Arlie Hochschild glosses the practice of women migrants in poor nations who leave their families behind for extended periods of time to do carework in other wealthier countries as a “global heart transplant” from poor to wealthy nations. Thus she signals the idea of an injustice between nations and a moral harm for the individuals in the practice. Yet the nature of the harm needs a clear articulation. When we posit a sufficiently nuanced “right to care,” we locate the harm (...) to central relationships of the migrant women. The “right to (give and receive) care” we develop uses a concept of a relational self drawn from an ethics of care. The harm is situated in the broken relationships, which in turn have a serious impact on a person’s sense of equal dignity and self-respect, particularly since the sacrifice of central relationships of the migrant woman allows others (mostly women) to maintain these same relationships. The paper ends with a brief discussion of some of the solutions we need to consider. (shrink)

Arlie Hochschild glosses the practice of women migrants in poor nations who leave their families behind for extended periods of time to do carework in other wealthier countries as a “global heart transplant” from poor to wealthy nations. Thus she signals the idea of an injustice between nations and a moral harm for the individuals in the practice. Yet the nature of the harm needs a clear articulation. When we posit a sufficiently nuanced “right to care,” we locate the harm (...) to central relationships of the migrant women. The “right to (give and receive) care” we develop uses a concept of a relational self drawn from an ethics of care. The harm is situated in the broken relationships, which in turn have a serious impact on a person’s sense of equal dignity and self-respect, particularly since the sacrifice of central relationships of the migrant woman allows others (mostly women) to maintain these same relationships. The paper ends with a brief discussion of some of the solutions we need to consider. (shrink)

This essay argues that Catholic (magisterial) social teaching's division of ethics into public and private creates a structural lacuna which makes it almost impossible to envision a truly just situation for migrant domestic careworkers (MDCs) within the current horizon of Catholic social thought. Drawing on a variety of sociological studies, I conclude that it is easy for MDCs to “disappear” between two countries, two families, and, finally, two sets of ethical norms. If the magisterium genuinely wishes Catholic ethicists (...) to address the plight of these migrant women, normative Catholic social teaching must pay more attention to household sociological realities and more fully absorb the feminist critique of the sharp line between the public and the private, between care and paid work. (shrink)

This article probes the politics of the migrant caregiver/citizen-employer relationship in Palestine/israel as it unfolds within the Jewish-Israeli home. Based on interviews with migrants from the Philippines, Nepal, India and Sri Lanka and their Jewish-Israeli employers, I examine how Israel’s ethno-racially hierarchical citizenship regime and the transnational gendering and racialisation of carework manifest in this relationship. I begin by situating migrant women working as caregivers within the legal and political context of Palestine/israel, delineating how gendered constructions of the (...) Jewish-Israeli woman uphold the borders of the nation and paint non-Jewish migrant women as reproductively threatening. I then analyse two common tropes among citizen-employers in describing migrant caregivers. The first, what I term the ‘kinship trope’, characterizes them as ‘one of the family’, obscuring the ethno-racial basis of the state. I show how this trope contrasts sharply with Zionist settler colonial rhetoric portraying Jewish-Israelis as ‘one big family’. The second trope represents migrant women as individual agents of economic development and Israel as a market-driven, neoliberal society that is equally a state for all its citizens. By depicting Israel as a ‘modern’, ‘progressive’ state that is an exemplar of gender equality, this trope again masks the ethno-racial basis of citizenship, as well as gender disparities. Finally, I argue for a feminist approach to migrant carework that accounts for the ways neoliberal labour formations are mediated by gendered racisms specific to a particular state’s racial nation-building project. (shrink)

This article examines how immigrant careworkers relate dynamically with the Norwegian gender regime. While the importation of careworkers contributes both to the practical maintenance and to the undermining on a more ideological level of the Norwegian gender regime, it also brings in new constellations and possibilities. In this article examples from two studies are discussed in the light of institutional and intersectional perspectives. It describes features of the Norwegian gender regime that are especially relevant to carework, and the (...) highly gendered distribution and sharing of carework across the public and private domains. One central Norwegian form of care institution, the nursing home, then comes into focus. Making use of empirical examples from fieldwork and interviews, the article discusses how, as immigrant careworkers increasingly staff these institutions, new light is thrown on existing power structures, while at the same time these structures may be challenged through the fluidity of situational and relational gendering processes. (shrink)

Feminist Care Ethics has much to offer in an analysis of the international migration of care workers. This paper argues, however, that Joan Tronto’s analysis of this international care regime is incomplete insofar as it overlooks the ways in which the current global care market is progressive for the workers and the significant harms this market is inflicting on care receivers in source countries. In order for Feminist Care Ethics to fulfill its potential, it must be developed beyond a visionary (...) tool for revaluing care—it must also produce analytic tools for evaluating real alternatives under pressing, real-time constraints. (shrink)

