The effect of differential access to accommodation on the Dinka migrants in Khartoum —

Immigration into the three towns of Khartoum, Khartoum North and Ondurman has been a monopoly of Sudanese from other provinces of the north for many years. Even after the relaxation of movement between the different regions, few southerners ventured Khartoum. More than seven years ago, a second civil war broke out. Its consequences in the South have been a wide-spread devastation of both rural and urban areas, a progressive increase of war and famine related deaths and the upsetting of inter-ethnic harmony in the transitional zone as an echo of the political situation in the country. As a survival move, southern Sudanese fled from their towns and home villages in massive waves. Arriving in Khartoum, which was already congested with overstrained social services, they joined an existing body of impoverished population, which has settled in virtual shanty towns scattered throughout the greater metropolitan area. Disadvantages emerging from the economic exigences of their forced migration have been sustained within the general framework of government policy implementation as regards settlement in Khartoum with only an ambiguous reference to the distinctness of their ordeal. The result is that they become more disadvantaged then others. This paper examines the factors that are operating in the housing choice and residential location of Dinka ethnic group migrants using the example of Gereif West and Suq el Markazi. The result shows that the residential location is strongly affected by the response to an immediate objective situation, while the choice of tenure reflects the underlying function of the migrants' attitudes towards permanent stay in the town.     

Rural-urban migration and the problem of town planning —

The conurbation of Khartoum has been long the main destination area of the rural-urban migration in the Sudan. The town-planning office has become unable to provide the inmigrant masses with the least required housing infrastructure. The result is that the inmigrants have been living for some decades now in squatter areas without any right of residence. The way from the formation of a squatter settlement which is officially non-existent and illegal to a demarcated residential area is long and tedious. The author describes this process using the example of Um Badda which is a traditional destination area of inmigrants. The analysis shows that the officials of the town-planning treat the ethnic groups on unequal basis with a strong bias against southern Sudanese.     

The Southern Sudanese migration to Khartoum and the resultant conflicts

Today, more than one third of the population of Khartoum are southerners who migrated to the capital mainly in the last eight years because of the civil war. Their conditions are very bad. They are starving in the town, for most of them are unemployed and have no means of living. Their housing conditions in the shanty towns are deplorable. The development of squatter settlements and the struggle for the demarcation of quarters are delineated in this paper. In Khartoum the southerners develop a strong sense of solidarity and develop a growing supra-southern-Sudanese identity replacing the former ethnic and local identities.     

Migration from the city to the countryside in Hungary and Poland

After the changes of 1989, urban-to-rural migration in Poland and Hungary remained stable compared to rural-to-urban migration. This was connected to a growing importance of suburbanisation around major Hungarian and Polish cities. Suburban areas around these cities are attracting increasing numbers of migrants from the major cities. Pollution and higher crime rates, as well as rising living costs and increasing uncertainties make many people to decide to leave the city for the surrounding countryside. Not only upper middle-class people move to the suburbs, but also lower status people, for whom life in the big city became too difficult. Long-distance migration from the cities to the rural areas is declining. Economic problems together with low employment opportunities prevent people from making such a move. Though the overall level of urban-to-rural migration did not change too much, this article shows the rapidly increasing importance of suburbanisation. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The conditions of the Southern Sudanese Women Migrants in Abu Siid Shanty Town,Omdurman, Sudan — A Case Study of Cultural Change

The author analyzes the changing conditions to which S Sudanese women have been subjected after their forced migration the war-ridden South to Khartoum. There, too, they are suffering from hunger, homelessness, lack of a basic needs. Being obliged to house and work illegally these women find themselves considered criminals by both the State and many of the so-called Arabs. Serious identity change is involved in the process of adaptationof these rural people to the hostile urban environment.This paper contains preliminary results of a field study conducted by the author in April 1989 within the framework of the research programme Identity in Africa of the German Research Society under the coordination of Helmut Ruppert and the author. Both, as well as Abdel Hamid Bakhit and Ismail Al Fihail have participated in this research on the migration of the Southerners to Khartoum.     

