48 research outputs found
Moving far away to stay: translocal livelihoods, labour migration corridors and mobility in rural Nicaragua
No full textGriet Steel, Nanneke Winters and Carlos Sosa bring our attention to Nicaragua (with continuous flow of people moving forward and backward to Costa Rica and the US), where temporary migration help people, men and women, to achieving socio-economic improvement in their home community. This chapter analyses how labour migration flows of male household members, single mothers and young couples shape livelihoods in rural Nicaragua. It argues that rural households consider different types of movement as important strategies for achieving socio-economic improvement in their home community. In turn, these mobility-based strategies result in development corridors between people and places. Moreover, the chapter shows how mobility, like any other livelihood asset, is played out in unequal power relations that affect its experience and potential. Building on a translocal approach, the chapter contributes to a dynamic and multi-dimensional understanding of the linkages between migration and development through a consideration of development corridors and the relational (im)mobilities involved. This way, it illustrates the clear need for more sustained policy attention for the diversity of mobilities, immobilities and translocal connections that are part of labour migration flows
The return of Amhara Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) to Oromia region in Ethiopia
No full textSince 2018 , Ethiopia faced high number of IDPs due to natural and man-made factors in which multiple forms of conflict takes the lion share .Significant number of ethnic Amharas were displaced from Oromia region to neighboring Amhara region. The government of Ethiopia tried to address the problems of such IDPs through a massive program of return to their home village. This study is focused on the return of Amhara IDPs who were displaced from Wollega and West Shewa zones of Oromia region and sheltered in IDPs camps in Amhara region between three to four years. The government implemented a return in three rounds between February and May 2024.However, significant comments are raised on the return project mainly on IDPs interests and their security. This study took China camp which has 12,000 Amhara IDPs located in Debre Birhan city of Amhara region as a representative of other IDPs sites. It explored the experiences of refused and re-joined IDPs and their perceptions towards state-led returns. The necessary data were collected by a research assistant and camp coordinator with a total of 11 interviewees and two FGD groups each consisting of six discussants differentiated based on sex . The participants of the research were IDPs who were not identified in the return project, IDPs who refused to return and IDPs who returned but later re-joined China camp after staying in temporary shelters in Oromia. They were selected using purposive and snowball sampling techniques.
The finding revealed that there were discussions between government representatives, IDPs committee and IDPs regarding the return. At the beginning, IDPs rejected the return plan by referring security, economic and political concerns. Consequently, the government employed coercion strategies like cut off aid, searched by police on strongly resisted IDPs, intimidation to confiscate IDP’s agriculture land and urban houses. While part of IDPs persist their rejection, 4,300 IDPs were returned to save their agriculture land and urban houses and considering the promises of the government. Returnees were received in temporary shelters in woreda towns and visiting their village is not possible due to the presence Shene armed group, which is designated as terrorist by the Ethiopian parliament in 2021. According to the estimation of research participants, half of the returnees are re-displaced to Amhara and other peaceful regions due to worsening insecurity, lack of follow up, insufficient aid and anti-return discourses. The re-displaced IDPs , like refused IDPs, are blocked from accessing services in China camp but camp coordinators informally allow them to stay in the shelter. IDPs seek peace deal and disarmament of Shene armed group, reconciliation with local youths, compensation of their property lost during the conflict, justice for victims and accountability of officials who involved in previous conflict. The study calls to resume a peace talk between the government and Shene to create favorable environment for the return of IDPs
A forgotten crisis: The challenges of implementing a gender-based humanitarian intervention in the Darien
No full textThis research paper offers an analysis of the evolution and current status of the humanitarian response for transit migrants in the Darien province as of 2023, focusing on the complications in the consistent implementation of a gender approach. Through a qualitative interviewing methodology used in interviews with nine humanitarian actors, this research reveals the challenges to humanitarian interventions brought by the lack of proper coordination between agencies,the transit status of this migrant population, and the absence of state presence. Moreover, it identifies that such challenges further hinder the ability to integrate a comprehensive gender approach in the humanitarian response due to the lack of an inter-organizational agreement on what such an approach entails and how it should be implemented for this particular transit migrant population. Finally, it offers a reflection on what further actions could be taken by humanitarian organizations in the field to respond to the challenges that the rapid increase in this migratory flow may represent for the humanitarian field in the near future
“No vine para acompañarme, vine para trabajar.” O cómo las mujeres centroamericanas organizan sus hogares transnacionales en Belice City
Get PDFA pesar del creciente interés que ha suscitado el estudio de los procesos de migración internacional desde una perspectiva de género, la mayoría de los estudios solamente describe la migración de hombres y mujeres por separado sin tener en cuenta sus interacciones, o reflexiona sobre la cuestión del empoderamiento de la mujer a través de la migración. Sin embargo, la transformación de familias, hogares y comunidades derivada de la migración es mucho más compleja y requiere de un enfoque relacional más detallado y profundo.