This article presents qualitative interview data to explore the health-related carework of low-income women caregivers with special-needs children and the implications of carework for women’s financial security. The author documents “direct” and “advocacy” carework as two types of caregiving that low-income women carry out in the context of declining government resources for poor disabled children. The author shows that the unique demands of carework responsibilities and the conditions of low-wage work combine to limit caregivers’ employment and education options as well (...) as their long-term prospects for financial stability. (shrink)

This article examines the politics of reproductive labor in globalization. Using the case of migrant Filipina domestic workers, the author presents the formation of a three-tier transfer of reproductive labor in globalization between the following groups of women: middle-class women in receiving nations, migrant domestic workers, and Third World women who are too poor to migrate. The formation of this international division of labor suggests that reproduction activities, as they have been increasingly commodified, have to be situated in (...) the context of the global market economy. This division of labor is a structural process that determines the migration of Filipina domestic workers. As such, this article also uses in-depth interviews to examine and enumerate the contradictions that migrant Filipina domestic workers experience in their family and work lives as a result of “being in the middle” of this division of labor. (shrink)

Migrant farmworkers dominate the horticultural workforce in many parts of the Minority (developed) World. The ‘manual’ work that they do—picking and packing fruits and vegetables, and pruning vines and trees—is widely designated unskilled. In policy, media, academic, activist and everyday discourses, hired farm work is framed as something anybody can do. We interrogate this notion with empirical evidence from the Sunraysia horticultural region of Australia. The region’s grape and almond farms depend heavily on migrant workers. By-and-large, the farmers (...) and farmworkers we spoke to pushed back against the unskilled tag. They asserted that farmworkers acquire knowledge and skills over time and that experienced farmworkers are valuable—their value being brought into sharp relief against accounts of inexperienced farmworkers’ errors. Our interviewees provided rich insights into farmworkers’ engagements with crops and the intricacies of picking and pruning well. Far from being bereft of knowledge and skills, they recognised that experienced farmworkers bring benefits. They improve productivity, product quality and ultimately profits. This is especially so when open communication channels exist across the farm hierarchy, when experienced farmworkers’ insights are taken seriously by their employers. Our research is informed by organisational studies literature and scholarship on craft/making. Like factory floor workers and artisans, experienced farmworkers bring accumulated knowledge and skills to their work, gained through repeat performance. They reflect on and adjust their activities in dialogue with their materials and the environment. Experienced farmworkers demonstrate care, dexterity and judgement. They are not unskilled, and they are more than labouring bodies. (shrink)

Climate change and environmental problems will force or induce millions of people to migrate. In this article, I describe environmental migration and articulate some of the ethical issues. To begin, I give an account of these migrants that overcomes misleading dichotomies. Then, I focus attention on two important ethical issues: justice and responsibility. Although we are all at risk of becoming environmental migrants, we are not equally at risk. Our risk depends on our temporal position, geographical location, social position, and (...) the kind of society in which we live. We all contribute to environmental problems, but we do not contribute equally. About 11% of the world population is responsible for 50% of carbon emissions. These inequalities raise issues of justice because many of the people who are at high risk have contributed little to the problems. Since the issues of justice are relatively clear and compelling, I focus more attention on issues of responsibility. I use Iris Marion Young’s account of responsibility for structural injustice to address four key questions about moral responsibility and environmental migration. (shrink)

States cannot legitimately enforce their borders against migrants if dominant conceptions of sovereignty inform enforcement because these conceptions undermine sufficient respect for migrants’ basic human rights. Instead, such conceptions lead states to assert total control over outsiders’ potential cross-border movements to support their in-group’s self-rule. Thus, although legitimacy requires states to prioritize universal respect for basic human rights, sovereign states today generally fail to do so when it comes to border enforcement. I contend that this enforcement could only be rendered (...) legitimate if it was predicated on more desirable conceptions of sovereignty that supported the universal prioritization of basic human rights. Specifically, desirable conceptions would not establish and require absolute state sovereignty over borders as a necessary precondition for true popular self-governance. (shrink)

This article addresses two questions: First, how does the value of human dignity distinctively bear on a state’s responsibilities in relation to migrants; and, secondly, how serious a wrong is it when a state fails to respect the dignity of migrants? In response to these questions, a view is presented about the distinction between wrongs that violate cosmopolitan standards and wrongs that violate the standards that are distinctive to a particular community; about when and how the contested concept of human (...) dignity might be engaged; and, elaborating a three-tiered and lexically ordered scheme of state responsibilities, about how we should assess the seriousness of a state’s failure to respect the dignity of migrants. (shrink)

