New Journal Articles on Refugee Issues (weekly)

• Free World? The Campaign to Save the World’s Refugees: 1956–1963. By Peter Gatrell.

  “Peter Gatrell has written a fine book which recounts and details a little remembered period of the history of humanitarian assistance to refugees some 50 years ago. The book opens with a description of the first major Cold War refugee crisis, which occurred during the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. The outpouring of Hungarian refugees to Austria and the former Yugoslavia resonated loudly among Western publics, leading the UN, governments, voluntary agencies and churches to respond quickly to the crisis. Within 12 months some 170,000 of these refugees were resettled throughout the world. The international response to the Hungarian crisis not only demonstrated for the first time how quickly governments could respond to a major refugee crisis but also showed that public opinion, NGOs and churches had a vital role to play. Perhaps even more significant was the fact that the Hungarian refugee crisis made … “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Transitions in Gender Ratios among International Migrants, 1820–1930

  “This article uses international migration flow (entry and exit) data as compiled by Walter Willcox and Imre Ferenczi (1970 [1929]) for the years between 1820 and 1924 to discuss the timing and cause of a transition in gender ratios—from male-dominated to gender-balanced—among international migrants. The article compares gender ratios for international migrants at the national, regional, and global levels and identifies when and how migration patterns to the United States resembled those to other parts of the world. Historical variations in gender ratios were considerable enough to render problematic the frequently used label “male-dominated” when applied to past migrations. The article discusses past cases of gender-balanced and female-predominant migrations and proposes an alternative typology for distinguishing among differently gendered international migrations. While some scholarly and popular sources depict the feminization of international migration as a recent phenomenon, historical data suggest that the convergence toward gender-balanced migrations began in the first half of the twentieth century. The article concludes by addressing contemporary debates over globalization and migration and cautions scholars against equating increased female mobility with egalitarian gender relations. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Transnational activities and aspirations of irregular migrants in Belgium and the Netherlands – VAN MEETEREN – 2012 – Global Networks – Wiley Online Library

  “The literature on immigrant transnationalism and on irregular immigration suggests irregular migrants engage relatively little in transnational activities because of the obstacles associated with their legal and economic statuses. Drawing on participant observation and in-depth interviews with a diverse population of irregular migrants in Belgium and the Netherlands, however, I shall demonstrate in this article that irregular migrants do indeed engage in various transnational activities. Moreover, I argue that a focus on aspirations helps to understand why irregular migrants either do or do not engage in specific transnational activities. Distinguishing between investment, settlement and legalization aspirations, I analyse whether and for what reasons irregular migrants carry out economic, social and political transnational activities. I conclude that future research on transnationalism and on the incorporation of irregular and regular migrants alike could benefit from contextualizing the agency of migrants by taking their aspirations into account.”

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Project MUSE – Ordinary Refugees: Social Precarity and Soul in 21st Century Japan

  “In the aftermath of the bursting of the Bubble economy in 1991, a turn to more flexible labor since the late 1980s, and the recent disaster (of earthquake/tsunami/nuclear reactor accident) of March 11th, the socioeconomic equilibrium in Japan has been shaken. In contrast to the post-war era of high economic growth when lifelong jobs and a middle-class lifestyle were the norm, today these staples of “good living” have become undermined or unobtainable for more and more Japanese. Not only are more workers irregularly employed (called the “precariat” or precarious proletariat by activist Amamiya Karin), but there are signs of a more pervasive precarity—experienced by more than just the precariat—at the level of an evisceration of social ties, connectedness with others, and a sense of security. Taking the example of “net café refugees”—young working poor who live in net cafés—as paradigmatic of what has been called the “refugeeization” of Japan as a place no longer materially or socially secure for many of its citizens, the essay studies the condition of “social precarity” in post post-war Japan. This is looked at through the lens of affect: not only the state of precarity as it is experienced affectively (as a pain and longing for what still gets assumed to be “ordinary”), but also the affects deployed in practices adopted by the socially disenfranchised and economically precariat to survive. Seeing in these extra-economic networks of survival a glimmer of social change—a recalibration of human life and relationality in a new direction—I consider them to be a biopolitics of life from below, constituting new zones of (post post-Fordist) social possibility for Japan/ese.”

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Leaving (for) home: Understanding return migration from the diaspora.

  “With the upsurge of globalization, economic uncertainty, and political turmoil in many countries comes increased migration, including growing streams of migrants returning from the diaspora. These are groups of people who have lived away from their ancestral territories for generations or even centuries and, due to pressing political, social, economic, or cultural reasons, return to what they deem their traditional home (e.g., Bradatan, Popan, & Melton, 2010; Jasinskaja-Lahti & Yijälä, 2011; Silbereisen, 2008; Tsuda, 2009). These immigrants are typically well acculturated and established in their countries of birth, and yet millions of them have returned to their ethnic homelands (see Tsuda, 2009). Moreover, along with the typical strains associated with immigration, these groups must navigate the competing interests of self, home country, and host country in an ethnic homeland that in all actuality may be quite foreign to them. There are major issues that complicate this particular immigration context—the rights afforded to ethnic returnmigrantsmay be different from rights afforded to citizens born in the country or other immigrant groups, and the host country may have strong desires and expectations of these migrants to easily and quickly acculturate to their new setting. These expectations may be shared by the migrants but may also conflict with their desires to maintain their foreign ethnic identity. As a result, research focusing on the unique, and as of yet understudied (see Jasinskaja-Lahti & Yijälä, 2011; Stefansson, 2004), experiences of immigrants from diaspora populations warrants increased attention, and is thus the focus of this special issue of European Psychologist. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)”

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Young diaspora immigrants’ attitude and behavior toward the host culture: The role of cultural identification.

