Global Migration Beyond Limits

"Global Migration beyond Limits carefully considers but ultimately rejects the idea that migration is driven by the choices of individual migrants, and instead starts from the idea that institutions shape all forms, forces, and functions of migration. Of these institutions, however, land is central, whether in internal migration, international migration, or global migration. Historically or currently, the evidence also clearly shows that migration and migrants transform both the sites where migrants are resident and the places from which migrants travelled. The change is more transformational than previous accounts have established, sometimes involving turning around dead cities and towns into vibrant local economies and reconstructing food networks for entire regions and nations. This book also raises serious analytical questions about three bodies of literature: mainstream economic accounts of migration, environment, and inequality; mainstream sustainability science and alternatives to it (e.g. ecological economics); and conservative and nativist claims about population problems and alternatives to them centred only on the freedom that a borderless world could create. Obeng-Odoom argues that much of the crisis of migration and sustainability can be understood as a reflection of global long-term inequalities and cumulative stratification, reflected at different scales in the global system, though the form of migration is conditioned by more than economic forces. The so-called migration crisis, therefore, seems quite routine and familiar. It is an outward expression of the political-economic system in which socially created value is privately appropriated as rents by a privileged few who use institutions such land and property rights, race, ethnicity, class, and gender to keep others in their place in the global economic and stratification ladder"--

Global Migration beyond Limits takes a critical approach to mainstream economic accounts of migration, environment, and inequality. Drawing on a range of case studies from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Americas, Obeng-Odoom argues that much of the crisis of migration can be understood as a reflection of cumulative stratification at different scales in the global system, though the form of migration is conditioned by more than economic forces. Examining the experiences of migrant farmers, street workers, refugees, international students, and many more, this book shows that the so-called migration crisis is an expression of a political-economic system in which socially created value is privately appropriated as rents by a privileged few who use institutions such as land and property rights, race, ethnicity, class, and gender to keep others in their place.

This book opens the 'black box' of migration governance, and focuses on the people who make, shape or influence policy.

"A clear-eyed analysis of how global migration is driven by the class conflict of global capitalism"--

Migration is a politically sensitive topic and an important aspect of contentious debates about social and cultural diversity, economic stability, terrorism, globalization, and nationalism. Global Migration: The Basics examines: history and geography of global migration the role of migrants in society impact of migrants on the economy and the political system policy challenges that need to be faced in confronting a rapidly changing world economy and society. This book challenges students of geography, political science, public policy, sociology, and economics to look beyond the rhetoric and consider the real and basic facts about migration. Through detailed examinations of the scholarly literature, demographic patterns, and public policy debates, Global Migration: The Basics exposes readers to the underlying causes and consequences of migration.

Today, 215 million people live outside their home countries and another 700 million say they would migrate to another country if they could. This volume examines the ways both sending and receiving nations are modifying their migration policies to control entry, to encourage assimilation, and to build links between diasporas and their home countries.

This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2013. In this masterful and well constructed work, the authors have analysed and examined global migration through three continents, the Caribbean, the Middle East and North America. They have used their many skills as researcher, journalists, educators and Graduate students to synthesise the literature in broad sweeping and technical detail. This edition provides the framework for understanding migration in a global context encapsulating the diversity and turbulences that migrants face as they leave their homelands and venture abroad in search of a ‘better quality of life’. It also incorporates the troubling economies of the countries and regions discussed and they were able to capture in many instances economic theory and its accompanying challenges and show that the locals are just as afraid as the migrants, for the change that is so dynamic and has gone beyond the expectations of a people, of place and of nation, now continents. It is in every respect ahistorical, apolitical, sociological, and philosophical with prose that brings back memories of times past.

This volume addresses the question: to what extent and under what conditions does international migration contribute to local and national development?