Responsible adults-in-the-making: Intergenerational impact of parental migration on Indonesian young women’s aspirational capacity

In the developing economies in Southeast Asia, labour migration is increasingly seen not simply to generate income to meet short-term livelihood needs but to secure the family’s future, often by investing in children’s education. While much work has been done studying the impact of parents’ remittances on children’s wellbeing including education access, the impact of parental migration on children’s (educational) aspirations has received less attention. Viewing youth as social actors, this paper interrogates how they make meaning of their parents’ migration, and how this consequently influences their decisions to activate, delay or reshape their hopes and plans for their own educational and work trajectories. With the increasing feminisation of labour migration in Southeast Asia where gendered regimes in care and domestic work make it easier for women to work overseas, this paper focuses attention on the aspirations of young women at the cusp of adulthood from a migrant-sending area in rural East Java, Indonesia. These young women’s ‘navigational capacity’ (Appadurai, 2004) is not only shaped by tangible obstacles such as the lack of sufficient resources, but is also more subtly moulded by an emerging discourse of self-responsibilisation in the making of ‘dutiful daughters’. Drawing on conceptualisations of multiple ‘logics of aspiring’ operating within spatial contexts (Zipin et al., 2015), we show how young women unsettle, inflect and challenge the normative linear education-work transitions by expressing their desire to replace their parents in accessing labour migration as a livelihood option, and reflect on the dialectical relationship between agency and aspirations.     

Imagining migration: Placing children’s understanding of ‘moving house’ in Malawi and Lesotho

Research pertaining to children’s geographies has mainly focused on children’s physical experiences of space, with their ‘imagined geographies’ receiving far less attention. The few studies of children’s imagined geographies that exist tend to focus on children’s national identities and their understanding of distant places. However, children’s lives are not necessarily static and they often move between places. Research has not so far considered children’s images of these transitional spaces or how such images are constructed.Through an examination of over 800 thematic drawings and stories, regarding ‘moving house’, produced by children aged 10-17 years in urban and rural communities of Lesotho and Malawi, this paper explores southern African children’s representations of migration. The research considers how ideas of migration are culturally-constructed based on notions of family, home and kinship, particularly in relation to the fluid family structure characteristic of most southern African societies. The results suggest that most children imagine migration as a household rather than an individual process, rarely including micro-migrations between extended family households in their drawings. Further, children’s images of migration are place-rooted in everyday life experiences. Their representations concentrate on the reasons for migration, both negative and positive, which are specifically related to their local social and environmental situations and whether house moves take place locally or over longer distances. The paper concludes by exploring the implications of these conceptualisations of moving house for children’s contemporary migration experiences, particularly in light of changing family structures due to the effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.     

The middle space of migration: A case study on brokerage and recruitment agencies in Nepal

Foreign employment has become a global phenomenon. With the increasing commercialisation and formalisation of transnational labour migration, recruitment agencies and agents have gained importance. The paper aims to contribute to a more differentiated understanding of the role and the practices of the main actors in the middle space of migration, the brokers in the recruitment process for transnational migration. Based on empirical material from Nepal, it argues that the detected negative reputation of labour brokers is only partially justified. Besides common bad practices and fraud cases, recruiters perform important roles for the facilitation of transnational mobility and present the necessary infrastructure for labour migration. They connect people and places, establish networks and can play an important role in making migration safer. Brokers are important facilitators in supporting alternative income strategies and new livelihood options of people. At the same time they are entrepreneurs in a competitive and risky economic field, confronted with multifaceted constraints. As long as the gap between the dreams of potential migrants and the reality of marginality in Nepal remains wide, labour brokers might persist as important middlemen for global work. Thus, migration brokerage is likely to remain big business.     

Gendering transnational communities: a comparison of Singaporean and British migrants in China

Studies of transnational communities and transnational labour migration have focused almost exclusively on the movement of low-skilled and unskilled workers across international boundaries. While these groups may be numerically dominant, it must be recognised that there are increasing numbers of managers and professionals engaged in work-related migration in association with the intensification of economic globalisation processes. Work which has been conducted on highly skilled migrants has largely been limited to examinations of intra-firm mobility and the workspace. This approach fails to consider the ways in which the migrants' experiences are embedded in the social, economic and political practices of the host country, but also in a specific household context. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the gendered dimensions of the life of these migrants and their accompanying family members has been somewhat under-researched.Flows of expatriates can lead to the constitution of both ‘communities of transnationals', as particular cities become foci of the activities of the ‘transnational capitalist class', as well as ‘transnational communities' which involve regular and sustained contact between individuals across national boundaries. In this paper we examine these social formations using two groups of migrants––British and Singaporean migrants to China (both mainland China and the Hong Kong SAR). We focus on the gender characteristics of these groupings, but also the gender division of labour in the creation and maintenance of these ‘communities'. The paper is based on qualitative research carried out in China, Singapore and the UK 1997–2001.     