  “Positive attitudes toward contact with members of the host culture, host-culture language usage, and social relations with natives are frequently used criteria for assessing immigrants’ host-culture participation. Precursors of these criteria are, however, rarely studied, especially from a longitudinal perspective. We expected that a strong identification with the host culture or the culture of origin would be associated with higher or lower host-culture participation, respectively, and were able to test these assumptions longitudinally. Study 1 utilized a sample of 376 ethnic German adolescents who had repatriated from Russia to Germany. Over four annual waves, the adolescents reported their identification with being “German” and “Russian,” their attitude toward host-culture contact, frequency of host-culture language usage, and the share of natives in their peer network. Growth curve modeling revealed that level and change of identification with being “German” related positively to level and change of host-culture participation, whereas level and change of “Russian” identification related negatively. Study 2 utilized a sample of 549 Russian-Jewish immigrants to Israel, who reported identification at Wave 1 and host-culture participation in three annual assessments. Results basically resembled those of Study 1. Findings from both studies underscore the importance of cultural identification for immigrants’ successful acculturation into the host culture. However, results also revealed between-country differences with regard to level of cultural identification and the relation between identification with the host culture and culture of origin. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)”

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Perceptions of discrimination by young diaspora migrants: Individual- and school-level associations among adolescent ethnic German immigrants.

  “Perceived discrimination is a substantial challenge for immigrant youths trying to adapt to a new home. The present study examined the independent and interactive relations between individual- and school-level variables in determining perceptions of discrimination in ethnic German migrant ( Aussiedler) youths from the former Soviet Union. Six hundred forty-three Aussiedler adolescents (M = 15.7 years) from 28 schools across Germany self-reported their orientation toward ingroup relationships, perceived native segregation orientation, and perceived discrimination. Eight hundred fourteen native German adolescents from the same schools reported their negative attitudes about Aussiedler. Natives’ negative attitudes about Aussiedler aggregated by school were used as school-level predictor variable, together with the percentage of Aussiedler students per school. With all variables included in multilevel analyses, the individual-level associations were not significant, but both school-level associations and three cross-level interactions were significant. Aussiedler adolescents reported higher levels of discrimination in schools with higher percentages of Aussiedler students and in schools with more negative attitudes toward Aussiedler. The association between immigrant ingroup orientation and perceived discrimination was stronger in schools with fewer Aussiedler students. The association between perceived native segregation orientation and perceived discrimination was stronger in schools with more Aussiedler students and in schools with more negative attitudes about Aussiedler. The findings indicate the importance of the interaction between individual and contextual variables in understanding the ways in which adolescent immigrants come to perceive discrimination. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved) “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• The Impact of Socially Ir/responsible Resettlement on the Livelihoods of Internally Displaced Persons in Georgia

  “This article is a response to the disappointing results of the policies adopted by the Government of Georgia, aiming to provide a durable housing solution and aspiring to enhance the livelihood opportunities of the population displaced during the territorial conflicts of the early 1990s and 2008. The study finds that while the policies partially provided the displaced with housing and land, they eroded probably their most important asset – labour – by resettling them in remote rural areas, where employment opportunities are scarce, if there are any at all. The article distinguishes between the “new” internally displaced persons from 2008 and the “old” or previous internally displaced persons from the early 1990s. It argues that the Government should not deal with their problems in a “one size fits all” manner, but it should rather tailor resettlement policies to the internally displaced persons’ existing asset-base and their location. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Asylum-Seekers’ Perspectives on Work and Proof of Identity: The Norwegian Experience

  “This article focuses on asylum-seekers’ perspectives on work including the Norwegian policy tightening concerning asylum-seekers’ right to work. The new policy states that asylum-seekers must prove their identity to be granted the right to work. However, beyond this short-term work opportunity, more fundamental factors affect asylum-seekers’ evaluations of their destination country and social practice. Asylum-seekers’ perspectives on work, as well as assessments of whether they should submit identity documents can be viewed in light of their assessment of costs and benefits of various actions. At the same time, asylum-seekers’ choices are characterised by uncertainty, lack of knowledge and very limited possibilities of action including the fact that some asylum-seekers really lack and really cannot produce identity documents. Our focus is directed towards conditions in Norway, but the questions that we address are also indirectly relevant to other Nordic countries. The Norwegian experience is directly relevant to Denmark since Danish authorities are also posing strict identity requirements as a condition for being granted the right to work. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Unaccompanied Children Seeking Asylum in Sweden: Living Conditions from a Child-Centred Perspective

  “The article presents unaccompanied refugee children’s current situation in Sweden from a child-centred perspective. Interviews were conducted with 26 children. A key finding was that the way individuals perceived their situation was highly dependent on the status of their asylum application. In cases where all instances of the Swedish asylum process had been involved, the children described their situation as significantly difficult. At first, the children seemed satisfied with the fact that they had their human rights to housing, food, and support fulfilled. But on closer analysis of the interview answers it was revealed that many of the children’s existences were completely overshadowed by concern for the future and an underlying need of support. They described the asylum process as extremely worrying. Some children were not able to go to school, some felt offended when officials doubted their stories, and several children became sick after having their asylum application rejected. They emphasised that information from the authorities must be clear. Possible improvements in current practices are: continued information from authorities about the asylum case, more therapeutic care, and every day contact with supportive adults and friends. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Illegal Refugees: Competing Policy Ideas and the Rise of the Regime of Deterrence in American Asylum Politics