Globally, one of every eight nurses is a migrant, but few studies have focused on the healthcare experiences of migrant nurses (MNs) as consumers or recipients of healthcare. We address this gap by examining MNs and their acculturation, barriers to healthcare access, and perceptions of healthcare encounters as consumers. For this mixed‐methods study, a convenience sample of MNs working in Europe and Israel was recruited. The quantitative component's methods included testing the reliability of scales contained within the questionnaire (...) and using Hayes Process Model #4 to test for mediation. The qualitative component's methods included analyzing interviews with iterative inductive thematic analysis. Quantitative findings on MNs (n = 73) indicated that the association between acculturation and perception of the healthcare encounter, which MNs experienced as healthcare consumers, was mediated by barriers to healthcare access, even after adjusting for age and gender (p = 0.03). Qualitative interviews with MNs (n = 13) provided possible explanations for the quantitative findings. Even after working in the host country's healthcare system for several years, MNs reported difficulties with their healthcare encounters as healthcare consumers, not only due to their limited knowledge about the culture and healthcare resources but also due to the biased responses they received. (shrink)

Temporary migration raises two different challenges. The first is whether territorial democracies can integrate temporary migrants as equal citizens; the second is whether transnationally mobile societies can be organized democratically as communities of equal citizens. Considering both questions within a single analytical framework will reveal a dilemma: on the one hand, liberals have good reasons to promote the expansion of categories of free-moving citizens as the most effective and normatively attractive response to the problem of partial citizenship for temporary migrants; (...) yet, on the other hand, if free movement rights were actually used by too many, this might fatally undermine the sustainability of intergenerational and territorial democratic polities. (shrink)

Introduction -- Otherness in contemporary European cinema -- Potential and limits of a new European in Nicolas Echevarría's Cabeza de vaca -- Migrants in Europe: breaking the boundaries? -- Inspiration from abroad? cultural boundaries in Chicano cinema -- Conclusion.

African migrants in Brazil suffer the perverse effects of xenophobia, in addition to experiencing racist behaviors. These processes also manifest themselves within the context of kindergarten centers and pre-schools, directly influencing the pedagogical approach, as well as the perceptions and conceptions surrounding being a black African person. In this context, this article aims to present the perception of early education teachers in the city of São Paulo about racialization processes in the sheltering and insertion of black African children of ages (...) between 0 and 5. In order to achieve the aim of this research, interviews were held with early education professionals from both the direct and indirect educational systems, so as to try and comprehend how these agents perceive the sheltering/insertion of migrant black African children. The analysis was made based on theoretical frameworks regarding childhood sociology, studies on migration and race relations. This work intends to enlarge the childhood and migration research fields, as well as research on the processes of racialization of African migrant children aged less than seven. (shrink)

The number of people without rights of residence or work in the territory of Western Europe's nation states is growing. In official representations of political life this group is commonly 'symbolically eliminated' or taken up by an increasingly hostile discourse on 'illegal immigrants' and 'international terrorism'. This article explores what a rereading of the work of Hannah Arendt can contribute to the analytical task of giving an alternative meaning to the presence of this group. Arendt opens up new ways of (...) thinking and acting in view of the present situation. She shows us the rightless migrant as subject to a very specific form of domination - total domination. With Arendt we can see the migrant also as an emblematic philosophical figure, whose status exposes the contradiction of state-centred citizenship and the discourse of human rights. Lastly, the migrant comes into view as a potential political actor; protests by sans papiers become visible as sites of active citizenship. (shrink)

States combine the routine refusal of citizenship to migrants with policies that grant newborns of citizens (or residents) full membership of society without questions asked. This paper asks what, if anything, can justify this differential treatment of the two types of newcomers. It explores arguments for differential treatment based on the differential environmental impact, different impact on the (political) culture of the society in question and differences between the positions of the newcomers themselves. I conclude that, although some justification for (...) differential treatment exists, the case for it is weaker than one may expect and the grounds on which it can be justified are surprising and problematic. (shrink)

This article provides a rationale for adopting the critical realism instead of pragmatism paradigm when researching skilled migrants' workplace integration in Australia. While the extant...

