Rethinking Authority in China’s Border Regime

In the 21st century, governments around the globe are faced with the question on how to tackle new migratory mobilities. Governments increasingly become aware of irregular immigration and are forced to re-negotiate the dilemma of open but secure borders. Rethinking Authority in China’s Border Regime: Regulating the Irregular investigates the Chinese government’s response to this phenomenon. Hence, this book presents a comprehensive analysis of the Chinese border regime. It explores the regulatory framework of border mobility in China by analysing laws, institutions, and discourses as part of an ethnographic border regime analysis. It argues that the Chinese state deliberately creates ‘zones of exception’ along its border. In these zones, local governments function as ‘scalar managers’ that establish cross-border relations to facilitate cross-border mobility and create local migration systems that build on their own notion of legality by issuing locally valid border documents. The book presents an empirically rich story of how border politics are implemented and theoretically contributes to debates on territoriality and sovereignty as well as to the question of how authority is exerted through border management. Empirically, the analysis builds on two case studies at the Sino-Myanmar and Sino-North Korean borders to illustrate how local practices are embedded in multiscalar mobility regulation including regional organizations such as the Greater Mekong Subregion and the Greater Tumen Initiative.

Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence in Migration and Mobility: Transnational Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in migration and mobility have incrementally expanded over recent years. Iterative approaches to AI deployment experienced a surge during 2020 and into 2021, largely due to COVID-19 forcing greater reliance on advanced digital technology to monitor, inform and respond to the pandemic. This paper critically examines the implications of intensifying digitalization and AI for migration and mobility systems for a post-COVID transnational context. First, it situates digitalization and AI in migration by analyzing its uptake throughout the Migration Cycle. Second, the article evaluates the current challenges and, opportunities to migrants and migration systems brought about by deepening digitalization due to COVID-19, finding that while these expanding technologies can bolster human rights and support international development, potential gains can and are being eroded because of design, development and implementation aspects. Through a critical review of available literature on the subject, this paper argues that recent changes brought about by COVID-19 highlight that computational advances need to incorporate human rights throughout design and development stages, extending well beyond technical feasibility. This also extends beyond tech company references to inclusivity and transparency and requires analysis of systemic risks to migration and mobility regimes arising from advances in AI and related technologies.

What Is Social Inclusion? Insights From Interventions With Youth Across Migration Systems

Social inclusion is a goal of 21st-century education and social welfare, yet research with violently displaced youth leaves gaps in its meaning. Social inclusion, a societal aim, lacks the perspectives of youth at its center. Given the pressures and power relations involved in learning how young people think and feel about social injustices and the support they need, developmental researchers must find innovative ways to study youth experiences and intentions in relation to environments, especially environments that threaten young lives. Emerging research highlights how displaced youth, peers along their journeys, and adults guiding supportive interventions make audible the meaning of social inclusion. Policy paradigms would benefit from research on sense-making in interventions rather than from emphasizing behavioral assessments and assimilation to local norms, as implied by social inclusion.

Technology-Facilitated Domestic Violence Against Immigrant and Refugee Women: A Qualitative Study

Digital technologies are increasingly being used as tools for the perpetration of domestic violence. Little empirical research to date has explored the nature and impacts of technology-facilitated domestic violence (TFDV), and even less attention has been paid to the experiences of immigrant and refugee women. This article examines the nature and impacts of TFDV as experienced by immigrant and refugee women. Drawing on interviews with 29 victim-survivors and 20 stakeholders, we argue that although immigrant and refugee women may experience TFDV in similar ways to non-immigrant and refugee women, they face unique challenges, such as language barriers, cultural bias from support services, lack of financial resources, lack of trust in state institutions, and additional challenges with justice and migration systems. Immigrant and refugee women also face multiple structural layers of oppression and social inequality. Accordingly, we argue that a multifaceted approach is required to address TFDV that includes culturally sensitive and specific law reform, education, and training.

Global dynamics of international migration systems across South–South, North–North, and North–South flows, 1990–2015

Evidence from 184 countries over the span of 25 years is gathered and analyzed to understand North–North, South–South, and North–South international migration flows. Conceptually, the analysis borrows from network theory and Migration Systems Theory (MST) to develop a model to characterize the structure and evolution of international migration flows. Methodologically, the Stochastic Actor-oriented Model of network dynamics is used to jointly model the three types of flows under analysis. Results show that endogenous network effects at the monadic, dyadic, and triadic levels of analysis are relevant to understand the emergence and evolution of migration flows. The findings also show that a core set of non-network covariates, suggested by MST as key drivers of migration flows, does not always explain migration dynamics in the systems under analysis in a consistent fashion; thus, suggesting the existence of important levels of heterogeneity inherent to these three types of flows. Finally, evidence related to the role of political instability and countries’ care deficits is also discussed as part of the analysis. Overall, the results highlight the importance of analyzing flows across the globe beyond typically studied migratory corridors (e.g., North–South flows) or regions (e.g., Europe).

Migration Challenges of the Current Stage of Globalization

Research background: International labor migration is much less globalized than the other components of this process, mainly due to the various restrictions it continually encounters. Usually, the globalization of international migration results in complex migration systems. The migration challenges of the current stage of globalization include, among other things, changes in the categories of present migrants. The profile of migrants is becoming more and more diversified. It comprises women, minors, skilled people, entrepreneurs, and a low-skilled workforce or one who accepts a strong degree of disqualification. Purpose of the article: The purpose of the paper is to identify processes of labor migration in the conditions of globalization, to analyze changes in the characteristics of migrants, as well as the paradox of complementarity between migration and globalization. Methods: The authors used the methods of theoretical and empirical analysis. In addition to standard methods of theoretical analysis, they also used content analysis of text documents, mostly of an official nature. These were mainly national and European papers dealing with the issue of international labor migration in the context of globalization. Empirical research is based on the analysis of official data obtained from databases of international institutions (Eurostat, OECD, IOM, etc.). Findings & Value added: As a result of the analysis, the authors concluded about adequate European immigration policy and greater labor mobility would contribute to addressing labor market imbalances. At the end of the article, the authors also formulated specific measures to support mobility within the EU.

The Nexus Between Environmental Changes, Culture of Migration, and Migration Aspirations

In this chapter, I delve deeper into the role played by ‘cultures of migration’ in the development of migration aspirations in both Tinghir and Tangier, and how these cultures of migration interact with environmental factors. This chapter builds further on previous insights from migration systems theory, which posits that migration results in multiple flows of material goods, ideas and money (Mabogunje 1970; Levitt 1998). In other words, this theory states that migration results in more than exchanges and flows of people. By building further on the concept of ‘cumulative causation’ (Myrdal 1957), migration systems theory advances that migration results in the transformation of social and economic structures, facilitating more migration. This idea is crucial to fully understand the development of migration aspirations because it pays attention to how contextual feedback loops can either positively or negatively stimulate the further development of migration aspirations (De Haas 2010). Hence, cultures of migration are established through the information sent by emigrants that have left a given region and provide feedback on their migration experiences in the country of destination to their migrant networks living in their region of origin and which ultimately result in shared ideas and beliefs on migration in a particular region (Timmerman et al. 2014).