  “Many authors have commented on the increasing resistance of Western States to accepting large numbers of asylum seekers. However, the literature lacks a coherent theory about the specific mechanisms behind the rise of deterrence policies in individual States. Based on 52 interviews and a media database of 444 articles, I examine the arc of American asylum policy over many decades. I argue that when the Cold War ended, the anti-communist hold on the American asylum programme was loosened, and the early 1990s ushered in a flurry of reforms designed to expand the programme and make the decision-making process more rich and transparent. However, these changes coincided with an asylum boom that placed heavy administrative costs on receiving States just as the power of granting asylum to people in exile lost its strategic geo-political appeal. The regime that eventually developed became closely aligned with the domestic politics of border control, as opposed to either foreign policy concerns or the guidelines of international law. Thus, both institutional and ideological strains led to the sudden demise of the dominant policy-making regime, and made room temporarily for another, only to be quickly trumped by a third – the regime of deterrence. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Armed Conflict in Asylum Law: The “War-Flaw”

  “This article charts the difficulties refugee law – and more widely the legal regime governing international protection – has encountered from the outset in dealing with asylum-related claims by persons fleeing armed conflict. It analyses the origins of the prevailing “exceptionality approach”, which regards such claims as unable to succeed unless they can make out a special case. It explains why its opposite, the “normalcy approach”, equally does not resolve underlying problems.

  The “war-flaw” is seen to consist in the failure of international protection to analyse claims by persons fleeing armed conflict by reference to the correct international law framework. Whilst the development within refugee law of a human rights approach has been a major achievement, its inability to deal effectively with armed conflict-related claims is located in its conspicuous failure, or unwillingness, to recognize that international law regards international humanitarian law as the lex specialis in situations of armed conflict. Curiously, despite the increasing acknowledgment of the complementarity of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by human rights bodies, the human rights paradigm remains stuck trying to analyse such situations exclusively in international human rights law terms. It is argued that this “war flaw” afflicts not only contemporary refugee law but also current human rights jurisprudence dealing with problems of refoulement, and regional protection schemes such as subsidiary protection within the European Union. Tentative suggestions are made as to how the prevailing international human rights law paradigm can be revised to take account of international humanitarian law and as to how the two branches of international law can be applied in tandem. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• UNRWA and the Palestinian Refugees: A History within History

  “It is difficult to conceive a sustainable, long-lasting solution to the Palestinian–Israeli conflict without examining the refugee issue and identifying a just solution to it for both sides. Over time, and beside its emotional dimensions, the refugee issue has been increasingly regarded as a “problem” for the Israeli and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)/Palestinian Authority (PA) leaderships, who have generally taken uncompromising positions. The international stakeholders have been unable to suggest compromises acceptable to the parties concerned. In a recent work, M. Chiller Glaus reviews in detail the juridical debates and the political proposals of the last twenty years and concludes that “there will be no Israeli-Palestinian Peace agreement if the question of refugees remains unresolved, and the question of Palestinian refugees will not be resolved without the concrete prospect for an overall Israeli-Palestinian agreement”.1

  Sometimes depicted as “the original sin” of the Israeli State,2 the displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinian civilians during the 1948 war contradicts the Zionist myth of the right to “a land without people for a people without a land”. Yet, for the Israeli population, the possible return of masses of Palestinian refugees is disconcerting as they view any such return as analogous to the effacement of Israel’s Jewish character.3 Denying, ignoring or sweeping the refugee issue under the rug, therefore, has been the main approach of most Israeli governments since 1948.

  On the Palestinian side, and during the secret Oslo talks, the Fatah leadership accepted not to include United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 194 of 19484 in the Declaration of Principles, signed in September 1993, as a basis for negotiating a final peace agreement with the Israeli government. This decision sparked resentment and opposition among a majority of Palestinian refugees worldwide, who felt their right to return to their … “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Global Governance and International Migration: A Case Study of Trafficking of Human Beings

  “The purpose of this article is to explore the concept of “global governance” and the way it applies to the management of international migration by using trafficking of human beings as a case study. Globalization has altered the scene of world politics. A traditional State-centric view of the world order has been overshadowed by the increasing importance of other actors, including the United Nations, multi-national corporations and non-governmental organizations. Globalization has also altered the dynamics of rule making and their enforcement within the international system, in that not only States but also these non-State actors exercise enormous influence. The concept of global governance acknowledges this as it aims to include all the pertinent actors involved. To illustrate this further, the author will use trafficking of human beings as a case study. Two key principles of global governance are participation and accountability. This article will analyse how these principles are reflected and implemented in the regime dealing with the prevention and suppression of trafficking of human beings. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Refugee Women: Twenty Years On

  “Twenty years ago, refugee women were seldom consulted and their specific needs rarely identified or taken into account. Considerable progress has been made in the interim, although policy developments have far outstripped progress in practice. Over the past 20 years, reproductive health services have become part of key global standards and increasingly practice, refugee women are usually individually registered, they generally receive food rations, and innumerable programmes have been designed and implemented to empower and protect them. Gender-based violence has gone from an invisible issue to multi-faceted prevention and response initiatives. Policy development includes the High Commissioner’s Five Commitments to Refugee Women, the rollout of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ Age, Gender and Diversity Mainstreaming Initiative, the Executive Committee of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ Conclusion on Women and Girls at Risk No. 105 (LVII) 2006, and the recent United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Handbook on the Protection of Women and Girls. As the humanitarian community has broadened its depth of understanding and learning, new needs and issues have arisen. Issues currently on the international agenda to further protect refugee women include: how to effectively engage men; how to operationalize the prevention of gender-based violence; how to tackle the availability of safe access to cooking fuel in humanitarian settings; and how to effectively and safely empower refugee women economically. This article will provide a brief overview of progress over the past 20 years and outline current issues that require further attention. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Journal of International Migration and Integration, Online First™ – SpringerLink

