The Nexus of Political Violence and Economic Deprivation: Pakistani Migrants Disrupt the Refugee / Migrant Dichotomy

There have been discussions about how the labels “forced migrants,” related to political violence, and “voluntary migrants,” associated with economic factors, cannot be understood in categorical ways. However, there has been less focus on the specificities of the asylum-migrant nexus from the perspective of migrants. This essay discusses how such factors intersect as understood by Pakistani migrants residing in Germany. Through enacting a critical view of Pakistan, the migrants demonstrate how aspects of corruption, economic deprivation, and political violence come to intersect so that is becomes impossible to classify asylum seekers in binary/dichotomous ways

Migration and Remittances in South Africa : the role of political factors.

This paper looks at the determinants of international remittances in the case of South-South migrations. Using micro-economic data from a survey conducted in 2006, analysis was carried out on 639 African migrants residing in Johannesburg. Besides the traditional variables (income, household’s size in the host country, age, sex, education…), political variables (regime change in the host country and conditions in the country of origin before the migration including war, and conflict) are used in the analysis. The results highlight the importance of these political variables as determinants of migrants’ probability to remit. The end of the apartheid regime in South Africa impacts positively and significantly the probability of remitting money to the home country while the fact of having fled one’s country of origin because of violence or conflict has the opposite effect. However, the political change in the host country has no influence on the amounts transferred. Once the decision to remit is taken, traditional variables have more of an explanatory power in predicting amounts transferred than political variables.International migration; political environment; South Africa; forced migration; remittance;

“I feel so happy now” Afghan students’ cross-cultural adaptation experiences in Turkey

The main purpose of this qualitative case study is to understand Afghan students’ cross-cultural adaptation experiences by applying Kim’s theory of cross-cultural adaptation. Within the first part of this study, cross-cultural adaptation theory and some information about Afghan immigrants in Turkey were given. Then, Afghan students’ experiences are discussed under three sub-themes within the frame of Kim’s stress adaptation growth model. The participant group consisted of three middle school students who have come from Afghanistan to Turkey at different times. Data for this study were collected by using semi-structured interviews and analyzed through content analysis technique. Findings revealed that Afghan students have lived many positive or negative experiences in the whole process. Having similar cultural characteristics, learning the target language, people’s attitudes towards immigrants in the host country, religious and cultural proximity play critical roles in adapting to the new environment. The last section included a conclusion and offered some implications for research and practice

Conceptualising crisis, refugees and IDPs: insights from northern Iraq on vulnerabilities and needs caused by displacement

This Working Paper assesses how humanitarian and development aid agencies address individuals whose human rights and human dignity have been affected by displacement. It proposes a fresh look at how to measure needs that arise in such situations. To this end, the Paper evaluates characteristic needs regarding livelihoods, rights and basic services for displaced persons in an empirical study of so-called protracted refugee situations (PRS). The needs are then contrasted with the international legal category of ‘refugee’ and the descriptive definition of internally displaced persons (IDPs) used by aid agencies to address situations of displacement. Following empirical observations and drawing from existing models, the study establishes an inter-subjectively comprehensible catalogue of needs, i.e. land, employment (livelihoods), housing, social inclusion, nutrition, health, community assets, social networks, education, legal aid, political rights, legal documents, human rights. It is argued that these indicators need to be evaluated in regard to the degree of access displaced persons have (from no access to full access). The weighted indicators establish different points of reference to measure the detrimental impact of displacement on human dignity. Assessment of aid for displaced persons thereby reaches beyond the pre-displacement situation as a central point of reference: This would enable humanitarian and development actors to evaluate their contribution to facilitating a dignified life of individuals more accurately, as a return to the status quo ante does not automatically mean that aid was successful—e.g. a return to misery. Drawing on field research findings in northern Iraq, moreover, the Paper argues that any indicator-based-approach must be combined with an analysis of the socio-political and historical context of forced migration and also pay attention to impacts on the host society. In line with empirical examples, the Working Paper argues that humanitarian and development aid agencies need to start from a long-term, multi-sectoral, whole-of-society, and systematically indicatorbased approach—even though it is inevitable to prioritise some issues (and disregard others) in situations of crisis

Who has Left, and Who Would Return: Differences between Serbian Highly Educated Emigrants in the USA and Canada

The aim of this paper is to point to the similarities and differences between the highly educated immigrants who had acquired high education in Serbia and emigrated in 1991 or later, based on the data of a large-scale survey conducted in the United States and Canada. The goal of the paper is to provide a better understanding of differences in motives of the highly educated who emigrated from Serbia during this period for choosing the country of destination, as well as in plans for possible return to the country of origin. The analysis shows that the human agency, although strongly influenced by severe political and socio-economic conditions in the country, contributed significantly to the making of a decision to emigrate. The effects of the human agency can be also seen in the analysis of differences in the receiving countries. While respondents in Canada mostly chose economic reasons, for the respondents in the US the most important reasons were related to the desire for professional advancement. Among the respondents in Canada, there was an association between the standards of living satisfaction and the self-realisation within family, whereas in the US there was an association between the views about living standards and achievements in the professional sense

A shifting yet grounded transnational social field: Interplays of displacement and emplacement in African migrant trajectories across Central America

In this article, we draw on the volatile complexity of African migrant trajectories in Central America to broaden the scope of transnational scholarship. These trajectories are characterised by mobilities as well as immobilities, taking shape in particular local contexts. By focusing on the interplays between displacement and emplacement that are part of these trajectories, we aim to increase our understanding of the extent to which migrants still ‘on the move’ experience both temporal embeddedness and cross-border connectedness, thereby acknowledging and unravelling transnational lives as they ‘touch the ground’ en route. To do so, we build on long-standing scholarly commitments in Central and South America and recent field research in Costa Rica. We go into selected empirical cases to discuss the dynamics of travelling, dwelling and travelling again as part of African migrant trajectories across Central America. We then explore the value of a ‘shifting’ transnational social field perspective and indicate some challenges for future trajectory research