Migration at Work

This paper sets out to investigate the forced and voluntary (im)mobility of Syrians who recently moved to Europe and are in the transition from asylum to settlement. We conceptualise ‘settlement’ for this group as a dynamic process and trace different forms of mobility in this phase, which is more commonly defined as static and associated with ‘having arrived’. We take a broad perspective on mobility, including social, mental and physical aspects of moving and being stuck and include refugees’ own experiences and everyday coping strategies in order to understand how the interaction with mobility regimes takes place and is experienced after settlement. We do this by analysing qualitative interviews conducted in two similar but nevertheless different reception and settlement contexts. The Netherlands and Norway are both highly regulated welfare states providing support to newcomers although, importantly, also restricting their agency and mobility, resulting in spatial and social exclusion. By zooming in on research participants’ acts of everyday coping mechanisms and different domains of integration in the two contexts, we identify similarities and differences in strategies for challenging official and everyday definitions of where and what to be after fleeing to Europe.

EP3.2, e-Poster Terminal 3, September 3, 2025, 13:05 - 14:00BackgroundMaternal healthcare remains a pressing concern in Southern Africa, where resource constraints disproportionately affect young migrant mothers, contributing to maternal morbidity and mortality. As a key destination for cross-border and internal migrants, South Africa struggles with equitable access to reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child, and adolescent health (RMNCAH) service. This has further been exacerbated by the unprecedented withdrawal of the USAID funding, leading to the closure of some of the healthcare facilities in the country. While existing literature has focused largely on the experiences of cross-border migrants, little attention has been given to young internal migrants and the continuity of maternal care they receive.AimThe study aims to explore and understand the maternal lived experiences?and coping strategies of internal and cross-border migrants in accessing continuity of care in Vhembe District. Framed around WHO’s Social Determinants of Health Framework and Intersectionality Theory, the research also interrogates how gender, migrant status, race, and health systems intersect to shape maternal health outcomes for mobile mothers.MethodologyData was collected through oral histories with 30 young migrant mothers and semi-structured interviews with 15 stakeholders, including healthcare workers and support networks, in the Vhembe District.FindingsPiloting and preliminary data indicate that systemic issues such as limited resources, reliance on paper-based records, and inadequate infrastructure disrupt continuity of care and lead to poor maternal health-seeking behaviours, including defaulting visits and home births. Moreover, indicative findings from literature also argue that systemic and structural barriers like xenophobic attitudes and misalignment between immigration laws and health legislation, hinder healthcare access and uptake among (cross-border) migrant communities.ConclusionBuilding on this, the anticipated outcomes of this study include enhanced understanding of maternal healthcare delivery among mobile populations, strategies to reduce maternal health disparities, and potential interventions to support healthcare workers in catering to mobile migrant women.