  “This article investigates the impact of economic crises in the early 1970s and 2000s on integration policy frames in Denmark. By the means of a comparative case study of “guest workers” in the 1960s/1970s and labor migrants in 2000s, we identify changes in discourses and policy frames brought on by economic crisis. In the article, we explore policy transformations relating to integration in the light of periods economic upturns and downturns. We analyze and compare the development of policy frames and policy content before, during and after the crises and thereby seek to answer how economic contours affect not only policy-making processes and content but also the social construction of target groups. The fact that Denmark did not have an official policy on integration of the guest workers in the 1960s and 1970s created a different point of departure than in the 2000s where the experience with and policy on integration of immigrant is much more developed. It is therefore also rather striking that many of the mistakes made during the 1960s and 1970s seems to be repeated in the 2000s. The situation of economic upturn and envision of the migration being temporary did, in both cases, lead to little emphasis on integration up until the point of crisis. In the analysis, we find that issues such as religious background, cultural characteristics, and educational levels, position on labor market, language proficiency, housing, and mobility which all pertain to integration are given less attention in times of economic upturn. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Journal of International Migration and Integration, Online First™ – SpringerLink

  “On the basis of the 2002 Ethnic Diversity Survey, we study the role of human and social capital in explaining the personal earnings of foreign born persons working full-time, aged 25–64 years. The income differences associated with given visible minority categories are reduced after controls for human and social capital, but the differences remain significant, especially for men and for all but the Chinese category. Among the human capital factors, education and speaking English or French at home are positively related with earnings, while having the highest degree or diploma from outside of Canada is negative for all groups, although not statistically significant. Among the social capital considerations, trust was associated with higher income, while lack of participation in community organizations was an earnings disadvantage. Counter to expectations, individualization, or weak bonding and weak bridging ties, was associated with higher income, for men and for the other/multiple visible minorities and white immigrants. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Journal of International Migration and Integration, Online First™ – SpringerLink

  “Immigration labor in global cities is often framed in a dichotomy of skilled and nonskilled and explained from different perspective. Based on narratives of skilled immigrants from mainland China in postcolonial Hong Kong, this study shifts the focus of attention from generalized dissimilarities between migrant groups determined by the level of skills to commonalities of experience shaped by the broader social and cultural forces of their spatial, economic and political environments. It points to the importance of “border” in shaping the mode of incorporation of skilled migrants to localities in global city. It shows that skilled mainland immigrants in Hong Kong are deeply embedded in an overarching xin yimin (new immigrants) discourse according to which the Hong Kong–China border distinguishes all mainland immigrants from Hong Kong citizens regardless of the level of skills they possess. This discourse is associated with and defined by the cultural meaning of border between Hong Kong and China produced in the colonial past and reproduced in the postcolonial present. Despite being highly educated and skilled, mainland Chinese professionals experienced countless negotiation of sameness and difference in their everyday encountering localities and making place. The stories presented here ask us to rethink the assumptions informing the analytical distinctions between skilled and non-skilled and call for “unifying” skilled and non-skilled migration in global cities methodologically and theoretically. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Journal of International Migration and Integration, Online First™ – SpringerLink

  “Given urban areas contribute to more than 65 % of India’s gross domestic product (GDP), the sustainability of the rapid 8–9 % GDP growth India has experienced in the last decade, is dependent to a large extent on urban areas. With migration being one of the important factors contributing to the growth of urban population, we attempt to understand whether it is push (out of the rural area) or pull (toward the urban area due to its perceived benefits) which explains migration in India, taking the case of Bangalore, which has one of the largest proportions of in-migrants to total population. An examination of these factors is done using a primary survey of migrants in Bangalore. Using a probit model, we find that the lower the level of education of the migrant, the greater the importance of the push factors whereas with increasing level of education of the migrant, pull factors become more important in migration. Women are more likely to be “pulled” toward urban areas. We find migrants from within Karnataka are “pushed”. This suggests that nonfarm employment opportunities have to be increased, rural infrastructure improved, and the development of small and medium towns encouraged. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Journal of International Migration and Integration, Online First™ – SpringerLink

  “In industrialized societies, a large number of studies have addressed the various patterns of adolescent transitions to adulthood. While most studies on migration have examined aspects of migrants’ integration into host societies, few researches, however, have dealt with the intersection of these two topics—the experiences and problems encountered by immigrant adolescents. This research focuses on the transition to adulthood among sub-Saharan African youth who live in Montreal, Canada. This group is still poorly known in Canada, and the few studies that exist on sub-Saharan Africans in Canada showed that they are among the most discriminated groups socially and economically. Both immigrant youth and their parents/families’ experience a transition to adapt to a new place, and these respective experiences may affect their relationships. Our research objectives are to examine the conditions in which African immigrant adolescents experience their transition to adulthood and to assess whether the gaps between the two perspectives are purely generational or are partly specific to this group. The data are based on qualitative focus group discussions and individual interviews conducted in Montreal in 2005–2007 among first generation immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa and a control group of native Canadians (whose parents were also born in Canada), men and women between age 12 and 18 and young adults aged 18 to 29. Our results show that in all cases the question of becoming responsible, making one’s own decision is central. What varies is the process through which the young people become responsible. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Journal of International Migration and Integration, Online First™ – SpringerLink

