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Developing World (Subject) / Migration and Development (Lesson)

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• 4 major phases of modern migration 1. Slave trade (16th– 19th C) 2. Bonded labour migration (19th C) 3. Europeans to Australia, NZ and the Americas (19th & 20th C) 4. Post WWII migrations: South-North and South-South
• Types of Migration (5) Internal/InternationalRural to Urban/ inter-UrbanSkilled/unskilledPermanent/ temporaryCircular and Return migration
• Types of Migrants (4) Forced Migrants (internally displaced persons, refugees, asylum seekers) 'Irregular' Migrants 'Trafficked' persons 'Smuggled' persons
• How many international migrants? 232 million international migrants living in the world today. This is 3.2% of the world’s population.
• Economis migration? 93% of migration is economic migration
• South North migration vs South South migration n 2013, the number of international migrants born in the South who lived in the North, or “South-North migration”, almost equaled the number of migrants born in the South who resided in the South, or “South-South migration”.
• Migrant stock North/South Since 2000, the migrant stock in the South has increased more rapidly than in the North.
• Refugee proportion of global migrant stock Refugees account for a relatively small proportion of the global migrant stock (7% of migrants)
• Migration Theories (4) 1. Neo-classical ‘push-pull’models2. Livelihood diversification3. Mobility transitionmodel4. Networks and transnational migration systems
• What do those 4 theories explain? Causes of MigrationConsequences of migrationMigration as a dynamic, interdependent system
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• 1) Neo-classical, push-pull Low wage, labour surplus -> high wage, labour scarce: People should be allowed to move for work. Economic approach. Assumes that Migrants are individual rational actors who only move for work. That's only partially true.Other factors -> opportunity, travel and psychological costs; risks (distance,legal barriers)
• 2) Livelihood diversificaion Why do people move? In a household there's people with different roles, people move not just for themselves but for each other. It's about household diversification, increasing income, overcoming constraints, risk mitigation
• 3) Mobility Transition Demographic Approach (Focus on Europe, key critique), Zelinsky Different types of migration happen at different stages in the demographic transition (starts with high birth/death rates and ends in low birth/death rates and high population) Development is not a linear process, only applicable to Europe
• 4) Networks & Transnational migration systems Sociological theory, globalisation has enabled and changed the ways we interact and network with each other (transport, communications, technology) circular and return migration enable and support social capital (family, friends, networks: important in migration)                           -> chain migration/ bridgeheads or gatekeepers? Diaspora organisations Transnational bonds - flows and counter flows
• Migration across South and North (two circuits of migration) professional elites vs unskilled labour
• Professional elites Highly educated and skilledFrom both Global North and SouthRegular migration, often with pathways to settlement
• Unskilled labour May be educated but engage in triple 'D' labour (difficult, dirty,dangerous) From the South Often temporary and/or irregular migration
• Borders “While they are presented as filters, sorting people into desirable and non-desirable, skilled and unskilled, genuine and bogus, worker, wife, etc., national borders are better analysed as moulds, as attempts to create certain types of subjects and subjectivities” (Anderson, Sharma and Wright 2009 : 6).
• Turnbull: Visa Change Who are the (un)desirable? "Australian values"  - Australian citizenship
• Migration and Development - 7 myths (de Haas, 2005) 1. We live in an age of unprecedented migration. (hysteria in our society, but proportion of migration has stayed the same)2. Poverty and misery are the root causes of migration (its rarely the poor people that migrate, but people with financial and social capital)3. Development policies, development assistance and trade liberalization are an effective 'remedy’ against migration (people are always going to move! globalisation increases peoples aspirations)4. Migration as a potential source of development provokes a brain drain (all the smart people leave, but less than 10% of the educated migrate to the north)5. The money migrants remit to sending countries is mainly spent on conspicuous consumption and non-productive investments (not true, they help the livelihoods of their families)6. Orientation of migrants towards their countries of origin is an indication of the lack of social and economic integration in the receiving countries’ societies.7. States are able to ‘manage’, largely control or stop migration (you cannot stop it)
• Percentage Migration across South and North Depends on the definition Development Status: 33%(S-S), 7%(N-S), 26% (N-N), 34% (S-N) Income level: 42%, 4%, 16%, 39% UNDP HDI: 45%, 4%, 14%, 37% yet hysteria focuses on S-N migration
• Global flashpoints US border with Latin America EU border with Africa and Asia Australian border with S.E. Asia
• Migration and Governance: Human Rights? Article 14 of the UDHR: "everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution."Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – 19501951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants (Since 1999)Committee on Migrant Workers (Since 2004)Domestic legal frameworksNGO’s and Civil SocietyLimits of the International Human Rights Regime
• Migrant conventions steady increase in countries that are signing on to those conventions starting 1950 not many sign on to the conventions regarding economic/worker migrants issue: not many countries sign on, if they do they dont stand by their international commitments
• Case Study: Refugees in Uganda The Ugandan government promotes the ‘self-reliance’ of refugees; Uganda hosts approximately 200,000 refugees/asylum seekers from diverse nationalities (UNHCR 2012)Refugees coming from Burundi, DRC, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan and others.Under the Refugees Act 2006, refugees in Uganda enjoy the same right to work as nationalsRefugee economies - challenges the common assumptions of refugees that they are:a burden, technologically illiterate, dependent on humanitarian assistance.
