New Journal Research Articles for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies 01/22/2016

• The underbelly of global security: Sierra Leonean ex-militias in Iraq

  “In the aftermath of the Sierra Leone civil war, demobilized militia soldiers have become an attractive resource to private security companies. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, this article traces the outsourcing of security at American military bases in Iraq to Sierra Leonean ex-militias, facilitated by a British security company and the Sierra Leone government. In doing so, the article contributes to the ongoing scholarly debate on the privatization of security by offering a “local” ethnographically informed perspective on the micro-dynamics of “global” security. It is argued that the supply of global security depends on a form of local immobility: on a population that is “stuck”, yet constantly on the move to seize opportunities for survival and recognition. Structured by a chronological account of the recruitment, deployment, and deportation of Sierra Leonean ex-militias, the article discusses how these former militia soldiers experience being reduced to mere bodies rather than recognized labourers. It concludes that notions of race and slavery are employed by the ex-militias to make sense of their predicaments, but most notably as a moral response to the unequal relationships in which they find themselves embedded, in the context of security outsourcing in a global economy. “

  tags:newjournalarticles

• Optimal immigration policy: permanent, guest-worker, or Mode IV?

  “Abstract: Immigration continues to be on the forefront of the policy debate on both sides of the Atlantic. A number of reforms of permanent and guest-worker (GW) immigration programs are being considered, and the temporary movement of service providers under Mode IV (GATS) is being negotiated at the Doha Round of the WTO. This paper contributes to the debate by examining these programs in a model where the host country government maximises its objective function with respect to three policy instruments: the share of migrants’ deferred income payment, the value of the bond employers must post and forfeit if GWs overstay, and the size of the program. Circular migration and illegal GWs’ status regularisation are considered. The paper shows that: 1) the optimal value of the bond is zero; 2) Mode IV is preferable to GW migration; 3) the optimal policy package consists of Mode IV and permanent migration; 4) incorporating circular migration improves the policy package. Additional policy implications are also provided.”

  tags:newjournalarticles

• Net Migration as a Target for Migration Policies: A Review and Appraisal of the UK Experience – Cangiano – 2016 – International Migration – Wiley Online Library

  “The impact of migration on population growth has become a ubiquitous argument in UK immigration debates, leading to the introduction of immigration restrictions to reduce net migration and prevent the UK population from reaching 70 million. Taking the UK as a case study, this article assesses the rationale for setting a national net migration target as a pivotal point for migration policies and the feasibility of limiting net migration using immigration controls. A framework for analysing the effects of migration policies on net migration is proposed and applied to UK official migration data. The results show that, due to various policy constraints, competing objectives and unintended feedbacks, it is neither optimal nor entirely feasible to prioritize a reduction of net migration as a target for migration policies. Nevertheless, factoring net migration into the migration policy debate provides useful insights on the long-term implications of migration policies in the context of broader demographic changes.”

  tags:newjournalarticles

• Homeland (dis)integrations: Educational Experience, Children and Return Migration to Albania – Vathi – 2016 – International Migration – Wiley Online Library

  “Based on empirical research conducted in Albania, this article reports that educational experience and performance, and hence, integration of the children of (returned) migrants in their parents’ homeland is obstructed by structural factors linked to the educational system. A finding such as this challenges the centrality of an essentialized notion of ethnicity in models of “second generation” integration and evidences the centrality of the nation-state, and the education system as one of its pillars, in the integration of migrants and their children. Comparative integration context theory appears to apply to the integration of children of returned migrants; yet it needs to take into account the mobile lives of migrants and their children, the transnational disjuncture between different educational systems, and the role of locality within the nation-state. Moreover, including children in analyses of integration, in the context of education, calls for the inclusion of life-course and scale in integration theories.”

  tags:newjournalarticles

• The Carolina Gay Association, Oral History, and Coming Out at the University of North Carolina

  “Founded in 1974, the Carolina Gay Association (CGA) was the first gay rights group at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and one of the first in the American South. This article traces the history of the CGA during the 1970s and early 1980s as a predominantly white organization that advocated for gay rights on campus and across the region. It also demonstrates how oral history exposes the many ways people remember their sexuality during their formative years at college. People were not simply out or not—there was a wide spectrum of outness. “

  tags:newjournalarticles

• The post-move satisfaction of internal migrants

  “Research on internal migration within and between countries has been dominated by the search for patterns and causes, and while more attention is being paid to the consequences of such movement, only recently has attention shifted to the migrants’ own appraisal of their move. Most models of migration are predicated on the reasonable assumption that migrants will not move voluntarily unless they believe they are going to be better off. It is a big step, however, to then assume that all or even most migrants end up better off. Outcome measures such as wages and income typically show substantial variation around a positive average improvement and a minority typically result in losses. The relatively new body of literature on post-move satisfaction draws attention to the fact that returns to moving can be measured in subjective as well as objective terms and these two reveal considerable variation as to the success of changing where one lives. In this paper we use a unique survey of individuals moving within New Zealand to model the variation in subjective returns to moves both within and between local labour markets (using the attributes of movers and the moves themselves as arguments). “

  tags:newjournalarticles

• Does identity matter?

