Migration: Diversifying transnational flows under neoliberal transformation

2021 ◽  
pp. 026858092110053
Author(s):  
Akihiro Koido
Keyword(s):  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Control Policy ◽  
Transnational Migration ◽  
Human Movement ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Transnational Networks ◽  
Migrant Labor ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Care Workers

Transnational migration to Japan has been developing since the 1980s, despite the fact that the Japanese government has officially denied accepting ‘immigrants’ and maintained a rigid immigration control policy over the years. This contradiction produced multiple gates of entry for migrants and led to the fragmentation of transnational networks of human movement. The neoliberal transformation of Japanese labor markets began in the mid-1990s, and migrant labor played a pivotal role in its restructuring. Sociologists have been dedicated to the analysis of the unique structures of the transnational supply chains and the surrounding constellations of interests in each labor market. Researchers have also identified the emergence of diverse ethnic entrepreneurs beyond their ethnic enclaves and across national borders, while other researchers have examined the structural constraints facing highly skilled workers in Japan. Recently, this transnational structure has been extended to include reproductive spheres of labor allowing the incorporation of nurses, care workers, and domestic workers as migrant workers. Beneath the diversity of types of transnational networks, Japanese sociologists have documented the increasing influence of the migration industry in the commercialization of transnational mobilities.

scholarly journals Facebook, Polymedia, Social Capital, and a Digital Family of Indonesian Migrant Domestic Workers: A Case Study of The Voice of Singapore’s Invisible Hands

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-83
Author(s):  
Adriana Rahajeng Mintarsih
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Data Gathering ◽  
Transnational Migration ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Dominant Negative ◽  
Learning Space ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Migrant Domestic Workers

Rarely do female migrant domestic workers (MDWs) get a chance to narrate their own migration experience. Voice of Singapore’s Invisible Hands (or The Voice), which started as a literary community on Facebook, aims to reshape the dominant—negative—discourse on migrant workers, especially Indonesian MDWs, by providing access to their literary work. In a transnational migration setting, Facebook has been used as a tool to maintain people’s relations with their families and friends back home, as well as for making new friends. Connections gained between individuals become a form of social capital where people build social networks and establish norms of reciprocity and a sense of trustworthiness. In the early establishment of The Voice, Facebook helped its initiator gain social capital. Ultimately, this social capital benefts the community and its members. Over the course of The Voice’s development, other social media platforms, namely WhatsApp, Skype, and email, have been used in addition to Facebook because they offer a different set of features and affordances of privacy and frequency. This practice of switching from one media to another is an illustration of polymedia, in which all media operate as an integrated structure and each is defned in relation to other media. This study, which focused on the relation of Facebook, polymedia, and social capital in the context of The Voice, used integrated online and offine qualitative data-gathering methodologies. The study found that Facebook initially helped both the community, which began as a learning space for Indonesian MDWs who wanted to narrate their stories about their home and family, and its members in their efforts to reshape the negative dominant discourse on migrant workers. It was the affordances of polymedia, however, that paved the way for the formation later on of a digital family in which the members provide emotional support for each other, similar to what family and close friends do.

Multi-ethnic Macao: from global village to migrant metropolis

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-160
Author(s):  
Cathryn H. Clayton
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Transnational Migration ◽  
Migrant Labor ◽  
Global Village ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Global Engagement ◽  
Ethnic Category ◽  
Policy Statements

Purpose In the past 20 years, Macao has experienced phenomenal economic growth driven by the liberalization of its casino sector. This growth has been enabled by massive influxes of foreign capital and migrant labor that have dramatically altered the city’s ethnic landscape. In this paper, the author examines the demographic changes Macao has experienced as a result of the casino boom, and situates the city’s current economic growth and ethnic diversification within its long history as a multi-ethnic city. Design/methodology/approach Building on Nancy Foner’s notion of “contexts of settlement,” the study draws on census materials, policy statements, newspaper articles and ethnographic materials to examine how changing ideologies of globalization help shape the categories through which ethnic diversity itself is conceptualized. Findings The paper has three main findings. First, despite the Macao government’s multicultural rhetoric, its labor and residency policies that prevent migrant workers from settling in Macao may paradoxically serve to maintain the ethnic status quo ante. Second, the new contexts of settlement engendered by Macao’s casino globalization may be amplifying fissures within the ethnic category “Chinese.” And third, discourses of globalization, regulations on immigration, and classificatory systems governing ethnic diversity that were instituted under Portuguese rule have both helped shape these new contexts and been reworked in the process. Originality/value As the processes of urbanization, economic integration and transnational migration continue to accelerate throughout East Asia, the goal of creating inclusive, equitable multi-ethnic urban societies will require closer examination of the relationship between particular modes and ideologies of “global” engagement, patterns of and policies toward migration and the concepts and categories through which diversity is measured. This approach to understanding multi-ethnic Macao may serve as an example.