Transnational ties and intra-immigrant group settlement experiences: A case study of Indian Bengalis and Bangladeshis in Toronto

Transnational theories have established that, after migrating to a new country, migrants often maintain their pre-existing social, economic, and political ties to their home country. The extent to which however, transnational institutional and social connections may affect the residential location and housing experiences of immigrant and refugee groups, and why and how these experiences differ within broadly defined immigrant groups such as the ‘South Asians’ remains unexplored. Building on transnational theory and previous research on the housing trajectories of new Canadians, this paper examines the housing experiences of two recently arrived ‘South Asian’ subgroups in Toronto–Indian Bengalis and Bangladeshis. By highlighting important intra-immigrant group differences, the study reveals how diverse transnational ties affect their neighbourhood choice and the type, tenure, and quality of housing when they first arrived in Toronto.     

Caring about ‘brain drain’ migration in a postcolonial world

The migration of health professionals has been accompanied by politically and morally charged discussions on the effect of such migration on the health of those left behind in their countries of origin. In the UK, the National Health Service, which has long been dependent on overseas migrants to bolster its own staffing, has responded to critics accusing it of ‘poaching’ health professionals from poorer countries with a range of measures to limit health worker mobility. These measures counterpose the right to mobility of health workers with the right to health for those they leave behind, posing academics working on brain drain with a quandary: how do we think ethically about brain drain migration? This paper aims to address this question by exploring the spatial and temporal ontologies that are being mobilised in current thinking around the brain drain. It explores how these ontologies shape both public debates and policy initiatives, foreclosing other ways of thinking about health worker mobility. It argues that routing discourses of brain drain through insights drawn from care ethics and postcolonial thinking will highlight the historical transnational connections that mark medical labour markets and how the category ‘medical worker’ is precisely dependent on this transnationalism.     

Vancouver’s newest Chinese diaspora: settlers or “immigrant prisoners”?

This study seeks to reground concepts of “diaspora” and “transnationalism” in the realities of everyday life through examining the lived experiences of immigrants. Based on in-depth household interviews and focus groups, it examines the newest Chinese diaspora in Vancouver—skilled immigrants from the People’s Republic of China. It explores the challenges that they face in an unfamiliar city, including employment and language barriers as well as domestic anxieties surrounding childcare, education and marital difficulties. The strategies that they adopt to counter these problems are at times transnational—in the form of astronaut families or transnational childcare—but almost always familial. Ultimately, the settlement challenges that they face, coupled with the available transnational possibilities, raise the question of whether they are settlers or “immigrant prisoners”, temporarily serving their time in Vancouver before a further relocation.     

‘White cranes fly over black cranes’: The longue durée of rural–urban migration in Vietnam

The changing nature of rural–urban migration, in the context of transition economies of East and Southeast Asia, is usually interpreted as an outcome of structural transformation, while the longue durée of these migration flows tends to be neglected. Adopting a historical perspective, supported by the ’migration as resistance’ approach, this paper examines the changes in rural–urban migration dynamics in Vietnam from the 1950s to 2010 in relation to the country’s political and economic reforms (Ð?i M?i). Drawing on a case study of female migration between Phu Khe and Hanoi, it analyses how migrants resist and undermine state control over population mobility in order to pursue their movement and migration, and how they develop their migration networks over time. By doing so, the paper highlights a gradual process of the changing nature of rural–urban migration in which migrants themselves, through their resistance to governance of mobility and their establishment of migration networks prior to Ð?i M?i, play an important role.     

Moving players,traversing perspectives: Global value chains,production networks and Ghanaian football labour migration

This article examines the production and transnational export of Ghanaian football labour. It does so via a cross-disciplinary approach that utilises perspectives rooted in the sociology of development (global value chains) and economic geography (global production networks). The article is underpinned by two central arguments. Firstly, it contends that the GVC framework is useful in accounting for how Ghanaian players are produced and prepared for the international market, identifying the key agents and agencies involved, mapping the geography of production and export and assessing the institutional context within which the trade operates locally, nationally and internationally. The second draws on the GPN perspective to argue that while Ghanaian football labour migration remains a process contoured by uneven asymmetries of power that favour actors, stakeholders and entities in the global North, there are currently segments of the production–export chain where power is much more diffuse and some benefits are captured in the global South. The paper draws on interview data and observations gleaned from four periods of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in Ghana between January 2008 and June 2011.     

