Revisiting Migrant Networks

This open access book provides new conceptualisations on the networks of migrants and their descendants in accessing the labour market. Although references to social networks are common in discussions of migration, simplified ideas of co-ethnic networks often obscure the reality, for example confounding ties with co-ethnics and 'strong ties'. This open access book addresses key questions about the role of networks in migration contexts, particularly in relation to how migrants and their descendants, access the labour market and develop their employment trajectories over time. Rather than adopting a narrow essentializing ethnic lens, the research presented in this book explores intersectional identities of class, generation and gender. By focusing on the kinds of capital circulating between ties, including the dark side of social capital, the book offers insights into power dynamics and the potentially exclusionary dimension of networks. Taking a long term view, across generations, the research in this book shows how migrants and their descendants mobilize resources to tackle discrimination and enhance their position within particular labour markets. Drawing on robust quantitative and rich qualitative data, this book provides a primary source to students, scholars and policy-makers focusing on issues of migration, social networks, social mobility as well as labour market inequalities.

Yucesahin and Yazgan bring together an intriguing collection of essays drawing on a series of research carried out across the world to offer new insights on gender and migration nexus. Recent developments in the field of women's studies have led to a renewed interest in gender studies; nevertheless, these changes are having an effect and a need, which represent different theoretical and analytical tools rather than sex as a dichotomous variable. There is an increasing concern about using theoretical approaches of gender as relational, and spatially and contextually. Therefore, gender is an increasingly important concept in different areas as an analytical tool and research lens to understand how societies function, depending on diversified theoretical orientations. Gender studies not only include women's studies but also cover men's and LGBTTI-Q studies. The literature on gender has highlighted several issues, specifically gender identity, gendered representations, gender roles, gender politics, femininity and masculinity. West and Zimmerman state that analysing gender involves a complex of socially guided perceptual, interactional and micro political activities that cast particular pursuits as expressions of masculine and feminine "natures". Evidently, the role of gender in the contemporary world is at the heart of understanding migrations. From this point forth, recent developments in human mobility have heightened the need for bringing gendered approaches to all aspects of the issues of conflict and movement regarding states, societies and families from broadening perspectives to the ac-curate understanding of the whole process. CONTENT Acknowledgements About the Authors Chapter One: Introduction: Revisiting Gender in the Context of Migration by Pinar Yazgan and M. Murat Yucesahin Chapter Two: Deconstructing the Gender-Migration Relationship: Performativity and Representation by M. Murat Yucesahin Chapter Three: Gendered Pathways: Central Asian Migration through the Lens of Embodiment by Natalia Zotova and Victor Agadjanian Chapter Four: For Love or for Papers? Sham Marriages among Turkish (Potential) Migrants and Gender Implications by Isik Kulu-Glasgow, Monika Smit and Roel Jennissen Chapter Five: Undocumented Migrant Women in Turkey: Legislation, Labour and Sexual Exploitation by Emel Coskun Chapter Six: Family Perspective in Migration: A Qualitative Analysis on Turkish Families in Italy by Gul Ince Beqo Chapter Seven: Marriage and Divorce in the Context of Gender and Social Capital: The Case of Turkish Migrants in Germany by Sevim Atila Demir and Pinar Yazgan Chapter Eight: Effects of Refugee Crisis on Gender Policies: Studies on EU and Turkey by Pelin Sonmez Index

This open access book discusses the socio-political context of the COVID-19 crisis and questions the management of the pandemic emergency with special reference to how this affected the governance of migration and asylum. The book offers critical insights on the impact of the pandemic on migrant workers in different world regions including North America, Europe and Asia. The book addresses several categories of migrants including medical staff, farm labourers, construction workers, care and domestic workers and international students. It looks at border closures for non-citizens, disruption for temporary migrants as well as at special arrangements made for essential (migrant) workers such as doctors or nurses as well as farmworkers, ‘shipped’ to destination with special flights to make sure emergency wards are staffed, and harvests are picked up and the food processing chain continues to function. The book illustrates how the pandemic forces us to rethink notions like membership, citizenship, belonging, but also solidarity, human rights, community, essential services or ‘essential’ workers alongside an intersectional perspective including ethnicity, gender and race.