• Refugee economy in Uganda High rates of self-employment and employment by Ugandans and buy good and services from Ugandans
• Summary and Conclusion •Human beings have always been mobile•Migration has only recently begun to be viewed as caused by, and producing ‘ crisis’•Offers a potential development path for people and countries in the Global South•Contemporary migration deeply entwined with constructs of the nation-state and citizenship,as well as with labour maximizing strategies of capital•Restrictions on migration from the South are a form of ‘global apartheid’, and a major obstacle to development
• Weekly Reading: Why no Borders? Autoren (3) Anderson, Sharma, Wright
• Abstract No Borders as practical political project Borders as ideological, generating and reinforcing inequality No borders policy rejects notions of citizenship and statehood and clarifies the centrlit
• Why do people migrate? (Why no Borders, Anderson, Sharma, Wright) Migration has become an increasingly important part of people's strategies for gaining access to much-needed life resources: new livelihood, closeness to significant persons, escape from untenable/murderous situations, experience to meet new people/places/situations.
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• great contradictions of present era ((Why no Borders, Anderson, Sharma, Wright) greater freedom of mobility granted to capital and commodoties through neo-liberal reform has taken place alongside this lessening of freedom (stricter immigration policies)
• Cost factor (Why no Borders, Anderson, Sharma, Wright) Migration restrictions dont hinder people from migrating but increase costs paid for it. Border control, costs of ones life, extrction of labour, camps
• What are borders (Why no borders, Anderson, Shama, Wright) They are purely ideological, filter people in desirable and non-desirable, skilled/unskilled, genuine/bogus deep divisions and inequalities between people who are given varying national statuses borders follow people and surround them as they try to access paid labour, welfare benefits, health, labour protections, education, justice (most rights only granted to citizens and not temporary foreign workers for example)
• Migrants and vulnerability (Why no borders, Anderson, Shama, Wright) Migrants are not naturally vulnerable, the state is deeply implicated in constructing vulnerability through immigration controls and practices. They are not neutral but productive: they produce and reinforce relations of dependency and power Claiming migrants vulnerability leaves no room for their subjectivities, engagements and actions. They are constructed as objects of control, rescue, redemption
• What distinguishes a no border policy from other immigrant rights approaches? (why no borders, Anderson/Shama/Wright) does not settle for "fairer" immigration laws but understands that border control practices of national states reflect people's unequal rights and PRODUCE inequality single demand: every person shall have the right to move and not to move (era of disposession and displacement)
• Arguments against the No Border movement utopian/impractical undermines equality and welfare protections within liberal democratic states -> would have an impact on the most disadvantaged and marginalized lack of borders would erode national identities and commitment to democratic values
• International Migration, Remittances and Development: myths and facts author hein de haas
• debate on international s-n labour migration (de haas) tends to be one-sided due to the one-sided focus on the interest of and consequences of migration for receiving (northern) countries this is striking because in fact migrants contribute significantly to the social and economic development of their home countries also neglects a proper understanding of the developmental causes and consequences of migration
• relationship between migration and development (de haas) reciprocal - migration is part ofdevelopment processes and an independent factor affecting development in migrant sending and receiving societies
• myth 1: we live in an age of unprecedented migration Although it is commonplace to think that ‘globalisation’ has led to unprecedented and skyrocketing migration, there is reason for scepticism. The idea that the late 20th century and early 21st century are ‘the age of migration’ seems to be incorrect, at least from a global point of view. One century ago the percentage of international migrants in the total world population was at almost similar levels (2.5% – 3%) to those of today. But: the direction of dominant migration movements has radically changed. Following post-WWII decolonisation and rapid economic growth in Western societies, there has been a reversal of global migration movements, in which South – North migration has strongly increased. This confronted many Western societies with the unprecedented settlement of non-Western, culturally and physically distinct, immigrants (increased visibility in western countries)
• Myth 2: poverty and misery are the root causes of labour migration Although migration evidently emanates from the desire to improve one’s livelihood, it is rarely the poorest who migrate. Migration involves considerable costs and risks, and, besides knowledge and social networks, also requires the necessary aspirations. This explains the paradox that socioeconomic development in the form of rising incomes, educational levels, and access to information tends to be associated initially with increasing migration.Rather than absolute poverty, a certain level of socioeconomic development, combined with relative deprivation in the form of global inequality of development opportunities, seems to be the most important cause of migration. To a large extent this can also explain why leading emigration countries (eg Mexico, Morocco, Turkey, the Philippines) typically do not belong to the group of least developed countries. Development seems inevitably accompanied by increasing mobility andmigration.