La migración fronteriza es un fenómeno que cada día adquiere mayor importancia en el continente en un contexto de crisis de los países del Norte y del fortalecimiento económico de algunos países sudamericanos, como es el caso de Chile. En este sentido, interesa revisar el caso de la migración femenina a la región de Tarapacá en los últimos años, los motivos para migrar, la experiencia del cruce de la frontera y el lugar que ocupan las redes de apoyo en la (...) configuración de la migración fronteriza en el contexto de recepción. El análisis de dicha experiencia migratoria y el accionar de la Pastoral de Migraciones -de acuerdo al relato de las migrantes- permiten indagar sobre cómo se estructura la comunidad en destino, su constitución y seguimiento en una región fronteriza. Las características de las migrantes y de las redes de apoyo permiten explicar el acceso a nichos laborales específicos feminizados, la precariedad de las condiciones de establecimiento y las estrategias de movilidad fronteriza. (shrink)

The discussion of migrants’ education focuses generally on whether and how host countries should educate their migrant populations, examining the goals and moral principles underlying educational services for immigrants. While apparently innocuous, such formulations of the issue stipulate a framework with clear roles: host countries are posited as providers and immigrants as recipients of services. Host countries are, thus, placed in a hierarchical position of ‘granting’ belonging, ‘granting’ services, ‘granting’ education, as benefactors, whether for the purposes of duty, utility, (...) or justice. In this paper, I challenge this unidirectional order of beneficence. I propose that the inclusion of migrants in public institutions should more properly be viewed (also) as providing a necessary good/service for the host communities. The encounter with the alien, the foreign, the migrant, in oneself and in one’s world, forces individuals and communities to reflect on what and who they are as well as what and who they want to be – their identity and their future development. I argue that migrant populations with diverse linguistic traditions and customs are uniquely situated to bring to consciousness and help denaturalize the given traditions and culture of their host communities and thus make possible a more self-aware, informed, and freer path of development for their host countries. (shrink)

Hiring international migrant eldercare workers to work hard for little pay simply because this traveling workforce needs wages higher than those they would receive back home seems somehow “wrong.” The standard justification for hiring migrants seems more like an excuse than a justification. My purpose in this article, however, is not to condemn people who hire international migrant eldercare workers, but to suggest that these employers as well as their employees are caught in the same moral bind. Depending (...) on how uncaring a state is about meeting its people’s fundamental needs including adequate long-term care, it will create a hostile environment for the development of caring people. But a society without a sufficient number of caring people risks unraveling. People who avoid care work and who shun the practice of care are, in my estimation, “marginal” to society in that they are not contributing to the foundation that makes society possible. (shrink)

This article considers ethnographic field research in order to analyze the violence and exploitation inherent to our transnational agro-food system and the ways in which temporality and statistics may aid in making visible and invisible certain experiences of migrant farmworker injury as well as individual and collective actions for wellbeing. Based in long-term, in-depth ethnographic research, this article utilizes theories of temporality and events in order to highlight social and health inequalities in agricultural labor and encourage agricultural, food and (...) health scholars to consider critically the effects of our methods. Juxtaposing the injury and health care experiences of one Mexican migrant farmworker with statistics on the health and health care of migrant and seasonal farmworkers more generally, the article confronts both the normalization of migrant farmworker injury and the taken-for-granted helpfulness of quantitative and qualitative research alike. In addition, the argument acknowledges the everyday, individual practices and collective actions migrant farmworkers engage into demand and build wellbeing for themselves, their families and beyond. (shrink)

The lives and labour of migrants are increasingly shaped by political precarity and rightlessness in an unevenly globalized world. We argue that ‘undesirableness’ rather than mobility is constitutive of the ‘migrant’ position. Besides underscoring the asymmetrical power relations that define the position of the ‘migrant’ vis-à-vis the receiving state and society, an optic of ‘undesirableness’ also foregrounds the governmental techniques deployed to produce the figure of the ‘migrant’. We suggest that the framing of migrants as ‘unwanted’ is (...) pivotal to the European non-entrée regime, which parallels cultural exclusion through an Orientalization of the discourse on migration. The immutable cultural alterity of the ‘migrant’ is thus presumed to pose a perennial threat to Western ‘liberal’ values. Two assumptions undergird this narrative of the ‘undesirable’ migrant as the quintessential ‘Other’ of the European Self: cultural determination of behaviour in migrant communities, and incompatibility of ‘migrant cultures’ with those of ‘host’ societies. (shrink)

This book offers a much-needed new political theory of an old phenomenon. The last decade alone has marked the highest number of migrations in recorded history. Constrained by environmental, economic, and political instability, scores of people are on the move. But other sorts of changes—from global tourism to undocumented labor—have led to the fact that to some extent, we are all becoming migrants. The migrant has become the political figure of our time. Rather than viewing migration as the exception (...) to the rule of political fixity and citizenship, Thomas Nail reinterprets the history of political power from the perspective of the movement that defines the migrant in the first place. Applying his "kinopolitics" to several major historical conditions and figures of migration, he provides fresh tools for the analysis of contemporary migration. (shrink)