Local perceptions of onchocerciasis in the Hawal Valley,Nigeria

Onchocerciasis is a disease which produces skin changes and can lead to blindness. It is limited in area by its blood-sucking vector. The middle Hawal valley represents a discrete focus of the disease in north-eastern Nigeria. Data on perception were obtained from informal discussion with respondents from hyperendemic, mesoendemic and hypoendemic villages. Their understanding of what constituted onchocerciasis was amazingly accurate and complete, particularly so with informants from the hyperendemic villages. A spiritual interpretation for separate symptoms of the disease was used toexplain causation; Western information on transmission was not known. The vector of onchocerciasis,Simulium damnosum was recognised in riverain areas where it exists but not in areas away from the river. Because of onchocerciasis morbidity people outside the riverain zone avoided it for settlement and temporary farms, and women shunned marriage with men from the area. Similar feelings about morbidity were voiced by people living in the riverain zone some of whom wished to move out. The problems caused by onchocerciasis are potentiated by remoteness for which the disease itself is largely responsible. During the 1970s the more remote settlements have become slightly smaller. Attitudes of people in the middle Hawal valley shape the future for the riverain zone where onchocerciasis is hyperendemic. Prospects would not seem to be rosy for remoter areas where the disease and its consequences are seen to be serious.     

On the expulsion of rural inmigrants from Greater Khartoum — the example of the Dinka in Suq el Markazi

The magnitude of housing demand and the inadequacy of public housing in most cities of the Third World have led to the emergence of types of housing which, while having different names, are classified as squatter settlements. In Khartoum, the expansion of squatter settlements has mainly been due to political processes that resulted in dramatic urban needs generated by uneven development, widespread migration, demographic growth and income inequalities. In the recent years, however, rural recession, civil war, drought, floods and famine combined to turn the Sudanese capital city into a reception centre for a considerable number of displaced people from areas affected. Here the bulk of the displaced persons found accommodation in huts that they built themselves. The government responded to such a situation by embarking on a large scale deportation programme. Attempts to bargain, resist, or to cope with the political system, on the part of the displaced people, proved to be in vain. Available estimates suggest that at least two thirds of the two or more million migrants who moved to Khartoum during the last sixteen years, have now been forcibly driven back to rural areas.     

Cultural change and the chances of reintegration after remigration to home areas — the case of the southern Sudanese dislocated population in Greater Khartoum

About three million indigenous southern Sudanese have been dislocated as a result of the civil war which has been going on since 1955, with an interruption of only eleven years. The 1.5 million dislocated southern Sudanese in Khartoum are currently suffering from hunger and religious, social, political and economic discrimination. This paper argues, however, that a considerable number of them would prefer to keep living in the North, when the civil war comes to an end. After many years of separation from the South, it will be difficult, especially for those who came as young children to Khartoum, to reintegrate into the completely different environment of a war-wrecked South.     

The responses of different ethnic groups in the Sudan to rural-urban migration

The ethnic identities of the various population groups in the Sudan are a product of their specific natural and social environments. The migration of these groups to the towns, especially to Greater Khartoum, involves a drastic change of cultural norms and values. However, the capability of change and the subsequent results are strongly conditioned by the specific background of each ethnic group and by the conditions in its area of origin. This is being proved by a comparative study on three ethnic groups in the Sudan: the Nuba, the Zaghawa and the Hadandawa.     

Modernization of the migrant women in Dhaka,Bangladesh: analysis of some demographic variables

The author analyzes the demographic variables as signes of urban adaptation and modernization by poor females as a result of the influence of rural-urban migration. The migrant females show their ability and change or modify their rural values in terms of various demographic issues by living in the urban areas. They are able to modernize themselves by adopting new knowledge and can develop individual thinking against the traditional values as well as maintaining some traditions in the city. They develop practical ideas and self-consciousness with respect to life and family.     

