Unsettling events: Understanding migrants' responses to geopolitical transformative episodes through a life-course lens

Migration under the European Union’s (EU) Freedom of Movement is constructed as temporary and circular, implying that migrants respond to changing circumstances by returning home or moving elsewhere. This construction underpins predictions of an exodus of EU migrants from the United Kingdom (UK) in the context of Brexit. While migration data indicate an increase in outflows since the vote to leave the EU, the scale does not constitute a “Brexodus.” Moreover, EU migrants’ applications for UK citizenship have been increasing. The data, though, are not sufficiently detailed to reveal who is responding to Brexit in which way. This article aims to offer a deeper understanding of how migrants experience and respond to changing geopolitical episodes such as Brexit. Introducing the term “unsettling events,” we analyze data collected longitudinally, in the context of three moments of significant change: 2004 EU enlargement, 2008–09 economic recession, and Brexit. Examining our data, mainly on Polish migrants, through a life-course lens, our findings highlight the need to account for the situatedness of migrant experiences as lived in particular times (both personal and historical), places, and relationships. In so doing, we reveal various factors informing migrants’ experiences of and reactions to unsettling events and the ways in which their experiences and reactions potentially impact migration projects

EU integration in the (post)-migrant-crisis context: learning new integration modes?

This article explores the integration of the European Union (EU) as an institution after the 2015-2016 migrant crisis. Qualitative data from elite interviews in Brussels and policy analysis, in the framework of a bigger project about the impact of the migrant crisis on European integration, highlight the EU learning about new integration modes as a key theme following the crisis. The article focuses on this theme and argues that EU integration has been happening through intensive learning after the-migrant crisis, whereby the EU has been exploring a combination of certain integration modes: shaping the relationships with candidate countries by restraining from enlargement; shaping the relationships with (prospectively) exiting Member States by considering fuzziness at the borders; exploring differentiation among the existing Member States, possibly through promoting a two-tier EU, instead of universal deepening. A key contribution lies in applying the notion ‘learning’ to understanding EU integration modes specifically after the migrant crisis

Introduction to the special issue "Transnational care : Families confronting borders"

In this article, we introduce the key themes of our Special Issue on “Transnational care: families confronting borders”. Central to this collection is the question of how family relations and solidarities are impacted by the current scenario of closed borders and increasingly restrictive migration regimes. This question is examined more specifically through the lens of care dynamics within transnational families and their (re-)configurations across diverse contexts marked by “immobilizing regimes of migration”. We begin by presenting a brief overview of key concepts in the transnational families and caregiving literature that provides a foundation for the diverse cases explored in the articles, including refugees and asylum seekers in Germany and Finland, Polish facing Brexit in the UK, Latin American migrants transiting through Mexico, and restrictionist drifts in migration policies in Australia, Belgium and the UK. Drawing on this rich work, we identify two policy tools; namely temporality and exclusion, which appear to be particularly salient features of immobilizing regimes of migration that significantly influence care-related mobilities. We conclude with a discussion of how immobilizing regimes are putting transnational family solidarities in crisis, including in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, gripping the globe at the time of writing

Brexit and beyond: Transforming mobility and immobility

This Guest Editorial introduces a special issue entitled Brexit and Beyond: Transforming Mobility and Immobility. The unfolding story of Brexit provided the backdrop to a series of events, organised in 2018 and 2019, which were the result of a collaboration between migration researchers in Warsaw and the UK, funded by the Noble Foundation’s Programme on Modern Poland. The largest event – held in association with IMISCOE – was an international conference, arising from which we invited authors to contribute papers to this special issue on the implications of Brexit for the mobility and immobility of EU citizens, particularly – but not exclusively – from Central and Eastern Europe, living in the UK. As we outline in this Editorial, collectively, the papers comprising the special issue address three key themes: everyday implications and ‘living with Brexit’; renegotiating the ‘intentional unpredictability’ status and settling down; and planning the future and the return to countries of origin. In addition, we include an interview with Professor Nira Yuval-Davis, based on the substance of her closing plenary at the conference – racialisation and bordering. Her insightful analysis remains salient to the current situation – in June 2020, as the UK enters the final months of the Brexit transition period – in the unexpected midst of a global pandemic and an imminent recession

Examining transnational care circulation trajectories within immobilizing regimes of migration : implications for proximate care

