Collection: Migration, Mobilities and Movement
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Migration, Mobilities and Movement
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This article is concerned with the employment of pathologising discourses of mental health and trauma by the mainstream media as they pertain to the treatment of migrants in detention in Canada. Using critical discourse analysis, this research contrasts mainstream media coverage of four major publications on immigration detention. It explores the media’s role in the (re)creation of refugee discourse, and as a purveyor of racial ideology, which problematises people of colour and demands state intervention in the form of mental health aid. The resulting discourse pathologises the refugee identity and simultaneously obscures the socio-political conditions and violence that necessitates their departure from their home countries. As refugee discourse is infused with biomedical understandings of mental health, it also legitimises the nation state’s practice of coercive social control for these populations through detention.
Using ethnographic data, this article aims to analyse the provision of informal care by asylum-seekers in Sweden and how this intersects with the(ir) asylum process. The article argues that asylum-seekers are framed by the Swedish welfare system and immigration authorities as ungrievable and deportable, which not only impedes their access to formal care systems and values, but also creates a strong need for informal care. Further, it is suggested that the informal care provided by asylum-seekers should be included in current debate on informal care and its impact on people’s lives.
The introductory chapter discusses key theoretical concepts upon which the book develops, such as the meaning of integration and inclusion, broadly understood but also with reference to the labour market and to the wider social context. Hence it reflects on how different labour outcomes affect empowerment and participation as key aspects of newcomers’ integration. It also introduces the reader to the multilevel (local–national–European) and multidimensional (micro–meso–macro) framework of the study underpinning the book, as well as to its large quantitative and qualitative empirical basis. The introduction also discusses ethical aspects which pertain to research with vulnerable individuals. Finally, the layout of the book is presented and explained.
This chapter explores what a criminology of islands might look like and offer. It describes the historical example of the mutiny and horrific execution-style murders of approximately 125 babies, children, women, and men on the Houtman Abrolhos chain of islands (Indian Ocean) in 1629, following the wreck of the Dutch East Company ship, Batavia. The example provides a means to introduce key concepts that reappear throughout the book, including by exploring how the isolation and remoteness of the Houtman Abrolhos islands may have played a role in the dramatic and brutal subversion of existing social order that resulted in the violent murders that ensued. The chapter closes by setting out how islands are defined in the context of the book, and by introducing the concepts of place, space, ‘islandness’, and what we refer to as the politics of place and belonging; a conceptual lens that we return to and extend upon in later chapters.
This chapter sets the scene for the book and describes how my interest in social network research emerged during the last two decades of my research career. The chapter outlines how the various projects that underpin the book emerged and also situates the work within my own networks of influential relationships. My own experiences as a migrant are not the focus of this book, but, adopting a reflexive approach, this chapter briefly considers how my own positionality has influenced the subject matter and approach of my research endeavours over the years. This introductory chapter explains the structure of the book and also presents the first of the short case studies or ‘thick descriptions’ that will be used throughout to provide rich qualitative insights into specific themes.
In this article, we discuss epistemic injustice in the International Child Development Programme (ICDP), a universalised parenting support programme in Norway that is mandatory for all newly arrived refugees. We show that despite the programme’s good intentions, it constitutes a form of epistemic injustice because it enforces a state-endorsed epistemology that proffers the ‘right’ way of parenting. Using data collected during ICDP training for a group of newly arrived refugee parents from Syria, we explore how the ideals embedded in the programme influence the interactions and epistemic exchanges between participants and mentors. This study contributes to discussions on parenting support for marginalised groups by revealing the functioning of epistemic injustice as new inhabitants in a welfare state are targeted by a social support programme aimed at enhancing their parenting skills.
This introductory chapter explains the book’s use of ‘emotion’, ‘affect’, ‘migration’ and ‘mediation’, unpacks the ‘affective turn’ in migration studies and provides an overview of the work that has been done so far, particularly in immigrant societies in the Global North. It then uses Sara Ahmed’s conceptualisation of feelings that stick to bodies (2004) to lay out the negative affects that are attributed to migrants and how they are used to sentimentalise public discourse and justify a global rise in xenophobia and populism. At the same time, it argues that the contribution of the chapters of this book is to identify other kinds of feelings about migration, and feelings that centre the experiences of migrants and refugees that still have transformational potential as emotions of social change.
Migration-driven super-diversity is creating new challenges for equitable access to care in many European welfare states. To provide good care for all, care workers must bridge different kinds of social distance to build trusting relationships. Qualitative research within two home-care organisations in the same super-diverse neighbourhoods in the Netherlands reveals the strategies used by home-care workers to do so, as well as to maintain distance when their professionalism is threatened. However, the ability of care organisations and their employees to provide good relational care to all is constrained by the national standardisation of care within the welfare state.
In this paper, we take the management crisis in the Finnish Immigration Service, Migri, as an example to illustrate ambiguous qualities of automated decision making in the context of the production and alleviation of social harm. The case lies at the crossroads of political and legal discussions on immigration and artificial intelligence (AI) transformation. As a result of the persistent backlog of cases held by Migri for processing, since the ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015, numerous asylum seekers remain in a state of bureaucratic limbo. Automating part of the decision-making process offered a potential solution to the harms caused by prolonged processing; however, it was hampered by features of the Finnish constitutional system. The applicants most likely avoided the potential algorithmic harms of prematurely implemented automated systems. However, possible algorithmic solutions to preexisting analogue harms have also been prevented. Through the analysis of policy and legal documents related to immigration and automation, we show that the disconnect between distinct political priorities leaves a variety of harms unaccounted for and may cause fractures in the Finnish harm reduction regime. Given that the development of algorithmic systems is subject to a constant struggle between contradictory values and expectations placed on these systems in terms of the alleviation of harm(s), we argue that a holistic view of harms and solutions to these harms in digitalised societies may facilitate the harm reduction potential of algorithmic systems.
Background:
Following Brexit, and the ending of freedom of movement, labour supply crises have emerged in the UK. The paper focuses on the horticultural sector, where these crises have been particularly pronounced, with fears of crops being left to rot in the fields now commonplace.
Aims and objectives:
To examine the scale and nature of employer pressure on government with respect to UK low-wage migration policymaking in the period (2016–2020) following the Brexit vote.
Methods:
Thematic analysis of five parliamentary inquiries over the 2016–2020 Brexit period covering 515 documents and amounting to a total of 4,227 pages of evidence.
Findings:
Numerous political inquiries emerged after the 2016 Brexit referendum that opened up the opportunity for employers to publicly press government for more liberal low-wage migration policies. Employers responded with concerted, weighty and consistent pressure that revolved around: emphasising a labour supply crisis; underlining the lack of suitable local labour; presenting government with a range of unsavoury alternatives to low-wage immigration; and championing a new seasonal guestworker scheme to avoid these unsavoury alternatives.
Discussion and conclusions:
The Brexit period (2016–2020) saw a willingness within UK government to listen to employers with respect to migration policy. In the food production industry, employers responded with a strong and consistent voice and they got what they wanted: a new horticultural guestworker scheme. We cannot say for certain though that correlation equals causation, and more research is now needed into the intimate entanglement of employers and political elites in the migration policy process.