  “This article explores Greek Cypriot children’s constructions of Russian and Romanian immigrant women in Cyprus as primarily sexualized “others.” Using both qualitative and qualitative data, the article illustrates how children operate within structural and ideological constraints at the intersection of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality to construct a sense of “self” and “other” in relation to these women and to ultimately contribute to the reproduction of the nation’s moral sense. The presence of these women in Cyprus gives rise to intense anxieties about national identity which is seen as being threatened by the promiscuous and often perceived immoral, sexual encounters between these Eastern European women and Greek Cypriot men. By drawing on the Greek Cypriot cultural ideologies of family, gender, and sexuality within the larger context of interethnic encounters resulting from immigration, children contribute in their own ways to the reproduction of a sense of national identity and moral superiority. The article aims to contribute to the small but emerging literature which considers children to be social actors who are able to reflect on and interpret their own social worlds and construct meaningful identities for themselves. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, Online First™ – SpringerLink

  “The decrease in adolescent birth rates in the United States has been slower among Latinas than among other ethnic/racial groups. Limited research has explored how socioeconomic opportunities influence childbearing among Latina adolescents. We conducted in-depth interviews with 65 pregnant foreign- and US-born Latina women (31 adolescents; 34 adults) in two California counties. We assessed perceived socioeconomic opportunities and examined how family, immigration and acculturation affected the relationships between socioeconomic opportunities and adolescent childbearing. Compared with women who delayed childbearing into adulthood, pregnant adolescents described having few resources for educational and career development and experiencing numerous socioeconomic and social barriers to achieving their goals. Socioeconomic instability and policies limiting access to education influenced childbearing for immigrant adolescents. In contrast, family disintegration tied to poverty figured prominently in US-born adolescents’ childbearing. Limited socioeconomic opportunities may play a large role in persistently high pregnancy rates among Latina adolescents. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Taylor & Francis Online :: “Forbidden Return”: Return Migration in the Age of Restriction – Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies – Volume 10, Issue 2

  “Historically, international migration was a movement of people from overcrowded, resource-poor areas to ones that were underpopulated, had resources, and could put migrants to work. Return or temporary international migration then was basically a survival strategy for rural families that did not have the skills to easily hold year-round jobs in the country of destination. The present period is different; this is an age of restriction. A greater proportion of international return migration is involuntary return migration. It is in the aforementioned contexts that we seek to investigate return and the differential impacts of diverse experiences of returnees in India, Mexico, Guatemala, and Europe. Our findings confirm that we are indeed in a moment of transition in the nature of international migration—more marked in some countries than in others—where it is unlikely to contribute to development in the countries of origin because of the changing nature of their economies—from rural to urban—and is increasingly rejected by the countries of destination. The exceptions will be highly skilled migration, which is attractive to both countries of origin and countries of destination. Thus, return migration and international migration are probably more sharply differentiated in their outcomes by class than they were in the past.”

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Sharpeville: An apartheid massacre and its consequences, by Tom Lodge. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2011. 448 pp. £20.00/$29.95 (hardback). ISBN 978 0 19280 785 2

  “The year 2010 marked the fiftieth anniversary of one of apartheid South Africa’s most infamous atrocities: the Sharpeville massacre. On 21 March 1960, the police opened fire on a group of demonstrators who had gathered peacefully outside Sharpeville police station in response to a nationwide call by the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) to protest against the hated pass system; 67 people died and hundreds more were wounded. Two PAC supporters were also killed by police fire in the African township of Langa, outside Cape Town. The event has since become inscribed in both the country’s collective memory and its historiography as a watershed, a turning point which fundamentally altered the course of South Africa’s history. Tom Lodge’s new book, published fifty-one years after the massacre, revisits this dramatic historical moment. Using oral testimonies from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), interviews with local participants and key PAC leaders (including notes on Sobukwe and other Africanists by Benjamin Pogrund, and transcripts of interviews by Gail Gerhart), government-sponsored commissions of inquiry, trial records, and newspaper reports as well as a wide range of secondary … “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Getting Somalia Wrong? Faith, war and hope in a shattered state, by Mary Harper. London and New York, NY: Zed Books, 2012. 232 pp. £12.99 (paperback). ISBN 978 1 84277 933 0

  “Mary Harper’s book is a very timely account of the major aspects of the protracted Somali crisis. In six chapters plus Introduction and Conclusion, Harper puts across one main argument: Somalia is not entirely failed. There are many aspects of the Somali situation that merit our attention and can be described as hopeful, positive developments. A lot can be learned from ‘the Somali way of doing things’ (p. 2). This contrasts strongly with the negative perspectives on everything Somali that dominate current international politics and popular perceptions. In fact, the word ‘Somalia’ has become a synonym for war, anarchy, terrorism, piracy, and humanitarian disaster, and the country serves as a warning to all others not to go down the road of complete state collapse.

  Chapter 1 on clan and country, and Chapter 2 on history aim to provide the necessary background for readers unfamiliar with Somali affairs. While they go a considerable way toward doing that, these are the book’s weakest chapters. They contain several factual … “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Researching Violence in Africa: Ethical and methodological challenges

  “Reading the introductory chapter to Researching Violence in Africa one immediately starts to reflect critically on one’s own work and its ethical implications. Successfully stimulating such reflections is an obvious quality of a book whose aim is not to set up rules and act as a tools manual, but to prepare researchers in difficult settings to be able to think on their feet (p. 12).

