Cross-Border Research: Retaining Construct Equivalence for Translating a Teacher Observation Measurement

In post-Socialist countries, cross-border labour migration has become a common individual and family livelihood strategy. The paper is based on the analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with two ethnic Hungarian women whose lives have been significantly reshaped by cross-border migration. Focusing on the interplay of gender and cross-border migration, our aim is to reveal how gender roles and boundaries are reinforced and repositioned by labour migration in the post-socialist context where both the socialist dual-earner model and conventional ideas of family and gender roles simultaneously prevail. We found that cross-border migration challenged these women to pursue diverse strategies to balance their roles of breadwinner, wife, and mother responsible for reproductive work. Nevertheless, the boundaries between female and male work or status were neither discursively nor in practice transgressed. Thus, the effect of cross-border migration on altering gender boundaries in post-socialist peripheries is limited.

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Emerging Transnational Practices and Capabilities of Syrian Refugees in Turkey

MIGRATION LETTERS ◽

10.33182/ml.v17i1.852 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 17 (1) ◽

pp. 125-138

Author(s):

Zeynep Sahin Mencütek

Keyword(s):

Legal Status ◽

Country Of Origin ◽

Economic Security ◽

Economic Capital ◽

Diaspora Studies ◽

Cross Border ◽

Global North ◽

Displaced People ◽

The Stability ◽

Transnational Activities

Transnational activities of refugees in the Global North have been long studied, while those of the Global South, which host the majority of displaced people, have not yet received adequate scholarly attention. Drawing from refugee studies, transnationalism and diaspora studies, the article focuses on the emerging transnational practices and capabilities of displaced Syrians in Turkey. Relying on qualitative data drawn from interviews in Şanlıurfa – a border province in south-eastern Turkey that hosts half a million Syrians - the paper demonstrates the variations in the types and intensity of Syrians’ transnational activities and capabilities. It describes the low level of individual engagement of Syrians in terms of communicating with relatives and paying short visits to the hometowns as well as the intentional disassociation of young refugees from homeland politics. At the level of Syrian grassroots organisations, there have been mixed engagement initiatives emerging out of sustained cross-border processes. Syrians with higher economic capital and secured legal status have formed some economic, political, and cultural institutional channels, focusing more on empowerment and solidarity in the receiving country than on plans for advancement in the country of origin. Institutional attempts are not mature enough and can be classified as transnational capabilities, rather than actual activities that allow for applying pressure on the host and home governments. This situation can be attributed to the lack of political and economic security in the receiving country as well as no prospects for the stability in the country of origin. The study also concerns questions about the conceptual debates on the issue of refugee diaspora. Whilst there are clear signs of diaspora formation of the Syrian refugee communities, perhaps it is still premature to term Syrians in Turkey as refugee diaspora.

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Interacting Legal Norms and Cross-Border Divorce: Stories of Filipino Migrant Women in the Netherlands

MIGRATION LETTERS ◽

10.33182/ml.v16i4.669 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 16 (4) ◽

pp. 521-529

Author(s):

Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot

Keyword(s):

The Netherlands ◽

The Philippines ◽

Migrant Women ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Legal Norms ◽

Global Migration ◽

Cross Border ◽

Filipino Women ◽

Transnational Social Spaces ◽

Filipino Migrants

The Philippines is one of only two states in the world in which absolute divorce remains largely impossible. Through its family laws, it regulates the marriage, family life and conjugal separation of its citizens, including its migrants abroad. To find out how these family laws interact with those in the receiving country of Filipino migrants and shape their lives, the present paper examines the case of Filipino women who experienced or are undergoing divorce in the Netherlands. Drawing from semi-structured interviews and an analysis of selected divorce stories, it unveils the intertwined institutions of marriage and of divorce, the constraints but also possibilities that interacting legal norms bring in the life of Filipino women, and the way these migrants navigate such norms within their transnational social spaces. These findings contribute interesting insights into cross-border divorces in the present age of global migration.

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