In this paper we argue that the current political context of restrictionist migration policies is dramatically affecting people’s capacity to cross borders to engage in proximate care with their relatives, which is a central, yet often overlooked, feature of transnational care practices. We examine how the wider context of temporality, restrictive mobility, and heightened uncertainty about the future affect people’s ability to be mobile and to move back and forth for caregiving. In examining the wellbeing effects of such restrictions, we highlight their variable impact depending on factors such as socio-economic positioning, life-course stage and health. The first sections of the paper present the care circulation framework and the particular meaning and function of proximate forms of care, as well as the main categories of care-related mobility that support this. We illustrate the main dynamics and challenges faced by transnational family members who engage in these care-related mobilities, through three vignettes involving care circulation between India and the UK, China and Australia, and Morocco and Belgium. In the final section, we discuss our vignettes in relation to the political, physical, social and time dimensions of current regimes of mobility that impact on care-related mobilities. We argue that the regimes of mobility that currently govern care-related mobilities are best understood as ‘immobilizing’ regimes with important and undervalued implications for ontological security and wellbeing

Conditioning grandparent care-labour mobility at the care-migration systems nexus: Australia and the UK

A ‘transnational turn’ in welfare regime theory has disrupted methodologically nationalist analyses of care regimes generating analytical frameworks that capture the interdependencies between care and migration regimes. Those frameworks share a focus on migration for paid care labour as the vehicle connecting care and migration regimes transnationally. In this paper, we highlight familial care-labour mobility as an additional mechanism connecting care and migration regimes across borders. Drawing on the care circulation framework, we argue that a focus on these informal global care chains helps to bridge macro structural level approaches of the frameworks that focus on paid care labour with the more micro-level transnational family care approach. We focus on grandparent care-labour mobility, arguing that while it is ‘familial’, ‘informal’, ‘private’ and ‘invisible’, its dynamics and the lived experiences of those entwined within it, are mediated at the care-migration systems nexus. Through case-studies on grandparent care-labour mobility between China and Australia and India and the UK, we examine how the care-migration systems nexus is shaped by the prevailing logic of neoliberalism and ensuing patterns of stratification within care and migration systems. We conclude by highlighting the need for a transnational ethics of family care to govern the care-migration systems nexus

Introduction

The post-2014 'migrant crisis' focusing mainly on the European Union`s southeast periphery where the so called Balkan Route1 exists, has demonstrated that the degree of integration and solidarity among EU members is not as deep and complete as expected. Attempts to outsource the crisis to its periphery impacted also on the relationship of the Union with EU candidate countries. The lack of a common EU policy and reluctance to share sovereignty became evident among EU members from early on. This has in turn led to a demise in the credibility of the EU, its fundamental principles like solidarity among its member states and protection of human rights, as well as, its institutions. The Erasmus+ Jean Monnet project MIGRATE CTRL + Enter Europe – Jean Monnet Migrant Crisis Network2 looks into the developments in the Balkan Route pre and post the EU-Turkey Statement and the responses by the individual countries inside this framework

Social Reproduction in Sicily’s Agricultural Sector: Migration Status and Context of Reception

This article illuminates the social reproductive experiences of migrants labouring in Sicily’s (Italy) greenhouses. Current global transformations in agricultural production are intersecting with longstanding local economic and social realities, as well as with the 2007 Global Financial Crisis and EU enlargement, to make migrants, male and female, indispensable to a sector resorting to intensified informality in pursuit of flexible and cheap workers. Understanding social reproductive experiences as configured by migrant status and context of reception, the article includes analysis of interview and observational data with two nationalities of migrants – Tunisians and Romanians – occupying different positions in Italy’s migration regime. The article concludes that the harsh context of reception posed by labour market conditions, alongside a familialistic Italian welfare regime, largely precludes opportunities for proximate social reproduction for Tunisians and Romanians. In response, migrants develop transnational resilience strategies resting on cross-border actions combining market-, family-, community and State-based practices, to navigate the social reproductive challenges encountered. Such strategies, however, are less feasible for irregular migrants whose socio-legal position exposes them to the most exploitative working arrangements, denies them access to State welfare and renders them immobile. Moreover, for some regular migrants, such transnational resilience strategies are not their strategies of choice

Analysing migrants' ageing in place as embodied practices of embedding through time : ‘Kilburn is not Kilburn any more’

There is growing attention to how people navigate and make sense of particular places through the ageing process. Against this backdrop, there is increasing research on ageing in contexts of migration. Although much of this research focuses on retirement and return migration, comparatively less is known about migrants who remain in the destination society, especially in advanced old age. Drawing on qualitative data, we analyse the experiences of three groups of ageing migrants who have been less visible in research and policy (Caribbean, Irish, and Polish) and of those living in two U.K. sites (London and Yorkshire). Using the concept of embedding, we analyse migrants' identifications with and attachment to particular places over time. In so doing, we highlight not only how migrants negotiate dynamic local places through embodied ageing processes but also how these negotiations may be mediated by wider sociopolitical events including Brexit and the ‘Windrush scandal’