetivación de sus cuerpos. Examinando cómo el neoliberalismo configura la construcción de las feminidades actuales yla relación entre el yo y el cuerpo. Se utilizó una metodología cuantitativa para analizar los datos recopilados de 100 mujeres jóvenes de clase media en Monterrey, México, este estudio tiene como objetivo determinar cómo las mujeres dan sentido a sus cuerpos a través de la autodisciplina y la autorregulación, así como las formas en que las personas y construcciones neoliberales postfeministas del yo y el cuerpo sexuales tienen sentido en la vida cotidiana de las mujeres.