Background Research shows that undocumented migrants have difficulties in accessing healthcare. Act 2013:407 came into force in 2013 and entitled undocumented migrants to healthcare that cannot be deferred. To date, studies about undocumented migrants’ access to care in Sweden and the impact of Act 2013:407 are sparse. Hence, the aim of this study was to describe professionals’ experiences of access to healthcare for undocumented migrants in Sweden and the impact of Act 2013:407. Methods A qualitative design with semi-structured interviews was (...) employed. Nine interviews were carried out in 2015 with nurses at two NGO healthcare centres for undocumented migrants – and an additional seven interviews in 2022 with staff at an NGO healthcare centre for undocumented migrants and personnel at a regional health and medical care administration. Interpretive description was used for the analyses. Ethical considerations Permission to carry out the study was obtained from managers at the participating NGOs and the regional health and medical care administration. Participants received verbal and written information about the study, and informed consent was obtained from all participants. Findings Six categories emerged from the analysis: Changes since the Act was introduced, General problems with healthcare access, Care for undocumented migrants – politics and social economy, Lack of knowledge, ‘Healthcare that cannot be deferred’ and Being an undocumented migrant. Conclusion Undocumented migrants’ social needs are as great as their needs for healthcare. Healthcare staff are burdened with healthcare cost considerations which affect their judgement of care provision and prioritization. Healthcare staff attitudes towards undocumented migrants affect their access to healthcare. Undocumented migrants in need of healthcare are especially vulnerable due to their legal status, being ill and the fear of being reported and deported. To assure undocumented migrants’ access to healthcare and maintain healthcare ethics, the only possible solution is to provide healthcare based on needs. (shrink)

While accepting Carens's view that irregular migrants can rightfully claim from the state protection of human rights, Miller disagrees that such migrants can claim rights of citizenship.

Since coming to power in 2010, the UK Coalition government has enacted a series of cuts to public spending, under the auspices of austerity. Underpinning these cuts is a neo-liberal model of citizenship, in which citizens are expected to be autonomous, independent and economically productive, and in which the responsibilities of citizenship outweigh the rights. This model of citizenship is characterised by a paradoxical approach to social reproduction. The Coalition government has taken a significant interest in social reproduction as a (...) means of creating the next generation of ‘good’ neo-liberal citizens; yet, the current austerity measures involve the withdrawal of state support for social reproduction activities. Drawing on participant observation carried out with migrant women's groups in Sheffield and Manchester, as well as interviews with group members, this article demonstrates how the government's paradoxical approach to social reproduction, combined with gendered and racialised discourses of citizenship and ‘Britishness’, have led to policies that place ethnic minority migrant women in an untenable situation. The social reproduction activities of ethnic minority migrant women are the subject of intense government interest, because of the concern that they will be unable to produce ‘good’ neo-liberal citizens. In some cases, this has led to government policies clearly intended to dissuade ‘undesirable’ migrants from having children. In other cases, migrant women are expected to show their commitment to integration, both for themselves and their children, specifically by learning English, even as the government has drastically cut funding for English as a Second or Other Language (ESOL) classes. While seemingly paradoxical, this is in keeping with a racialised neo-liberal model of citizenship under which the ‘responsible’ migrant mother should be able to parent and learn English without government assistance. Nonetheless, these policies are actually self-defeating, as they prevent migrant women from exhibiting the very characteristics of neo-liberal citizenship that they are ostensibly trying to encourage. (shrink)

This article situates the (human) body as a signifier for society at large, arguing that developments in many societies of structural and systematic violence that targets minorities such as refugees and first nation peoples, points to a failure of democratic values. Using two examples, we elaborate technology and digital devices as prosthesis of the body, that are also acting as proxy for state violence. The first example is from the carceral archipelago of Manus Island as a site of remote detention (...) of refugees carried out by the Australian government. Refugees held on Manus Island describe the treatment they experience as torture. The second example is drawn from the Australian mainland, telling the stories of First Nations children subjected to abuse and violence in juvenile detention centers. A judicial inquiry (Royal Commission) found that a systematic approach aimed at punishing children constituted torture. The concepts developed in this article are those of bordering and racialization, while the intertwining of human and “more than human life” helps to understand and challenge the necropolitical power evident in (liberal) capitalism. (shrink)