Visible Bodies, Invisible Work: State Practices toward Migrant Women Domestic Workers in Malaysia

2003 ◽  
Vol 12 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 49-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine B.N. Chin
Keyword(s):  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Labor Migration ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Migrant Labor ◽  
Labor Rights ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
Alternative Strategies ◽  
Invisible Work ◽  
State Involvement

The changing characteristics of labor migration in Asia today elicit an important question regarding the nature and consequences of state involvement in the entry and employment of low wage migrant workers. This paper offers an analysis of the labor-receiving state's practices toward migrant women domestic workers in Malaysia. I ascertain that the exercise of a particular kind of state power as evinced from policies and legislation, consistently make visible migrant womens' presence in society even as their labor in households is rendered invisible. A key consequence of this is the fragmentation of public support for migrant workers, and the contraction of what can be considered legitimate space for Malaysian NGO advocacy on migrant labor rights. To counteract this, some NGOs have adopted alternative strategies and targets that begin to reveal the possibility for constructing alternative forms of governance.

Legal Construction of Structures of Exploitation

2018 ◽  
pp. 188-204
Author(s):  
Virginia Mantouvalou
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Alternative Conception ◽  
Unfair Advantage ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
The Law

This chapter argues that the prevailing understanding of workers’ exploitation in law and policy is unjustifiably narrow, and that the concept should not be confined to slavery, servitude, and forced and compulsory labour, nor should it be linked to criminalisation alone. Looking at the concept of exploitation in political philosophy, it advances an alternative conception. The literature analyses exploitation as taking unfair advantage of someone or taking unfair advantage of someone’s vulnerability, and develops opportunistic and structural accounts of exploitation. The focus of this chapter then turns to the role of the law. Building primarily on structural accounts, it examines exploitation that consists in a special vulnerability created by law and the taking advantage of the vulnerability by violating workers’ rights or other human rights. It considers four examples of groups of workers who are in this position: migrant workers, domestic workers, prison workers, and care workers in zero-hours contracts. The chapter suggests that it is not only private employers who have to be held accountable for exploitation, but also state authorities themselves.

Employers, Recruiters, and Workers

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Martin
Keyword(s):  
Willingness To Pay ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Foreign Earnings ◽  
Work Abroad ◽  
Skilled Migrant

Low-skilled migrant workers often pay high fees to work abroad, which reduces the remittances they can send to their families and is regressive because low-skilled workers pay more than high-skilled workers. No one knows exactly how much workers pay, justifying more data on this in order to reduce worker-paid costs. Media exposés of workers who paid a year’s foreign earnings to get a two-year contract may leave the impression that all workers pay such high fees, although the data collected from workers in diverse corridors do not support such a conclusion. Since the number of low-skilled workers often exceeds the number of jobs, worker willingness to pay can be a way of allocating scarce jobs among workers, although government efforts to limit what workers pay can drive payments underground.

The ILO and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration: labour migration, decent work and implementation of the Compact with specific reference to the Arab states region

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 304-320
Author(s):  
Ryszard Cholewinski
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Labour Migration ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
International Labour Organization ◽  
Decent Work ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Global Compact ◽  
Governance Challenges ◽  
Arab States

AbstractThis paper explores the role played by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in the consultations and stocktaking during 2017 and the negotiations during 2018 leading up to the adoption of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM). It examines selected parts of the text of the GCM, with particular reference to the ILO's mandate of securing social justice and decent work, as well as the protection of migrant workers and governance of labour migration. The final part of the paper looks ahead to the ILO's role in the implementation of the GCM, with specific reference to the Arab states region, where migration for employment is significant and the governance challenges, particularly in relation to the protection of low-wage and low-skilled workers, are especially acute.

scholarly journals THE ENDURING VULNERABILITY OF MIGRANT DOMESTIC WORKERS IN EUROPE

2013 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 599-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clíodhna Murphy
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Employment Law ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Regulatory Frameworks ◽  
Labour Standards ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Migration Law ◽  
Migrant Domestic Workers

AbstractWhile the rights of domestic workers are expanding in international law, including through the adoption of the ILO Domestic Workers Convention in 2011, migrant domestic workers remain particularly vulnerable to employment-related abuse and exploitation. This article explores the intersection of the employment law and migration law regimes applicable to migrant domestic workers in the United Kingdom, France and Ireland. The article suggests that the precarious immigration status of many migrant domestic workers renders employment protections, such as they exist in each jurisdiction, largely illusory in practice for this group of workers. The labour standards contained in the Domestic Workers Convention, together with the recommendations of the UN Committee on Migrant Workers on the features of an appropriate immigration regime for migrant domestic workers, are identified as providing an alternative normative model for national regulatory frameworks.