  “Motivated by recent debates in the media on multiculturalism and national identities, this paper examines the question of whether identity is just a ‘label’ or whether it matters in affecting outcomes, such as education, employment or political orientation. We begin with an empirical investigation of identity formation, with a focus on parental investment in their child’s identity, and use this to understand the impact of the child’s own identity on own outcomes, a generation later. Our results suggest that identity does not have a significant effect on education, employment and political orientation, thus suggesting that a strong ethnic/ religious minority identity does not constrain the second generation or hamper socio-economic integration. “

  tags:newjournalarticles

• 100 key research questions for the post-2015 development agenda – Oldekop – 2015 – Development Policy Review – Wiley Online Library

  “The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) herald a new phase for international development. This article presents the results of a consultative exercise to collaboratively identify 100 research questions of critical importance for the post-2015 international development agenda. The final shortlist is grouped into nine thematic areas and was selected by 21 representatives of international and non-governmental organisations and consultancies, and 14 academics with diverse disciplinary expertise from an initial pool of 704 questions submitted by 110 organisations based in 34 countries. The shortlist includes questions addressing long-standing problems, new challenges and broader issues related to development policies, practices and institutions. Collectively, these questions are relevant for future development-related research priorities of governmental and non-governmental organisations worldwide and could act as focal points for transdisciplinary research collaborations.”

  tags:newjournalarticles

• Judgement days: moral attitudes in the wake of local disasters – Urbatsch – 2015 – Disasters – Wiley Online Library

  “The deaths and destruction stemming from a disaster are traumatic enough to implicate victims’ beliefs not only about disasters themselves but also about other social and political concerns. In particular, disasters are associated with the scapegoating of out-groups, suggesting that even deep-rooted moral concerns may shift, at least temporarily, after disasters. This study uses exposure to local natural disaster fatalities to examine moral judgements regarding gays1 in United States surveys from 1984–98. Survey respondents whose county has suffered a disaster feel appreciably more negatively towards gays, even though most of the disasters in this data set are relatively small and local. The increased antipathy towards gays dissipates within months, and is most marked among those who had, before the disaster, considered themselves more religious. These results raise the possibility that some groups, especially those already marginalised by society, may suffer in a backlash in the wake of a natural disaster.”

  tags:newjournalarticles

• On the test score gap between Roma and non-Roma students in Hungary and its potential causes – Kertesi – 2015 – Economics of Transition – Wiley Online Library

  Using unique data from Hungary, the gap in reading and mathematics test scores between Roma and non-Roma 8th grade students is assessed and a substantial gap between them revealed. Standardized test scores as well as the fraction of students with competences considered inadequate are examined. Regardless of measurement and subject area, the bulk of the gap is explained by social differences in income, wealth and parental education. Using reduced-form regressions, two major mediating mechanisms are identified: first, on average the home environment of Roma children is less favourable for cognitive development; second, the educational environment of the average Roma student is different from the average non-Roma student. Comparing students with similar home environments from the same school and class, the ethnic gap in test scores is found to be insignificant. Ethnic differences in the home environment are explained by social disparity, and ethnicity seems to play no additional role in that regard. The unequal distribution of Roma students in schools and classes is found to be explained predominantly by social difference, too, with a significant residual portion, indicating the effect of ethnic segregation.

  tags:newjournalarticles

• Children’s rights advocacy as transnational citizenship – HÄKLI – 2015 – Global Networks – Wiley Online Library

  “In this article, we develop conceptual tools for analysing the practices of children’s rights organizations and professionals as transnational citizenship. To this end, we set out to trace a continuum of citizenship practices in which global and local influences and forces enmesh in ways that are difficult to grasp when treated as two separate realms. To theorize the social dynamism and spatial constitution of transnational citizenship as a local–global continuum, we turn to Bourdieu’s field theory. By analysing the Committee on the Rights of the Child’s handling of the Finnish Periodic Report on children’s rights, and how Finnish children’s rights advocates mobilize its recommendations, we show that transnational citizenship in the field of children’s rights is practised not merely ‘out there’ but also ‘right here’. We conclude by discussing what novel insights field theory has to offer to the study of advocacy practices as transnational citizenship.”

  tags:newjournalarticles

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