Over the past 25 years, migrant detention and criminalisation has steadily increased in the United States. This state of affairs has triggered social workers to advocate through policy and service on behalf of migrants. In order to evaluate contemporary practice, a critical position is generated through a genealogy of social work practice with migrants where the colonial archeology of contemporary social work practice is found in the history of the settlement movement. Here, an irony becomes apparent within social work. (...) Social work practice is a settler colonialism paralleled by Gayatri Spivak's reading of colonial discourses resulting in the subaltern condition. Following Spivak's analysis, social work advocacies affirm migrant subalternity by re-presenting the migrant as an image of nonagentive victimhood while simultaneously representing migrants through political advocacies on their behalf. As a liberation ethics counter to the colonial discourses, Spivak's exit of subalternity as the road to hegemony is drawn for social work practice. In this effort, Indigenous Action Media's distinction between allies and accomplices is central to develop a social work practice as an ethics of liberation. Social workers thus become accomplices with criminalised and detained migrants on the road to hegemony. (shrink)

Los y las estudiantes denominados migrantes internos o interregionales, así como los jóvenes migrantes retornados o pertenecientes a la generación 1.5 enfrentan un cúmulo de adversidades que deben sortear durante sus trayectorias escolares en la universidad pública y en muchos de los casos no son visibilizadas ni atendidas por las IES. En el presente ensayo se pretende proveer algunas estrategias que puedan servir de punto de partida para la atención y seguimiento a estos grupos de población estudiantil.

The article of Alla Aristova «Migrant crisis in Europe: challenges for interreligious relations» identifies and classifies main features of the current wave of migration from the Muslim countries to Europe, its differences from the previous migration inflows of the last century, and the potential impact on inter-religious relations, social and religious processes in European society.

_A beautifully written exploration of religion’s role in a secular, modern politics, by an accomplished scholar of critical theory__ “Rich in historical background, illuminating in its comparative perspective, yet focused on the question of secularization and the normative resources of modernity—a joy to read.”—Maeve Cooke, University College Dublin__ “Gordon writes with a controlled power, elegance, simplicity, and clarity that is a rare pleasure.”—Max Pensky, Binghamton University_ _Migrants in the Profane _takes its title from an intriguing remark by Theodor W. Adorno, (...) in which he summarized the meaning of Walter Benjamin’s image of a celebrated mechanical chess-playing Turk and its hidden religious animus: “Nothing of theological content will persist without being transformed; every content will have to put itself to the test of migrating in the realm of the secular, the profane.” In this masterful book, Peter Gordon reflects on Adorno’s statement and asks an urgent question: Can religion offer any normative resources for modern political life, or does the appeal to religious concepts stand in conflict with the idea of modern politics as a domain free from religion’s influence? In answering this question, he explores the work of three of the Frankfurt School’s most esteemed thinkers: Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, and Theodor W. Adorno. His illuminating analysis offers a highly original account of the intertwined histories of religion and secular modernity. (shrink)

This article begins to undertake a human rights analysis of the increasing number of migrants who die annually while trying to cross the borders of Europe in an irregular manner. Over the past 20 years, border policies increasingly focus on border management instead of on classical border control. On the basis of existing data, it seems plausible to assume that the increasing migrant mortality is an unintended side-effect of this shift from control to management. The article argues that it (...) is possible to collect data, which are more reliable than those presently available, and presents data from a pilot project carried out on Sicily in November 2011. Presuming better data can be collected; two diverging human rights approaches are developed – a conventional approach holding that European states are not accountable under human rights law for these side-effects and a functional approach holding that human rights law does impose obligations on European states in this context. On all four doctrinal issues which are relevant to the problem , these diverging approaches lead to diverging doctrinal positions. A choice between the two approaches implies not only legal but also moral, ethical, and political choices. (shrink)

The Republic of Azerbaijan has undergone major social, political, and economic transition since declaring independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. In this article, the author examines how this transition and the Nagorno-Karabakh War with Armenia have affected women’s caregiving roles and how women’s advocacy associations have emerged and function both as caregivers to Azeri women and as a mechanism for assisting Azeri women to be more effective caregivers to their own families and communities.