This edited volume explores migration movements to Norway, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Portugal from Brazil, Morocco and Ukraine, focusing on how the migration processes of yesterday influence those of today. The central analytical tool for this undertaking is the concept of feedback. This volume identifies various feedback mechanisms that initiate, perpetuate and reverse migration movements. It pays attention to the role of personal networks, but it also moves beyond networks by analysing the role of institutions, macro-level factors and forms of broadcast feedback operating through impersonal channels. Based on extensive surveys and in-depth interviews, it changes our understanding of how and why patterns of international migration change over time.

In an important new application of sociological theories, Nadia Y. Flores-Yeffal offers fresh insights into the ways in which social networks function among immigrants who arrive in the United States from Mexico without legal documentation. She asks and examines important questions about the commonalities and differences in networks for this group compared with other immigrants, and she identifies “trust” as a major component of networking among those who have little if any legal protection. Revealing the complexities behind social networks of international migration, Migration-Trust Networks: Social Cohesion in Mexican US-Bound Emigration provides an empirical and theoretical analysis of how social networks of international migration operate in the transnational context. Further, the book clarifies how networking creates chain migration effects observable throughout history. Flores-Yeffal’s study extends existing social network theories, providing a more detailed description of the social micro- and macrodynamics underlying the development and expansion of social networks used by undocumented Mexicans to migrate and integrate within the United States, with trust relationships as the basis of those networks. In addition, it incorporates a transnational approach in which the migrant’s place of origin, whether rural or urban, becomes an important variable. Migration-Trust Networks encapsulates the new realities of undocumented migration from Latin America and contributes to the academic discourse on international migration, advancing the study of social networks of migration and of social networks in general.

Migrant Capital covers a broad range of case studies and, by bringing together leading and emerging researchers, presents state-of-the-art empirical, theoretical and methodological perspectives on migration, networks, social and cultural capital, exploring the ways in which these bodies of literature can inform and strengthen each other.

In 2018, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees documented a record high 71.4 million displaced people around the world. As states struggle with the costs of providing protection to so many people and popular conceptions of refugees have become increasingly politicized and sensationalized, researchers have come together to form regional and global networks dedicated to working with displaced people to learn how to respond to their needs ethically, compassionately, and for the best interests of the global community. Mobilizing Global Knowledge brings together academics and practitioners to reflect on a global collaborative refugee research network. Together, the members of this network have had a wide-ranging impact on research and policy, working to bridge silos, sectors, and regions. They have addressed power and politics in refugee research, engaged across tensions between the Global North and Global South, and worked deeply with questions of practice, methodology, and ethics in refugee research. Bridging scholarship on network building for knowledge production and scholarship on research with and about refugees, Mobilizing Global Knowledge brings together a vibrant collection of topics and perspectives. It addresses ethical methods in research practice, the possibilities of social media for data collection and information dissemination, environmental displacement, transitional justice, and more. This is essential reading for anyone interested in how to create and share knowledge to the benefit of the millions of people around the world who have been forced to flee their homes.

This open access short reader provides a state of the art overview of the discrimination research field, with particular focus on discrimination against immigrants and their descendants. It covers the ways in which discrimination is defined and conceptualized, how it is measured, how it may be theorized and explained, and how it might be combated by legal and policy means. The book also presents empirical results from studies of discrimination across the world to show the magnitude of the problem and the difficulties of comparison across national borders. The concluding chapter engages in a critical discussion of the relationship between discrimination and integration as well as pointing out promising directions for future studies. As such this short reader is a valuable read to undergraduate students, as well as graduate students, scholars, policy makers and the general public.