Ties that bind: State policy and migrant female domestic helpers in Singapore

Global economic restructuring has not only intensified the shift in reproductive work from the household to the market, but it has been predicated on the international mobility of labour to countries where locals are no longer willing to work in low-paying menial jobs. This paper focuses on Singapore as a country which has drawn upon female migrant workers from neighbouring developing countries to work as domestic helpers in Singapore such that the gainful entry of its own women into the formal economy has been facilitated. Drawing upon a range of secondary sources as well as field data, the paper demonstrates how state policies on labour migration in Singapore have played a crucial role in influencing the uneven employer-employee relationships that migrant female domestic helpers in Singapore households find themselves in. More generally, it argues that the availability of foreign domestic helpers in Singapore and the state discourse on the issue has contributed to perpetuating the patriarchal ideology of housework as women's work and of housework as non-work.     

Family strategies in a neoliberal world: Korean immigrants in Winnipeg

South Korean immigration to Canada has increased since the East Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s. Korean immigrants in Winnipeg chose the city for many reasons: the introduction of the Provincial Nominee Program, structural changes in the home country, and individual family strategies to provide better educational opportunities for their children. This article examines how changes in the current wave of globalization, at both global and local scale, have affected the migration of Koreans to Winnipeg, Canada and how individual households chose their immigration destination. This study contributes to understanding of the less popular immigrant destinations of Canada using a multiscalar analysis that includes household level. In addition to economic purposes and children’s education, changes of life style can be an important reason for immigrant location choice. Overall, the neoliberal economy in South Korea has pushed many Koreans to move to other countries, and the globalization of the Canadian economy has pulled nomadic middle-class members from other countries.     

Navigating the terrains of transnational education: Children of Chinese ‘study mothers’ in Singapore

This paper demonstrates the value of child-centred migration studies which highlight children’s role in shaping the migration journeys of their families, as well as their own projected journeyings. It examines the case of children from China who move to Singapore, an aspiring global education hub, expressly for the purpose of an overseas education that will facilitate longer-term migration and life goals. Focus is given specifically to the children of ‘study mothers’ or peidu mama (literally: ‘mothers accompanying their children who are studying’). Through interviews with the teenagers and the conceptual optic of ‘social navigation’, our paper demonstrates that children are resilient and creative beings able to navigate the twists and turns of their immediate trajectories, as well as develop their own goals and projected destinations for their futures. The paper calls for a refinement in the way we understand children’s mobilities. First, in arguing that their spatial journeying across the terrains of transnational education cannot be decoupled from their process of social becoming and emotional development from passive followers to active negotiators, we wish to disrupt hegemonic discourses and dominant representations of children in migration as simply ‘migrant’s children’ and restore them to the status of ‘migrant children’. Second, adopting the concept of social navigation as an analytical lens allows us to highlight the fluid ways that young people think about their futures and the different pathways by which they can get there. This leads us to conceive of social and cultural capital accumulation through transnational education as a process with many more degrees of provisionality than what is often presented in the literature as a ‘strategic project’ with a fixed and abstract goal.     

Late Quaternary Upwelling Intensity and East Asian Monsoon Forcing in the South China Sea

Foraminifera from two cores off eastern Vietnam and the northwestern Philippines, where modern summer and winter monsoon-driven upwelling occurs in the South China Sea, respectively, were analyzed to evaluate the changes in paleoproductivity and upper water structure over the last 220,000 yr. We observed enhanced organic carbon flux and a shoaled thermocline when upwelling intensified off eastern Vietnam during interglacial ages and off the northwestern Philippines during glacial ages. This indicates that the East Asian summer monsoon increased while the winter monsoon decreased during interglacial ages. Particularly, the upwelling reached a maximum off eastern Vietnam during late marine isotopic stage (MIS) 5 and off the northwestern Philippines during MIS 2, implying that the summer monsoon decreased gradually since MIS 5 while the winter monsoon displayed an opposite trend. The variations in upwelling proxies exhibit a distinct cyclicity with frequencies near 41,000 yr and 23,000 yr off eastern Vietnam, in contrast to a strong frequency peak near 100,000 yr off the northwestern Philippines. We suggest that the East Asian summer monsoon has been forced by changes in solar insolation associated with precession and obliquity, while ice-volume forcing is probably a primary factor in determining the strength and timing of the East Asian winter monsoon but with less important insolation forcing.     

Transnational elites in global cities: British expatriates in Singapore's financial district

Skilled international migration is as an important process of both contemporary globalization and the global city. The establishment of a transnational elite of expatriate labour in international finance plays a vital part in the accumulation of capital within international financial centres (IFCs). Expatriate labour has become a major determinant of the IFC, creating financial capital through complex social relations, knowledge networks, practices and discourses. The principal argument being made in this paper is that expatriates are major agents in the accumulation and transfer of financial knowledge in the IFC, and that such processes are undertaken through expatriate global–local knowledge networks and other social practices. The paper is divided into three major parts. Following a discussion of transnational elites as expatriates in global cities, which also conceptualises their contribution to the spatialization of financial knowledge networks, the empirical study investigates the working, social and cultural knowledge networks and practices of British expatriates in Singapore. Finally, the paper revisits the conceptual work on transnational elites and suggests that expatriates were deeply embedded in global–local relations in the workplace and the business/social sphere through interaction with local ‘western educated/experienced' Singaporeans, but were disembedded from the local in the home and other household social spaces due to the invisibility of the local population in their interactions. Both the theoretical and empirical analyses suggests that expatriates are flow in the Castellian spatial logic of the network society.     