A care deficit is clearly evident in global cities such as London and is attributable to an ageing population, the increased employment of native-born women, prevalent gender ideologies that continue to exempt men from much reproductive work, as well as the failure of the state to provide viable alternatives. However, while it is now acknowledged that migrant women, and to a lesser extent, migrant men, step in to provide care in cities such as London, there is less research (...) on how this shapes the nature, politics and ethics of care. Drawing upon empirical research with low-paid migrant workers employed as domiciliary care providers in London, this paper explores the emergence of a distinct migrant ethic of care that is critically shaped by the caring work that migrant women and men perform. (shrink)

This article explores the possibility of resistance under conditions of extreme state power in liberal democracies. It examines the strategies of migrants without legal status who, when threatened with one of the most awesome powers of the liberal state—expulsion—shed their legal identity in order to escape the state’s reach. Remarkably, in doing so, they often succeed in preventing the state from exercising its sovereign powers. The article argues that liberal states are uniquely constrained in their dealing with undocumented migrants. Not (...) only are they forced to operate within the constraints of the international legal order—making repatriation contingent on the possession of identity documents—but the liberal state is also constitutionally limited in its exercise of coercion against the individual. The article concludes that it is those individuals who have the weakest claims against the liberal state that are most able to constrain its exercise of sovereignty. (shrink)

The literature on migrant care workers has tended to place little emphasis on the multiple relationships that migrant carers form with care recipients, employers/managers and work colleagues. This article makes a contribution to this emerging field, drawing on data from qualitative interviews carried out with 40 migrant care workers employed in the institutional and domiciliary care sectors in Dublin, Ireland. While the analysis revealed generally positive carer—care recipient relationships, significant racial and cultural tensions were evident within the (...) vertical and especially the horizontal relationships in the care workplace. The article argues that these findings highlight the need for additional research on the relationships formed in the long-term care sector and further theorizing on the meaning and importance of the affective components of care work within increasingly commodified care markets. (shrink)

The South African labor market is characterized by a high degree of inflexibility and complexity which poses significant challenges for both indigenes and migrants looking to be integrated into the labor market. These challenges are likely to be more poignant for international migrants as they face additional barriers owing to a chronically high employment rate, xenophobic sentiments, and racial exclusion. For female tied migrants, gender bias, expressed through migration policies and legislation, adds yet another layer of complexity to long-term aspirations (...) of settling in South Africa. How well tied migrants fare in the South African labor market is an important matter for consideration. Using an intersectional approach and the theory of governmentality, this study sought to deconstruct the labor market subjectivities of tied migrants in South Africa. This paper used a qualitative approach, with a narrative and interpretivist research paradigm, on female tied migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa who either accompanied their husbands or followed them to South Africa in a process of family reunification. Although 13 interviews were carried out in total, as part of a broader study, the narratives of six participants were included in this study, to zone in on labor market experiences. The study found that despite their high human capital, tied migrants are not likely to be well integrated into the South African labor market. Their inequality in the South African labor market was attributed to their gender, ethnicity, race, migrant status and locality and various intersections thereof through which they are subjected to informality, immobility and precarity. (shrink)

Both the USA and Europe limit access to care by undocumented immigrants. In the debate over what level of access to confer to IMs, there are various public policy rationales operating either explicitly, or below the surface, ranging from minimalist humanitarianism to full cosmopolitan equality, with several intermediate positions between these two poles. This article informs the international debate by providing a conceptual mapping of these underlying policy rationales. Each position is based on different lines of reasoning or bodies of (...) evidence, and each leads to somewhat different conclusions about the extent to which IMs should have access to different types of health care. It is unlikely that broad consensus will be achieved in this ongoing debate. However, by articulating the ethical, legal, pragmatic and conceptual reasons to support or oppose various positions, we hope to help determine where in the landscape of reasoned argument various positions lie, and how each position might be best supported or refuted. In particular, we see in this debate an illustration of Michael Walzer’s classic analysis of competing spheres of justice. Various positions depend to a considerable extent on whether their advocates approach this issue from the health policy sphere rather than the sphere of immigration policy, or whether they attempt to blend the two spheres. (shrink)

Social analysis of transplant organ demand often focuses on either small-scale (familial) tyrannies of the gift or large-scale (global) markets. Media accounts of the scandalous in transplant medicine stress the latter, a homogeneous model of flows of biovalue down gradients of economic and social capital. This article examines particular globalizations of tissue demand organized as much around claims of social similarity as gradients of social difference. To engage apparent ‘diasporic’ networks of organ purchase — Non-Resident Indians traveling to India and (...) Overseas Chinese to China — I elaborate a concept of bodily supplementarity. Supplementarity in this account is the ability of an individual or population to secure longevity through the mobilization or acquisition of the organic form of others. Diasporic tissue circuits are analyzed in the context of ‘experiments’ in supplementarity that proliferate with the transformation of the molecular conditions for supplementarity. The emergence of powerful immunosuppressants renders the scale of tissue recruitment flexible and contingent, and allows clinics to develop alternatives to brain death. These circuits emerge as situations that reorder the relation of the familial and the global in transplantation, in the service not only of migrant supplementarity but also efforts to reimagine the challenges of emigrant belonging within particular configurations of racialized life and its government. (shrink)