Women's migration and quality of life in Turkey

Turkey's urban growth has been unprecedented for the last two decades with women playing an increasingly substantial role in its development. In this context, we examine determinants of women's migration and quality of life in cities in 1990 (the most recent published census of Turkey) and onwards. Factor analysis of provincial data identified three quality of life dimensions: affluence, deprivation, and housing. Substantial disparities in quality of life indices exist between men and women, urban and rural milieu, and geographic regions. Migrants, especially women, still tend to move with their families but they prefer provinces with high scores on (relative) urban affluence and avoid deprived, rural provinces. Thus Istanbul, Ankara, and southern coastal provinces are preferred destinations. Policy implications for urban growth, regional development, and gender equality relative to migration are discussed.     

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.     

Does the Internet encourage people to move? Investigating Swedish young adults’ internal migration experiences and plans

The Internet offers personalized and constantly updated information about opportunities and facilities at places far away. It stimulates distant personal contact and interaction via social media. Attention is thus increasingly being paid to the relationships between Internet use and traditional, physical forms of spatial interaction and movement. This paper explores possible associations between Internet use and internal migration, based on a 2009 survey of 750 young adults in Sweden. We explore Internet-based information seeking practices associated with actual migration experiences and with current plans to move to another place. Results indicate that many recent movers believed that the Internet influenced and facilitated their decision to move, and somewhat influenced their choice of destination. Many have also developed Internet-based communication practices that involve plans to migrate in the near future. Results suggest that the Internet reinforces intentions to move for a sizeable group, and also affects their migration motives.     

Singaporeans in China: transnational women elites and the negotiation of gendered identities

The burgeoning literature on transnationalism involving skilled migrants--based largely on the view from the developed world--have generally paid little heed to “elite” women and the reproductive sphere. We argue that women play many roles in elite transnational migration streams and must be given full consideration as part of the “transnational elite.” Attention is given to the way women--both “tied” and “lead” migrants--negotiate gendered identities as they participate in Singapore's regionalisation process, a state-driven initiative to extend the national economy by leveraging on growth in the region. Empirical material for the paper is mainly based on in-depth interviews with married women who were part of a larger project involving interviews with 150 Singaporeans who had lived, or were living, in China. In examining the movements through transnational space between Singapore and China, it is clear that patriarchal norms continue to shape women's understandings of their own identities vis--vis men's. Singapore women who move as accompanying spouses (the majority) find themselves giving up careers to focus on their domestic role in China (in the absence of access to “suitable” paid domestic service), and are not so much “deskilled” but “re-domesticated”. The exceptional few women who ventured into China as entrepreneurs experienced considerable strain holding together geographically separate spheres of productive and reproductive work across the transnational terrain. Both sets of “stories” alert us to the need to include “elite” women--whether accompanying spouses or independent entrepreneurs--in our understanding of “transnational elites.” This will contribute to the urgent task of ensuring that both productive and reproductive work are valorized in equal measure in conceptualizing transnationalism.     

煤中微量元素在土壤环境中的迁移

煤或煤矸石中的微量元素在水等条件作用下发生变化,并从其中析出随水体进入土壤环境中,在土壤环境中发生迁移和富集,其迁移的能力受土壤环境的制约,本文通过对煤的淋溶实验,分析了煤中微量元素在土壤环境迁移的能力,根据对煤矸石堆周转土壤中微量元素的平面上和垂向上的含量变化,研究了微量元素在土壤环境中富集能力及煤中微量元素对土壤环境的影响,为正确评价煤中微量元素在土壤中的环境效应提供依据。     

‘All my hopes and dreams are shattered’: Urbanization and migrancy in an imploding African economy - the case of Zimbabwe

During the 1990s, urban livelihoods in Zimbabwe began to suffer a series of economic stresses, which accelerated in 1997 and then accelerated again, with the inception of fast-track land reform, from 2000. This has reduced urban living standards significantly and devastated real urban income levels. After a discussion of the economic and political parameters of this period, this paper links these to empirical changes in the urban livelihoods and perceptions of urban living standards of recent in-migrants to Harare. This draws on a longitudinal database of four surveys of recent migrants to the city conducted in 1985, 1988, 1994 and 2001. Among a range of qualitative issues explored in these surveys has been the question of migrants’ future plans in relation to their intended length of stay in town. It is shown that migrants have been feeling increasingly negative or unsure about their urban experience since structural adjustment began in the early 1990s, and that these perceptions had greatly strengthened by 2001. By the last survey only a small minority felt they would remain permanently in town and most of the migrants from rural areas felt that their living standards in Harare were either worse than rural living standards, or no better. While Zimbabwe’s current political and economic crisis is exceptional, serious urban poverty is a feature across sub-Saharan African countries and it is argued that this has had a depressing effect on net rural-urban migration rates.     