Organizations, recruitment and the local labour market: the case of the Sheffield metal sectors

An examination of the relationship between large organizations and local labour markets which draws attention to the role of the extended internal labour market (EILM). This paper explores recruitment strategies in the local labour market amongst 52 major employers in the metal sectors in the Sheffield local labour market. It shows how dependence on the external labour market rather than the internal labour market varies with the different occupations recruited within the local area and that, in some occupations, the EILM plays an important role. Where recruitment difficulties are experienced there are a variety of responses, all of which have particular implications for the amount and type of labour sought from the external labour market. The paper concludes by arguing for a greater emphasis on the recruitment strategies of larger firms in employer surveys to provide new insights into the operation of local labour markets and, in particular, the operation of the EILM.     

Skilled migration in global cities from `Other' perspectives: British Arabs, identity politics, and local embededdness

Migration scholars increasingly have turned their attention to skilled migration, focusing, in particular, on the transfer of professionals within and between transnational corporations. Recent efforts have been made to bring a `cultural' analysis to this phenomenon, including greater scrutiny of the corporate cultures and social networks in which skilled migrants are embedded. This research has emphasised the importance of locality even among these most footloose and transnational of migrants. But despite these complex views of skilled migration, analyses have generated a somewhat limited conception of `skilled migrants' as managerial elites disengaged from local life. This paper examines skilled migration from a different perspective. First, using the case of Arab immigrants in London, this paper highlights the complicated nature of migration trajectories and reveals the diversity of patterns and experiences within the category of skilled migrant. Second, focusing on responses from female study participants, this paper examines the ways in which skilled migrants, rather than disengaging themselves from the host society context, may participate in the local politics of multiculturalism and integration.     

Irregular migration,informal remittances: evidence from Ethiopian villages

Although Ethiopia has seen a reduction in refugee flows over the past decade, documented and undocumented labour migration has significantly increased. International migration has changed from that born out of conflict to irregular migration mainly driven by economic reasons. The source of migrants has expanded from urban centres to include rural areas, making them an important source of low-skilled labour for the international labour market. Based on a qualitative study, this paper explores the process and pattern of Ethiopian migration to South Africa, an emerging destination in the global South. This migration corridor is increasingly characterised by its irregularity. The paper also reflects how migration patterns shape the pattern of remittance flow, along with the way in which migrants and their networks substitute the function of financial institutions engaged in the remittance industry. It also highlights the features of remittances utilisation in emerging rural migrant community in Southern Ethiopia.     

The model minority stereotype in Arizona’s anti-immigrant climate: SB 1070 and discordant reactions from Asian Indian migrant organizations

This research explores the discordant reactions of local Asian Indian migrant organizations to the passage of Arizona Senate Bill 1070. The objective is to illustrate how migrants from India to Arizona negotiate their identities in the context of this anti-immigrant climate. The research draws insight largely from local records and publications of Asian Indian migrant organizations, including monthly newsletters, board meeting minutes, and other materials found on organizational websites. The analysis chronicles how various Asian Indian migrant organizations shape public discourse about migrant identity, belonging, and citizenship through their reactions to Arizona Senate Bill 1070. The place-based approach provides a way to re-think traditional migration theories and explore the role of racialization in better understanding the consequences of migration from India to the U.S.     

Government policies and international migration of skilled workers in Sub-Saharan Africa

Since a central concern of the geography of international migration is to consider how and why stocks and flows of migrants are variable from country to country, the study of skilled international migration must address policies of individual governments towards local and foreign skilled workers. These policies are most evident in immigration and emigration legislation, regulations and practice, but also, less directly but often of more fundamental significance, in policies in education, manpower planning and towards wages and salaries. In Sub-Saharan Africa there is a wide range of experience of recent skilled international migration, driven by direct and indirect policies pursued by individual governments since independence. At an intercontinental scale the deleterious effects of the global division of labour have not merely been passively accepted; within the continent new patterns of skilled-labour migration have been created by increasingly differentiated economic performance and political relationships. A case study of Kenya, a country of small current net immigration of skilled workers, is used to specify some of the processes that establish the relationships between immigration and emigration policies, and how these have been mediated by conditions for skilled workers. The concluding section of this paper sets the general experience and that of the Kenyan case study in the wider context of the role of the state as a factor in the geography of skilled international migration in the Third World.