Communities Surviving Migration

Out-migration might decrease the pressure of population on the environment, but what happens to the communities that manage the local environment when they are weakened by the absence of their members? In an era where community-based natural resource management has emerged as a key hope for sustainable development, this is a crucial question. Building on over a decade of empirical work conducted in Oaxaca, Mexico, Communities Surviving Migration identifies how out-migration can impact rural communities in strongholds of biocultural diversity. It reflects on the possibilities of community self-governance and survival in the likely future of limited additional migration and steady – but low – rural populations, and what different scenarios imply for environmental governance and biodiversity conservation. In this way, the book adds a critical cultural component to the understanding of migration-environment linkages, specifically with respect to environmental change in migrant-sending regions. Responding to the call for more detailed analyses and reporting on migration and environmental change, especially in contexts where rural communities, livelihoods and biodiversity are interconnected, this volume will be of interest to students and scholars of environmental migration, development studies, population geography, and Latin American studies.

International treaties, conventions, and organizations to protect refugees were established in the aftermath of World War II to protect people escaping targeted persecution by their own governments. However, the nature of cross-border displacement has transformed dramatically since then. Such threats as environmental change, food insecurity, and generalized violence force massive numbers of people to flee states that are unable or unwilling to ensure their basic rights, as do conditions in failed and fragile states that make possible human rights deprivations. Because these reasons do not meet the legal understanding of persecution, the victims of these circumstances are not usually recognized as “refugees,” preventing current institutions from ensuring their protection. In this book, Alexander Betts develops the concept of “survival migration” to highlight the crisis in which these people find themselves. Examining flight from three of the most fragile states in Africa—Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia—Betts explains variation in institutional responses across the neighboring host states. There is massive inconsistency. Some survival migrants are offered asylum as refugees; others are rounded up, detained, and deported, often in brutal conditions. The inadequacies of the current refugee regime are a disaster for human rights and gravely threaten international security. In Survival Migration, Betts outlines these failings, illustrates the enormous human suffering that results, and argues strongly for an expansion of protected categories.

International treaties, conventions, and organizations to protect refugees were established in the aftermath of World War II to protect people escaping targeted persecution by their own governments. However, the nature of cross-border displacement has transformed dramatically since then. Such threats as environmental change, food insecurity, and generalized violence force massive numbers of people to flee states that are unable or unwilling to ensure their basic rights, as do conditions in failed and fragile states that make possible human rights deprivations. Because these reasons do not meet the legal understanding of persecution, the victims of these circumstances are not usually recognized as "refugees," preventing current institutions from ensuring their protection.In this book, Alexander Betts develops the concept of "survival migration" to highlight the crisis in which these people find themselves. Examining flight from three of the most fragile states in Africa—Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia—Betts explains variation in institutional responses across the neighboring host states. There is massive inconsistency. Some survival migrants are offered asylum as refugees; others are rounded up, detained, and deported, often in brutal conditions. The inadequacies of the current refugee regime are a disaster for human rights and gravely threaten international security. In Survival Migration, Betts outlines these failings, illustrates the enormous human suffering that results, and argues strongly for an expansion of protected categories.

"The book uncovers the social, educational, and cultural tools rural Mexican women employ to creatively survive the conditions created by migration. It addresses the material conditions that lead to the migration of adults from the area, but at the core are the educational and personal endeavors of women to get ahead without the men in their families"--Provided by publisher.

Publications in this field have, in general, been based predominantly on the experiences of individual national settings. Migration, Health and Survival offers a comparative approach, bringing together leading international scholars to provide original works from the United States, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, England and Wales, Norway, Belgium and Italy.

The publication of this volume is significant in three respects. First, it represents a major concern of the international mental health movement in its effort to gain deeper understanding of migration and its mental health implications in our increasingly mobile modern societies. Second, it epitomizes continuous international cooperation of colleagues dedicated to the cause of tackling this important mental health problem. Third, it stands as another milestone in the growth of the World Federation for Mental Health through its biennial world congresses. I sincerely hope that the empirical observations of real·life events contained in this volume will stimulate others to add their own experiences and perspectives on these topics at future congresses. It is also hoped that certain models of problem solving reported by the collaborators of this book may find wider application and that the results will be communicated to others. It is through such ensuing developments that the World Federation for Mental Health wishes to, and can, fulfIll its roles of advocacy and international communication in promoting international mental health. My gratitude goes to Richard Nann and his colleagues for having made this timely contribution available.

Issues of displacement and dispossession have become defining characteristics of a globalised 21st century. People are moving within and across national borders, whether displaced, relocated or moving in search of better livelihoods. This book brings theoretical understandings of migration and displacement together with empirical illustrations of the creative, cultural ways in which communities reflect upon their experiences of change, and how they respond, including through poetry and story-telling, photography and other art forms, exploring the scope for building communities of solidarity and social justice. The concluding chapters identify potential implications for policy and professional practice to promote communities of solidarity, addressing the structural causes of widening inequalities, taking account of different interests, including those related to social class, gender, ethnicity, age, ability and faith.

In Migration, Reproduction and Society, Alejandro I. Canales offers a theoretical model for understanding the role of migration in the reproduction of contemporary society. He demonstrates how immigration constitutes a political dilemma that embodies the ethnic and demographic transformation of advanced societies. En Migration, Reproduction and Society, Alejandro I. Canales propone un modelo teórico para el entendimiento de las migraciones en la reproducción de la sociedad contemporánea. En las sociedades avanzadas la inmigración establece un dilema político concerniente a la transformación étnica y demográfica de sus poblaciones.