Missing women: Reflections on the experiences of Swazi migrant women on the Rand, 1920–1970

The migration of Swazi women to the Witwatersrand in the period 1920–1970 marked an era of change in the lives of many Swazi women. Under the constraints of rural impoverishment, many women were forced onto the Swazi labour market, one which had little room for women. By the 1930s the exodus of Swazi women to the Rand had gathered so much momentum, that women quickly became objects of national concern to the British colonial government, Swazi traditional authorities and South African authorities. Their experiences as migrant workers in South Africa have largely gone unnoticed. As African women, they suffered the triple oppression of class, race and gender, and as foreign women were subject to a battery of laws designed to keep foreign Africans out of South Africa. The personal experiences of Swazi women as migrants and workers in South Africa are examined here, using life-history or personal narrative techniques which have considerable potential as a way of recovering hidden histories and reinstating the marginalised as makers of their own past.     

MIGRATION AND ACCUMULATION OF OIL AND GAS ACCORDING TO THE SOURCE-ROCK THEORY

Practically all oil and gas accumulations throughout the world are associated with some extensive productive series which consist of highly permeable rocks containing oil and gas pools, interbedded with shales and marls containing dispersed organic matter. All of the important recent discoveries between the Volga and the Urals were based on the observed association of oil and gas pools with certain lithologic-stratigraphic complexes of the Devonian, Carboniferous, and part of the Permian; although accumulation is related to many diverse Structural zones. Here, the productive series is the source rock as well, for the pelites contain dispersed organic matter including bitumen whose composition is related to the oils.

Where accumulations occur in sediments deposited under oxidizing conditions, factors are sought which favor migration from possible source rocks along faults, unconformities, or surfaces of facies change. For example, in Azerbaidjan and Turkmenistan large oil and gas accumulations in Pliocene continental beds occur along structural zones that allowed migration from underlying, principally Paleogene and Miocene, deposits.

As shales compact, their organic constituents gradually change; the coaly part from a ligniferous to a carboniferous stage and, ultimately, to graphite. The mobile bituminous substances formed by dissociation of organic matter and disproportioning of hydrogen, change from asphaltines and resins to oils and then to methane in the subcapillary pores of pelites, where they are in a dispersed, loosely bound state. Compaction causes slow removal of the loosely bound water and molecular migration with differentiation of the bituminous substances. After differentiation, the more mobile hydrocarbons are carried by the water into reservoir rocks. The bituminous substances move from small to large pores also by capillary forces. Migration in subcapillary pores apparently ceases when rocks become lithified and are no longer plastic.

In the super-capillary pores and fissures of reservoir rock, free migration takes place as both molecular migration and movement in larger masses. Water circulates in reservoir beds from elevated areas of the outcrop toward lower discharge areas. When the hydrocarbon-bearing water moves into different environments of temperature and pressure, the hydrocarbons may come out of solution, rise to the top of the carrier-beds, and unite into oil and gas pools if traps are available. The location of oil and gas reflects the present equilibrium of fluids with the structural pattern and hydrogeological environment. --D. C. Van Siclen.     

Journeys to the street: the complex migration geographies of Ugandan street children

Children have generally been afforded little attention in migration research or unsatisfactorily included within family migration. Although they are an important consideration in family decisions to move, children also engage in autonomous, independent migration. Further, researchers now argue for the need to situate migration within political, economic and social conditions to obtain a full understanding of why people migrate. Through the use of children-centred research methods, and in-depth interviews with key informants, this paper considers children's journeys to the street in Uganda. By integrating an analysis of Ugandan street children's spatial origins with the familial and societal contexts of their migration decisions, this research highlights the complexity of their migration. In addition, an exploration of the impact of changing social, spatial and temporal conditions on street children's movements illustrates that their journeys are far more than just single processes.