This paper considers whether states have a duty to accept those who cross borders to escape environmental disasters associated with climate change. It then examines how such a responsibility might be distributed, focusing on the predicament of the citizens of small island states expected to be inundated by rising sea levels. In assessing states' responsibility to admit these individuals, I draw on Walzer's theory of mutual aid, demonstrating that even under this narrow conception of states' obligations, a duty to accept (...) displaced islanders can be established. However, the proximity principle is ill-suited to determining which states should shoulder responsibility in this situation. Drawing on Miller's account of remedial responsibility and his ‘connection theory,’ I suggest that the obligation to accept ‘environmental refugees’ should be shouldered principally by affluent states that share significant degrees of causal and moral responsibility for climate change, and also have particularly strong capacities to assist the displaced. (shrink)

The illegal migration of Basotho women to South Africa in order to render domestic service is alarming because they are subjected to harsh treatment. This is a pastoral and theological concern for the church. As migrants, their struggle begins from the household circumstances that often force them to leave and seek job opportunities undocumented or without following prescribed migration procedures. They are then subjected to migration processes and procedures: for example, corruption and bribery by migration officers and illegal dealers. The (...) working and living conditions in South Africa are often unconducive for illegal migrants. As economic and illegal migrants, they are often considered as lesser by prejudiced employers who treat them inhumanely. Accessing essential services also imposes a significant threat to their lives.Contribution: Through this study, the article will reveal the vulnerability faced by illegal migrant Basotho women as domestic workers in South Africa. (shrink)

The idea of experience has been taken at face value in scholarly accounts of the migration experience, consequently very little attention has been given to how this idea has acquired its meaning and how it relates to the category of the ‘migration experience’. This article provides an analytical investigation into the nature of the phenomenon known as the ‘migrant experience’; firstly, by examining mediated and non-mediated conceptions of experience as well as an alternative account of experience associated with strangeness/disruption. (...) Through this conceptual lens, I then critically consider how the migration experience, as an analytical construct, has been constituted through a spatial–temporal framework, a critical migration perspective, and within the phenomenological and existential accounts. In conclusion, these approaches, as I will demonstrate, are not necessarily mutually exclusive, rather they complement and, at times, are in tension with each other. Such an examination will provide some conceptual clarity that is currently lacking in empirical work on an ‘experience’ categorized as migration. (shrink)

In contemporary Western societies, birthing is framed as transformative for mothers; however, it is also a site for the regulation of women and the exercise of power relations by health professionals. Nursing scholarship often frames migrant mothers as a problem, yet nurses are imbricated within systems of scrutiny and regulation that are unevenly imposed on ‘other’ mothers. Discourses deployed by New Zealand Plunket nurses (who provide a universal ‘well child’ health service) to frame their understandings of migrant mothers (...) were analysed using discourse analysis and concepts of power drawn from the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault, read through a postcolonial feminist perspective. This research shows how Plunket nurses draw on liberal feminist discourses, which have emancipatory aims but reflect assimilatory practices, paradoxically disempowering women who do not subscribe to ideals of individual autonomy. Consequently, the migrant mother, her family and new baby are brought into a neoliberal project of maternal improvement through surveillance. This project – enacted differentially but consistently among nurses – attempts to alter maternal and familial relationships by ‘improving’ mothering. Feminist critiques of patriarchy in maternity must be supplemented by a critique of the implicitly western subject of maternity to make empowerment a possibility for all mothers. (shrink)

In its effort « to reconsider the sexist and racist biases that lead to ignore the fundamental role played by migrant women in our society s, this collection of articles stresses both the invisibilization and the ethnicization of the work performed by migrant women, as it is inscribed within the sexual division of labor. The analyses provided here cover various European countries, Spain, France, Italy.

Time, precarious lives and memories and multiple narrations related to crossing borders constitute the key meanings of a series of contemporary pieces of works produced by migrant artists and writers. Through an analysis of some of their works, this article focuses on some spatio-temporal images, actions and metaphors related to movement. Then it questions the exploration of narratives in visual arts, especially the relationship between imaginary fiction and reality stories. Theatre may become the very place where contemporary tales of (...) migrant people are translated, told, performed. The very meaningful notion of hospitality becomes a theatrical practice in one of the most relevant spectacles of the Théâtre du Soleil, Le Dernier Caravansérail. Another aspect of this creative hospitality — Leïla Sebbar’s Mes Algéries en France — concerns the interweaving of memories belonging to opposite sides of divided countries, after the colonial wars. This work of collection, transcription, translation from one to another gives an example of writing as a repairing work but also of revelation of unknown connections. (shrink)