Quiet struggles: Migrant farmworkers, informal labor, and everyday resistance in Canada

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 141-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Cohen ◽  
Elise Hjalmarson
Keyword(s):  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Migrant Labor ◽  
Migrant Farmworkers ◽  
Agricultural Worker ◽  
Informal Labor ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Community Organizers ◽  
Strict Regulation ◽  
Everyday Resistance

Utilizing James C. Scott’s germinal concept of everyday resistance, we examine the subtle, daily acts of resistance carried out by Mexican and Jamaican migrant farmworkers in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia. We argue that despite finding themselves in situations of formidable constraint, migrant farmworkers utilize a variety of “weapons of the weak” that undermine the strict regulation of their employment by employers and state authorities. We also argue that everyday forms of resistance are important political acts and as such, they warrant inclusion in scholarly examinations. Indeed, by reading these methods neither as “real” resistance nor as political, we risk reproducing the same systems of power that de-legitimize the actions, agency, and political consciousness of subaltern and oppressed peoples. After a brief discussion on the concept of everyday resistance, we provide an overview of Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP), establishing the conditions that drive migrant workers to resist and drawing connections between the regulatory framework of the SAWP, the informality of the agricultural sector, and migrant labor. Finally, we examine specific instances of resistance that we documented over 3 recent years through ethnographic fieldwork and as community organizers with a grassroots migrant justice organization. We assert the importance of situating migrants’ everyday acts of resistance at the center of conceptualizations of the broader movement for migrant justice in Canada and worldwide.

Running for Korea: Rethinking of sport migration and in/flexible citizenship

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yeomi Choi
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Transnational Migration ◽  
Human Migration ◽  
Critical Race Studies ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Territorial State ◽  
Racial Domination

Human migration is one of the defining features of a transnational age. Challenging the conventional knowledge that identity and citizenship are connected to one territorial state, both migrant and repositioned subjects create a new understanding of identity, belonging, and citizenship within multiple transnational connectivities. Sport particularly produces a new version of belonging referred to as flexible citizenship, including various kinds of skilled workers crossing national borders. In the process of migration, governments play a crucial and a decisive role by determining permission via specific legislation enactment; South Korea’s immigration policy, Special Naturalization, is a notable example. Despite the legally encouraged mobility that favors flexible citizenship by state power, this repositioning is regulated and limited by the intricate socio-political logics of race, class, and national identity. Focusing on the controversial issues of the Kenyan-born marathoner Wilson Loyanae Erupe and his bid for Korean citizenship, this study critically examines the tensions surrounding sport migration, flexible citizenship, race, and nationalism. Drawing on the theoretical ideas of critical race studies, specifically, it queries the conflicting encounters of transnational migration and being a Korean citizen to illuminate the structures of racial domination in Korea often seen as a racially and ethnically homogeneous society.

scholarly journals PERLINDUNGAN HUKUM PEKERJA MIGRAN PENATA LAKSANA RUMAH TANGGA (PLRT) DI LUAR NEGERI OLEH NEGARA DITINJAU DARI KONSEP TANGGUNG JAWAB NEGARA

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Koesrianti
Keyword(s):  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Domestic Work ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
Vulnerable Group ◽  
Unfair Treatment ◽  
National Jurisdiction ◽  
The Government ◽  
Migrant Domestic Workers

<p align="center"><strong><em>Abstract</em></strong></p><p><em>This research discusses the legal protection of migrant workers, especially, women migrant domestic workers. Due to the nature and characteristic of domestic work, the migrant domestic workers are subject to violence, abuses, discrimination and unfair treatment when they are in destination countries. The most vulnerable group among migrant workers is women migrant domestic workers because they are women. Accordingly, the government and the stakeholders should give protection to the women migrant domestic workers regardless their status (legal or illegal) as they are stay beyond national jurisdiction of sending state.</em></p><p><strong><em>Keywords: </em></strong><em>legal protection, Migrant workers, domestic, state responsibility.</em></p><p align="center"><strong>Abstrak</strong></p><p>Penelitian ini mengkaji bentuk-bentuk perlindungan hukum yang diberikan kepada pekerja migran PLRT di luar negeri. Pekerja migran PLRT karena karakteristiknya merupakan kelompok yang sangat rentan terhadap perlakuan <em>abuse</em>, diskriminatif, dan ketidak-adilan ketika bekerja di luar negeri. Kelompok paling rentan diantara pekerja migrant adalah TKW PLRT karena keperempuannya. Konsep tanggung jawab Negara mengharuskan pemerintah memberikan perlindungan kepada TKI terlepas dari status mereka, baik legal atau illegal karena mereka berada diluar yurisdiksi Negara pengirim</p><p><strong>Kata Kunci: </strong>Perlindungan hukum, TKI, PLRT, Tanggung Jawab Negara.</p>

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