• migration hump de haas Hence the relation between migration and development is neither linear nor inversely proportional. Growth, development and decreasing differentials with destination countries tend rather to have a J-curve or inverted U-curve effect on emigration, steeply increasing in the initial phases of development and only later gradually decreasing. This phenomenon has been described in the literature as the ‘migration hump’. It is important to emphasise that this relation is not unidirectional, because a decreasing development level relative to other countries may also transform an immigration country into an emigration country, as the case of Argentina has recently shown.
• Myth 3: development policies, development assistance and trade liberalisation are an effective ‘remedy’ against migration (de haas) Advocates of development assistance and trade liberalisation using this argument ignore the theoretical insight that development tends initially to stimulate migration. Social and economic development enables more people to migrate and tends to increase their aspirations. Several studies suggest that economic growth related to trade liberalisation (NAFTA, the EU’s association agreements with North Africa and the Middle East) leads to more rather than less migrationin the short to medium run. The implication seems to be that even successful attempts to combat poverty in low-income countries in, for instance, sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, are likely to lead to a temporarily higher propensity to migrate. Consequently, ‘stay-at-home’ aid and trade policies seem to be ‘right for the wrong reasons’. Moreover, trade liberalisation and migration can become long-term complements if non-tariff trade barriers, subsidies, higher productivity, technological advantages and economics of scale in the North harm the competitiveness of the South even in the production of labour-intensivegoods, thereby leading to the shift of economic activities to the North, along with more immigration to support them
• myth 4: migration as a potential source of development provokes a brain drain First, not all migrants are highly skilled. Second, the brain drain seems to be only truly massive in a minority of countries. In a quantitative assessment of the brain drain, Adams (2003) concluded that international migration does not tend to take a very high proportion of the best educated. In two-thirds of the 33 large labour-exporting countries he surveyed, less than 10% of the best-educated population had migrated. The emigration of highly educated migrants seems to be truly harmful only in a limited number of countries. Third, a brain drain can be accompanied by a significant brain gain. In the medium to long run, in particular, the departure of the highly skilled may have beneficial effects in the form of acounterflow of remittances, investments, trade relations, new knowledge, innovations, attitudes and information. Moreover, there is some evidence that the prospect of moving abroad stimulates the incentive to study among stay-behinds. Fourth, labour tends to be much more productive in wealthy, industrialised countries. In an increasing number of developing countriesthere is mass unemployment among the more highly educated. In these cases both individual and collective gains seem to outweigh the costs of migration
• highly skilled migrants Besides their economic role, highly skilled migrants often play an important and positive role in the societal and political debate, the development of a civil society in countries of origin, and the emancipation of women and minority groups. One of the main reasons for this is that theytend to have more opportunities and freedom to organise themselves and express their opinion than is often the case in the sending countries. In some countries (return) migrants who have studied and worked abroad have played an important role in reforming domestic policies. This underscores the fact that the development effects of migration are not limited to remittances and investments, but also include an important sociopolitical dimension. Through such social and political investments migrants can contribute to shaping a better societal climate in countries oforigin in general.
• problem with stay at home policies Stay-at-home policies pursued by emigration countries have proved not only to be ineffective, but also, and more importantly, to be counterproductive by alienating migrants. In Morocco, for instance, civil servants who emigrate tend to be excluded from the civil service for their lifetime. This means that they cannot deploy their knowledge or skills upon return and this will effectively reduce their inclination to invest and return Instead, governments of sending countries should encourage the brain gain referred to above. Rather than punishing emigrants by depriving them of rights, the governments of sending countries should grant emigrants economic and political rights to increase their commitment and encourage remittances, investments and their participation in public debate. Such an approach would appear to be more successful in preventing migrants from turning their backs on their home countries.Countries as diverse as India, South Korea, the Philippines, Mexico and Tunisia have shown considerable success with policies aimed at fostering links with emigrant communities.