En este artículo intento contribuir al estudio de este tema a través del análisis de un componente fundamental de la migración internacional, que es la organización de hogares transnacionales. Con objeto de poder aplicar una perspectiva de género en el análisis de la organización de hogares transnacionales, aplicaré el marco teórico gendered geographies of power desarrollado por Sarah Mahler y Patricia Pessar. El presente estudio está basado en un trabajo de campo sobre las diferentes estrategias que utilizan las mujeres (y hombres) centroamericanos que emigran a Belice City para ‘salir adelante’. Sus historias muestran cómo las mujeres migrantes intentan utilizar su condición de mujer transnacional a su favor. A partir de sus experiencias y perspectivas, argumento que el discurso
mundial de la migración internacional necesita de un replanteamiento que tome en cuenta la interacción de hombres y mujeres y las geometrías de poder en que se encuentran los migrantes
Beyond the bird in the cage? Translocal embodiment and trajectories of Nicaraguan female migrants in Seville, Spain
No full textAbstract: In migration scholarship, the migrant body has recently begun to gain recognition as a productive analytical scale for exploring politics of mobility: the highly differentiated ways in which migration is accessed and lived. However, a tendency to treat bodies as sites of gendered and racialized suffering can obscure migrant agency and differentiation as well as the ways in which migrant bodies can also be seen as sites of resistance and achievement. This paper aims to contribute to our understanding of the ways in which mobility politics shape divergent migrant trajectories by putting forward a translocal embodiment perspective. The paper argues that migrant bodies constitute key sites of struggle over mobility, and that looking at migrant embodied practice in translocal context can further unravel the differentiations that shape migrant trajectories across space and time. The papers argument builds on theoretical notions of intersectionality, embodied cultural capital and translocality to enrich the discussion of mobility politics. Empirically, it draws on multi-sited ethnographic research with Nicaraguan families, focusing on female Nicaraguan migrants working in informal domestic employment in Spain, to explore how bodies and embodied practices matter throughout these migrants trajectories. In particular, the paper intends to do justice to migrant agency by exploring how bodies that are often victimized can also be considered as stratified resources of translocal negotiation. The translocal embodiment perspective put forward in the paper shows that migrant bodies constitute a multi-faceted, non-erasable component of the unsettled yet situated mobility politics that shape divergent trajectories
Unveiling coloniality and reproduction of racialized others in Japanese migration policy
No full textExploitation of migrant workers has been happening all over the world. Investigating labour migration policy with the lens of colonial matrix of power, I argue that concurrent labour migration policy is used as a tool to sustain historically created power hierarchies. This paper expands decolonial perspectives into Asia by starting from Japan as a former colonial power to expose coloniality in migration policy and explore its implication. Drawing on in-depth semi-structured interviews as well as a focused group discussion and program documents of Technical Intern Training Program (TITP) in Japan, I elucidate how historically informed racial ideology has been (re)produced and is articulated through migration policy. Moreover, this paper explicates how division of labour is deeply intertwined in capitalism and is operated by exploiting invented racial and gender categories that are articulated through domination via the dehumanization of the Other. The analysis takes its departure from the idea of ‘trainee’, demonstrating how TITP is used to reinforce colonial matrix of power, systematically putting migrants into ‘low-skilled’ positions, which reproduces the idea of ‘Japaneseness’ as superior to Other Asian countries. Throughout the research, by integrating decolonial approach, this paper aims to hold their multiple selves not just as ‘migrant workers.
Following, Othering, Taking Over: Research Participants Redefining the Field through Mobile Communication Technology
Get PDFBased on fieldwork with migrants and border populations in
Central America and the story of a young Congolese woman in particular,
this article discusses how research participants’ use of mobile communication
technology provokes a redefinition of the ethnographic field. Increasingly
popular trajectory research often sets out to follow migrants, yet a
focus on migrants keeping in touch with researchers at their own initiative
and discretion, following them, reveals entanglements of selective on- and
offline engagement and self-representation. Critical exploration of research
participants’ differentiated use of digital technology for navigating a social
environment that includes the researcher herself not only transforms our
understanding of the field in empirical, ethical, and methodological terms,
but also counteracts potentially voyeuristic and life-threatening practices
of following people on the mov
Embedding remittances : a methodological note on financial diaries in Nicaragua
No full textAbstract: In response to the methodological challenge of embedding remittances to counter domin ant development discourses, this paper aims to contribute to remittances research by discussing financial diaries in Muy Muy, Nicaragua. Based on longitudinal and integrated quantitative and qualitative tracking of migrant household practices, financial diaries facilitate explorations of the social and contextual dimensions of remittances that may help account for their heterogeneous character. In particular, the paper highlights the partiality of diaries as well as the translocal interdependency and irregularity of household practices, providing clues for integrating remittances instead of isolating them as neutral instrumental transfers. It uses the example of household debt to further anchor remittances locally, illus trating how financial diaries can expose the changes and considerations that are part of household practices, including remittances. The paper concludes by suggesting that financial diaries need a decisively qualitative framework and may be particularly useful in contexts characterised by multiple migrations