  In a strong introductory chapter the editors raise central ethical and methodological questions and place them in relation to existing literature on methods and ethics in conflict zones. They problematize ethical principles concerning ‘informed consent’ and ‘do no harm’, arguing that in conflict settings these principles must be converted into living tools. Consent can be renegotiated, and settling for the ‘least worst option’ (p. 10) may be the only choice.

  The volume raises important questions concerning self-censorship, and illusions of neutrality and impartiality during and after fieldwork. A central contribution of the book is the …”

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous: Postcolonial politics in a neoliberal world

  “Dorothy Hodgson’s new book sets out an ethnography of political and civil society organizations among Maasai in northern Tanzania. She documents the emergence of Maasai NGOs from the 1980s onwards, triggered by spiralling land loss and impoverishment in Tanzanian rangelands. She charts the proliferation of these organizations, their varied natures, and the challenges they have faced. Those challenges have been both internal (organizational structures, capacity, governance issues, unclear mandates) and external (fragile legitimacy among their own constituencies; upward accountability to donors with diverging agendas; a state unwilling to recognize the economic and ecological contributions of mobile, transhumant livestock production and unsympathetic to socio-cultural differences). All these issues are complicated by the ceaseless need to jockey for position and scramble for funds, and by deep internal ambivalence over, for example, gender and age-set relations, and how these should inform organizational structure and priorities. Hodgson follows the struggles of these organizations to become functional and to achieve legitimacy in the eyes of their own constituencies, a reluctant state, … “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Advancing Feminist Positioning in the Field of Transitional Justice

  “

  Advancing Feminist Positioning in the Field of Transitional Justice

  Fionnuala Ní Aoláin*

  + Author Affiliations

  * Dorsey and Whitney Chair in Law, University of Minnesota Law School, USA; Professor of Law, Transitional Justice Institute, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. Email: niaol002@umn.edu

  Abstract1

  This article contributes to an ongoing conversation among feminist scholars about what constitutes feminist positioning with regard to the central issues that define transitions from conflict or repression towards more liberal polities. The analysis suggests that the feminist presence in transitional justice is complex, multilayered and still in the process of full engagement. Concentrating on the genealogy of this presence, the article reflects on what are commonly invoked scholarly and policy reference points, showing how little gender analysis and women’s issues entered into the discursive fray in the public and political arenas where the terminology of accountability emerged. The challenge in assessing feminist positioning is that an uncritical and narrowly liberal conception of gender equality directs our gaze away from the cultural, material and geopolitical sites in which transitional justice practices have emerged. The article explores the connections between transitional justice and identification of harms done to women, the importance of acknowledging these harms and the need to centre discussions of agency and autonomy in feminist approaches to structural political change in deeply divided societies. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Can Civil Society Reclaim Truth? Results from a Community-Based Truth and Reconciliation Commission

  “The Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission (GTRC) was a grassroots initiative with no state sanction, organized and supported solely by civil society. Its purpose was to discover and disseminate the truth about a racially motivated shooting by members of the Ku Klux Klan in 1979. This article asks whether such an initiative can succeed in seeking the truth in the same way that a formal transitional justice measure would. It reviews how the GTRC originated from civil society, how it was funded and its truth-seeking mandate, and presents data from qualitative interviews with victims of the shooting who participated in the GTRC. The article demonstrates how the GTRC faced significant obstacles to truth seeking, including lack of participation from many perpetrators, local government and law enforcement and lack of engagement from a wider segment of Greensboro. Nonetheless, the GTRC stands as an example of participatory democracy and of how civil society can accomplish truth seeking despite government resistance. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Labour Mobility and the WTO: The Limits of GATS Mode 4 – Dawson – 2012 – International Migration – Wiley Online Library

  “This paper explores the development of the labour mobility provisions within the multilateral GATT–WTO system in parallel with smaller regional and bilateral agreements. Because expanded labour mobility provisions have failed to generate a critical mass of support within the WTO, it is argued that developing countries seeking market access for lower-skilled workers are better off seeking alternative venues, even though this is a more costly strategy. At the same time, it is useful for states to continue labour mobility negotiations within the WTO system because the regime serves as an important forum for the negotiation of common administrative processes and definitions. Multilateral efforts to increase transparency and reduced administrative costs will not only help to improve effective market access for commitments already in place, but will increase confidence in the ability of the WTO system to contribute to the management of global labour mobility.”

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Repatriation and Integration of Liberian Refugees from Ghana: the Importance of Personal Networks in the Country of Origin

  “This article examines the issues regarding the integration of Liberian refugees upon repatriation after their protracted exile in Ghana by means of in-depth case studies. Despite having obtained the same durable solution, the results of their return were mixed. Upon their arrival in Liberia, some settled in with relatively little stress whilst others confronted a series of daunting hardships. The process of integration experienced by these returnees, including the construction of new livelihoods, was largely influenced by their resource conditions in Liberia. In particular, their level of access to influential personal contacts in Liberia played a principal role in determining the degree of their integration. The article highlights the highly selective nature of repatriation and integration, which is largely contingent upon the extent and quality of returnees’ individual resource networks in the country of origin. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Borders Transformed: Sovereign Concerns, Population Movements and the Making of Territorial Frontiers in Hong Kong, 1949–1967