• transnationalism It is important in this context to recognise the increased possibilities for migrants and their families to live transnationally and to adopt transnational identities. This relates to the radically improved technical possibilities for migrants to foster links with their societies of origin throughthe (mobile) telephone, fax, (satellite) television and the internet, and to remit money through globalised banking systems or informal channels. This increasingly enables migrants to foster double loyalties, to travel back and forth, to relate to people, to work and to do business simultaneously in distant places. This de facto transnationalisation of migrants’ lives has alsochallenged assimilationist models of migrant integration, as well as the modernist political construct of the nation-state and citizenship. The implication is that clear-cut dichotomies of ‘origin’ or ‘destination’ and categories such as ‘permanent’, ‘temporary’, and ‘return’ migration are increasingly difficult to sustain in a world in which the lives of migrants are increasingly characterised by circulation and simultaneous commitment to two or more societies
• myth 5: the money migrants remit to sending countries is mainly spent on conspicuous consumption and non-productive investment (de haas) Migration and remittances are thought to lead to a passive and dangerous dependency on remittances. The dominant perceptionsince the 1970s has been that remittances are spent mainly on houses, feasts, cars, clothes and imported consumption goods, while investment inproductive enterprises is rare. As a consequence of the massive departure of young and supposedly successful and entrepreneurial men and the concomitant dependency on remittances, people living in migrant-sending areas are said to be inclined to withdraw from local economic activities. The lost labour effect is generally supposed to have a negative impact on localproduction. For instance, migration is typically blamed for causing a criticalshortage of agricultural labour, depriving areas of their most valuable, able-bodied workforce (cf. Taylor, 1984). Consequently this lost labour effect is blamed for the de-intensification of agriculture and the decline of land under cultivation. Likewise other traditional economic sectors, such as craft industries, are supposed to suffer from this lost labour effect. Thus, instead of contributing to development in migrant-sending communities, migration is said to undermine the potential for development. More recent empirical work from Latin America, in particular, but also from Asian and African countries, strongly suggests that remittances potentially enable migrants and their family members to invest in agriculture and other private enterprises. International migrant households often tend to have a higher propensity to invest than do non-migrant households. Several studies have shown that migration does not necessarily lead to passive dependency on remittances, but may also lead to increased economic activities and wealth
• are remittances spent on excessive consumption? The idea that remittances are predominantly spent on excessive consumption has proved to be rather inaccurate. Furthermore, there seems reason to criticise the inclination to denote expenditure on housing, sanitation, healthcare, food and schooling as unproductive and non-developmental. After all, such improvements in well-being and human capital also have the tendency to increase their productivity, freedom of choice and the capacity to participate in public debate. Consequently they also constitute ‘development’, at least if we adopt a broad definition of this concept, which puts improvements in people’s actual capabilities and well-being first.Moreover, consumption and the often downplayed ‘non-productive’ investments in housing, small businesses and education can have positive multiplier effects and increase local economic activity, through which the benefits of remittances also accrue to non-migrant households. Remittances may therefore lead to an increase in the general prosperity ofmigrant-sending areas in the longer run. There is also evidence that migration does not necessarily lead to increased income inequality. In fact, the effect of migration on development crucially depends on the selectivity of migration and geographical and temporal scale of analysis. Although it should be emphasised that the impact of migration tends to be highly differentiated across space and time, it now seems clear that the persistent image of migrant-sending areas passively depending on remittancesis in need of readjustment.
• Migraton = more development? Migration and remittances can potentially contribute to development, but the specific political, economic and social circumstances in both the sending and receiving countries determine the extent to which this potential is exploited. As both negative and positive effects on development are found to varying degrees, the relevant question is: under what conditions are migration and development more positively correlated than under others? What seems essential is thatremittances, just like any other source of additional income, potentially give migrants, households and communities greater freedom to concentrate their activities and to allocate investments to those economic sectors and places that they perceive as most stable and profitable. Thus, depending on the specific development context at the sending end, remittances may enablehouseholds to retreat from, just as much as to invest in, local economic activities. General development constraints—such as bad infrastructure, corruption, red tape, a lack of macroeconomic stability, the absence of appropriate public policies (schooling, health care, land reform, etc), market failures, difficult access to international markets because of trade barriers, a lack of legal security and a lack of trust in government institutions—are all likely toplay a constraining role in remittance transfers and may prevent migrant households from taking the risk of investing socially, politically and financially in their countries of origin and lower their incentive to return and circulate. Under unfavourable conditions remittances may hardly lead to investment and development, but instead to a retreat of migrants and theirfamilies from social and economic activities in the sending countries simply because remittances give them the freedom to do so

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