Sending Country Policies

This chapter explores the twin central questions of how and why countries of origin reach out to expatriate populations. It first outlines basic concepts and typologies related to sending country policies, focusing particularly on key countries of origin of migrants settled within the European Union. Second, the chapter reviews central explanations for the emergence of sending country policies. However, sending countries do not reach out to their emigrants in equal measure. Differences are therefore examined in the outreach policies of sending countries and in sending countries' transnational relations with diasporas. The last part of the chapter discusses the nexus between sending country policies and migrant integration in the country of residence. On the basis of existing research, the chapter argues that sending country policies may intersect with migrants' integration in a number of ways. For example, migrant sending countries may seek to strengthen the upward mobility of their expatriate citizens in their place of residence abroad, and they may call for greater protection of migrant workers in precarious labour situations. Little is currently known about how migrants and diasporas respond to these policies and how they are perceived by political actors of countries of residence. This is an area for further study. More analysis is also needed to determine the extent that sending country outreach policies aimed at bonding with and supporting citizens abroad challenge territorial policy sovereignty and the strength of receiving countries in agenda-setting in international cooperation on migration and migrant settlement

Entering into domestic hospitality for refugees: a critical inquiry through a multi-scalar view of home

Grassroots refugee hospitality is an innovative, if still little investigated field of practices, which illuminates and reshapes the native/immigrant divide. It also sheds light on ‘domestic humanitarianism’, as a range of everyday modes of helping that take place even in the domestic space. Drawing on a case study in Northern Italy, this article develops a framework on the societal implications of refugee hospitality, based on a multi-scalar view of home. From the inside, the lived experience of hospitality involves profound re-definitions of domesticity and meaningful personal changes for hosts and guests alike. From the outside, the connective function of local actors is crucial in shaping the lived experience of domestic reception. From the bottom up, hosting refugees is tantamount to opening, hence questioning, the most intimate threshold of the ‘national we’. Overall, and despite its limitations, domestic hospitality enables refugees to enter ‘home’ on different scales, from the micro-literal to the macro-metaphorical, thereby providing a potential counter-narrative to anti-immigrant discourses, emotions and politics

Cercando il benessere nelle migrazioni : l'esperienza delle assistenti familiri straniere in Trentino

Il libro, basato su un'indagine qualitativa, tratta del fenomeno delle assistenti domiciliari immigrate provenienti dall'Europa Orientale e occupate nella cura degli anziani. Ne analizza la visione e le aspettative di benessere, eminentemente proiettato verso il miglioramento delle condizioni di vita dei familiari rimasti in patria: una forma di "benessere per procura

Lavoro autonomo e piccole imprese come canali di integrazione dal basso degli immigrati : il caso della provincia di Trento

This article analyzes the main theoretical interpretations of the spreading of self-employment and small enterprises among immigrant workers in Italy, building on empirical research in the local area of Trent. Generally, the Italian context provides immigrant entrepreneurs with several opportunities, as well as constraints, on institutional, economic and cultural grounds. Immigrant self-employment, in Italy, relies both on demand factors (e.g. vacancy chain dynamics, out-sourcing, differentiation of consumption models, and the first signs of "ethnic markets") and supply factors (e.g. immigrants' research for social and work mobility, not to mention their adaptation to self-employment, when unable to find more stable job solutions). This articles analyzes the methodological and substantive results, of a local research, relying both on quantitative and qualitative techniques. Access to self-employment (and possibly to enterprise creation) for immigrants turns out to follow on a relevant experience in the local job market (as employees), more often than being just a "second best" choice. Immigrant entrepreneurs in Trentino mostly deal with Italian customers and providers, "ethnic" patterns of consumption being the exception rather than the rule, as they seem to endure a widespread isolation from local institutions. The article concludes focusing on some possible guidelines for a better governance of immigrant entrepreneurship, involving local interventions in technical guidance, training and credit facilities, building on the assumption that the growth of such enterprises, as long as they are properly regulated, may have a positive impact both on immigrants and on receiving societies