  “Borders play a critical role in shaping our understanding of refugees. Under the modern refugee regime, people must move across international borders to obtain asylum. Borders are increasingly identified as sites of contestation; this article explores how refugees are fundamentally constitutive of modern borders regimes as states react to the movement of people with a variety of exclusionary mechanisms that, in turn, affect how those in motion are perceived. The evolving politics surrounding territorial borders between Hong Kong and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from 1949 to 1967 illustrate how closing borders in the face of migrant mobility affected contemporary conceptions of refugees and the related possibility of obtaining refugee status. These critical years, spanning the victory of the Chinese Communist Party and the spread of the Cultural Revolution to Hong Kong, saw major shifts in the government of Hong Kong’s approach to its borders with the PRC. As a result of controls introduced by British colonial authorities, Hong Kong’s border zones changed from historically open spaces of free movement to highly restrictive and militarized barriers. At the same time, the possibility of refugeehood for migrants from the PRC vanished almost entirely. The impact of border controls imposed by colonial authorities in Hong Kong was so great that the fluid nature of migration into the colony was lost in discussions of sovereignty and illegality that sought to categorize migrants into distinct streams for the purpose of inhibiting entry. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Realizing One’s Rights under the 1951 Convention 60 Years On: A Review of Practical Constraints on Accessing Protection in Europe

  “Sixty years after the signing of the Geneva Convention, not all refugees are able to access the protection promised, even in signatory States. In this article, the authors outline the different constraints preventing refugees from accessing asylum in one European Union Member State. These constraints are the difficulty asylum seekers have in entering Greek territory, their difficulties entering the Greek asylum system and finally, problems with the asylum system itself. They further argue that such constraints are not unique to Greece. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• A New Path Forward: Researching and Reflecting on Forced Displacement and Resettlement

  “Forced displacement by development projects is occurring around the world at increasing rates. While some institutions have adopted detailed policies to guide resettlement efforts post-displacement, those forcibly displaced by development projects continue to experience intense impoverishment and increased marginalization. Looking to develop new pathways forward to mitigate the negative impacts of development-caused forced displacement and resettlement, resettlement researchers and practitioners met for a conference in the Hague in October 2010. The conference interrogated current involuntary resettlement policies, examined the pitfalls and gaps between policy theories and implementation and began to develop a new framework for displacement and resettlement research, in which imposed development-caused displacement is analysed through the lens of both social justice and human rights. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Social Technology and Refugee Encampment in Kenya

  “This article seeks to contribute towards a conceptual understanding of refugee camp administration in Kenya. Focusing on Kenya’s policy of encampment epitomized by Kakuma and Dadaab Refugee Camps, the article argues that encampment is a form of social technology whose rationale is containment of refugees in line with Kenya’s non-integration refugee policy. The term ‘social technology’ is increasingly understood in the contemporary ‘cyber’ age in terms of communication technology and how it shapes human interaction and relationships in ways not previously envisaged. In this article, the concept is deployed to capture strategies of refugee management and containment through mechanisms that are overt and physical as well as covert, ideological and psychological. However, social technology is not transcendental and its effectiveness is mediated by refugee agency. The very structure of and rationale for encampment prompt resistance by which techniques of control become social not only in terms of how they contain refugees but also in terms of how refugee actions counteract them. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Towards Transformative Participation: Collaborative Research with ‘Urban IDPs’ in Uganda

  “‘Urban internally displaced persons’ is a contested category in Uganda. Both international and national definitions of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) include, in principle, persons displaced by conflict and dwelling in urban areas. However, existing assistance and protection practices have transformed the IDP label, effectively restricting its application to people residing in IDP camps. Displaced people living in urban areas are perceived either as economic migrants or as former IDPs who have reached a durable solution. This article analyses the process, outcomes and challenges of a collaborative research project between forced migrants, the Refugee Law Project (a national organization), and researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). The joint goal of the researchers and urban IDP representatives in the research project was to promote the inclusion of urban IDPs in the IDP label by revealing the political and bureaucratic institutional agency at work in the processes of labelling. This article seeks to demonstrate how such collaborative action research may lead to strengthening the knowledge base regarding forced migration in urban areas, mobilizing communities for advocacy, and influencing the formation of humanitarian categories. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• A Case Study of Political Failure in a Refugee Camp

  “This article analyses political breakdown in a refugee camp with a case study of the Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana. The analysis focuses on a series of social protests by Liberian refugees that prompted the intervention of host police and ended with the hostile repatriation of thousands of people back to Liberia. I argue that the transformation of the social protests into ‘criminal acts’ subject to police action constituted a political breakdown, and highlight three institutional bases for this: inadequate grievance practices, poor communications systems, and constricted durable solutions policymaking. The analysis is based on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Ghana (March–April 2006; September 2007–August 2008; June–July 2011) and research in the online archives of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Household Economy and Livelihoods among Iraqi Refugees in Syria

  “According to current estimates, Syria hosts the largest number of Iraqi refugees in the region. This study aimed to provide information on the household economy and livelihoods among Iraqi refugees residing in urban areas of Syria. A nationally representative 80 × 10 cluster survey of Iraqi refugee households (total n = 800) was conducted in March 2009. Overall, 69 per cent of households reported having financial difficulties; 14 per cent fell below the poverty line of US$1/person/day and 41 per cent were living on less than US$2/person/day. High levels of dependency on remittances, pensions, and UN support were observed. Nearly 40 per cent of households reported an employed member, of whom 58 per cent reported workplace difficulties. Uncertain legal status and inability to work in the formal sector are principal concerns among the Iraqi population in Syria. Humanitarian assistance planners should consider livelihoods and cash transfer programmes that promote income generation and reduce dependency on savings and other outside sources. “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Dual Disasters: Humanitarian Aid After the 2004 Tsunami. By Jennifer Hyndman.

  “The 2004 Asian tsunami led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the displacement of millions, overwhelming the governments of the countries affected. Responding to a natural disaster of this magnitude is a severe challenge in itself, but when it intersects with a complex emergency, recovery becomes an even more formidable task. These ‘dual disasters’, as conceptualized by Hyndman, are a unique challenge for practitioners and scholars alike, presenting a complex and sensitive situation to navigate through. Focusing primarily on Sri Lanka and Indonesia, two countries affected both by the tsunami and long-running internal conflicts, Hyndman critically analyses how these dual disasters become interwoven with issues such as international aid, domestic politics and peace processes.

  In the first two chapters, the author clearly lays out the main premise behind dual disasters: natural disasters become even more devastating when they merge with pre-existing vulnerabilities, as demonstrated in Hyndman’s analysis of Sri Lanka’s and Indonesia’s political geographies and conflict history. Disasters, she argues, ‘do not occur in a … “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Dispossession and Displacement: Forced Migration in the Middle East. Edited by Dawn Chatty and Bill Finlayson.

  “As the editors of this excellent interdisciplinary volume note, the Middle East with North Africa is both a major producer and host of refugees, hosting approximately 30 per cent of the world’s refugees (p. 276). A deeper understanding of forced migration in the region is required, especially in order for ‘human security, legal protection, coping, resilience, and resistance’ to better inform policy decisions (p. 13). To this end, the volume is divided into four thematic sections on displacement, repatriation, identity in exile and policy issues. Cutting across these sections, however, are a wealth of interlinked case studies highlighting the underlying complexities of these themes: Iraqi, Afghan, and Palestinian refugees, Turkish settlers in Northern Cyprus, and Sahrawi refugees.

  Four chapters explore diverse aspects of the Afghan refugee experience. Monsutti begins by critiquing the state-centric politics of migration, which conceives ‘rooted-ness’ as the norm, and displacement as an anomaly, with migration ‘a time-bound process’ ending in the ‘more or less successful integration of the migrant in his/her host society or returning to his/her society of origin’ (p. 45–46). Arguing that in many cases the ‘borders between the different … “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Contesting Citizenship: Irregular Migrants and New Frontiers of the Political. By Anne McNevin.

  “A central question in Anne McNevin’s book is how place and space make a difference to political belonging. She examines how contemporary borders and border policing techniques determine the political identities assigned to citizens and irregular migrants. Readers may recognize that this interest in the spatial setting of citizenship regimes has been taken up elsewhere. Indeed, scholars have increasingly shed light on questions of, for instance, the solidification of the state–citizen–foreigner relation of power through criminalizing border crossings, or the rendering of certain members vulnerable to deportation in order to keep the group submissive. Although McNevin’s work complements this … “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Education, Asylum and the ‘Non-Citizen’ Child: the Politics of Compassion and Belonging. By Halleli Pinson, Madeleine Arnot and Mano Candappa.

  “Pinson, Arnot and Candappa offer a conceptually sophisticated and empirically compelling analysis of the experience of asylum-seeking and refugee children in the UK education system. From a sociological perspective, the book has three main aspects: how the UK government’s responses to asylum over the 2000s have affected the education of these children; the ways these responses are ‘expressed, experienced and dealt with through the state education system’ (p. 5), and how, more broadly, the governance of asylum affects the overall politics of schooling in the UK.

  The book is divided into nine substantial chapters plus an introduction and conclusion. Chapter two argues that the governance of forced migration highlights the tension between state-centred citizenship rights and person-centred human rights. The conflicts over priorities between government departments and between central and local authorities are described in detail in the book, drawing on the analysis of policy documents, interviews with central government officials and survey data on the … “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Refugee Law and Policy: A Comparative and International Approach (Fourth edition). By Karen Musalo, Jennifer Moore, and Richard A.

  “In this fourth edition of the casebook, Musalo, Moore, and Boswell devote 14 chapters to discuss the legal principles in refugee law upon which refugee protection hinges in the light of US law, the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. In so doing, it addresses underlying policy considerations, and the impact which global changes over the last two decades have had on these principles.

  The text opens with an overview of the evolution of modern law on refugee protection, tracing its roots to early experiences in providing safety to ‘wayfaring strangers’ via institutions such as ‘ijara’ and ‘aman’ amongst Muslim communities, and ‘sanctuary’ in Judeo-Christian traditions, before turning to the League of Nations which established the first High Commissioner for Russian Refugees, and eventually the United Nations and its 1951 Convention. This aptly reminds the reader that while social, economic, political, and legal factors have changed over the centuries, the central ideals of providing safety and guaranteeing the well-being of … “

  tags: newjournalarticles

• UNHCR: The Politics and Practice of Refugee Protection (Second edition). By Alexander Betts, Gil Loescher and James Milner.

  “This second edition of UNHCR: The Politics and Practice of Refugee Protection is published to coincide with the 60th anniversary year of the 1951 Refugee Convention. The authors tell the stories of the ten High Commissioners for Refugees appointed since the Office’s inception and how they rode the peaks and troughs of refugee and related displacement, tracking UNHCR’s development from a humble low-budget beginning as a temporary organization to a bureaucracy of more than 7,190 staff and a budget of over US$2 billion in 2011. In today’s complicated world of humanitarian protection, Betts, Loescher and Milner explain why it is essential that the 60th anniversary should still herald a time of reflection on the fundamental questions of who to protect and how to protect.

  The book is highly informative, offering a concise political history and key facts and figures that support a solid analysis of UNHCR’s changing roles and responsibilities. The analysis is worth reading and pondering as it provides valuable insights that will be especially important as UNHCR increasingly experiences … “

  tags: newjournalarticles

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.