Reviewed by: The Politics of Necessity: community organizing and democracy in South Africa by Elke Zuern Carin Runciman (bio) Elke Zuern (2011) The Politics of Necessity: community organizing and democracy in South Africa. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press Elke Zuern’s The Politics of Necessity: community organizing and democracy in South Africa engages in an ambitious contemporary, historical and comparative analysis of community politics in South Africa. The main thrust of Zuern’s analysis is to examine South Africa’s democracy, not from the perspective of institutions and legal norms, but from that of ordinary working class people. This volume therefore examines the everyday meanings of democracy and its influence in shaping popular struggles of the last 30 years contributing to similar debates advanced by Latin American scholars in expanding the study of democracy (see O’Donnell et al 2004, Holston 2008). The book covers three phases of popular struggle in South Africa: the civics in the 1980s, the civics during the political transition of the 1990s and an analysis of new social movements and popular struggles post-2000. Employing the comparative method, Zuern also offers an analysis of similar struggles in Mexico, Nigeria, Botswana and Argentina. Through the course of the analysis offered Zuern advances four central arguments about community-based politics. The first and perhaps most insightful argument is that, the politics of necessity is not only about material needs. Those who frame their demands in protest often begin with and emphasis basic material necessities, but their demands also include the right to be heard, to have a voice, to be consulted and to become full members of the political community. (15) [End Page 137] In recent times, there has been considerable debate over the meaning of recent protests. The ANC has argued, as in Jacob Zuma’s 2014 State of the Nation address, that protests are the result, paradoxically, of good service delivery, while myself and others (see Alexander et al 2014) have argued that such protests are illustrative of a much wider crisis in post-apartheid democracy. Zuern’s volume helps to ground these arguments historically by demonstrating how struggles over the last 30 years have concerned themselves not just with fighting against apartheid or poor service delivery but have contained much broader claims and critiques about the society in which we live. The second important contribution Zuern makes is to the under-studied and under-researched area of demobilisation. Through an analysis of the civics and SANCO during the transitional period, Zuern documents how various civic organisations became increasingly drawn into mechanisms of local government and became spaces which were less participatory. Thirdly, she argues that processes of mobilisation which encourage people to critique and debate the current order of things enhance democracy. Finally, our understanding of democracy needs to be broadened and strengthened through an analysis of the role community-based organisations have in shaping and challenging ideas about democracy. The historical account which Zuern provides on the civic movement provides a much needed caution against the ANC’s attempt to appropriate this period of struggle history. As Zuern notes, while its politics and its members played a significant role, the ANC did not control or lead this struggle movement. By providing an account of the influence of Black Consciousness politics in the formation of the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisation (PEBCO) Zuern provides a nuanced analysis of the differing and conflicting political views of the period which is often missed in other analysis. Furthermore, Zuern discusses the important class dynamics within the mobilisation of the Soweto Civic Association (SCA). Through interviews with civic leaders Zuern provides an important insight into an area of South African history which is still relatively under-researched. Although Zuern’s analysis of the transitional period and the role of SANCO has appeared elsewhere (see Zuern 2001, 2006), by grounding it within a historical analysis these sections provide an important link in understanding the civics and current forms of community mobilisation. Furthermore, by examining this period of history Zuern provides some much needed analysis of the processes of demobilisation. [End Page 138] In addition, the volume provides some analysis of the movement organisations that have emerged post-2000...

Introduction. The study examines the process of civic identity formation in contemporary Russia in relation to the production and crossing of boundaries between “imagined communities”. Most existing research focuses on how cross-border migration influences the host community’s rethinking of its identity. At the same time, internal migrants, being part of the same society, can impact the identification of the “us-group” within the country. Studying this issue is crucial for understanding the configuration and structure of civic identity from the perspective of maintaining and preserving social solidarity. The authors analyze the influence of internal migration on the perceptions of residents in three Siberian cities regarding “us” and “them.” The aim of the study was to identify the mechanisms by which members of the “us-group” construct boundaries with respect to internal migrants, as well as the degree of permeability of these boundaries. Materials and Methods. The authors based their research on 9 focus groups with citizens of Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Tomsk, aged 18–36, conducted in 2023. Respondents were recruited using snowball sampling. The material was analyzed using thematic axial data coding, performed in the MAXQDA program, and discourse analysis. Results. It was found that respondents perceive both internal and cross-border migrants as individuals who fall into the gaps of a dense communication network, where integration into this network is the primary criterion for belonging to the “us-group” of civic identity holders. The study found that internal migration contributes to the formation of boundaries between locals and newcomers at the local level. Communication breakdowns occur between urban residents and rural migrants, which serve as the main reason for locals to exclude newcomers. However, the permeability of borders is more evident for internal migrants than for cross-border migrants. The research confirms that the key factors for the integration of newcomers into the host community are their inclusion in local social networks and their ability to navigate and use the urban environment. Discussion and Conclusion. Internal migrants are able to bridge the gap to the host society much faster than cross-border migrants, which supports the thesis of strengthening civic identity in Russia. Nevertheless, the emerging communication breakdowns carry a potential for conflict and pose a threat to social solidarity. In this respect, the findings of the study may be useful in the development of migration policies, not only by drawing attention to the issue of internal migration, but also by highlighting key problems whose solution becomes a strategic priority.

Xenophobia – although difficult at times to disentangle from other psychological and structural influences such as racism, nationalism and ethnocentrism – refers specifically to “a deep dislike of foreigners” (Oxford Concise Dictionary).This definition describes a discrete set of attitudes that manifest themselves in the behaviours of governments, the general public and the media.This is certainly true in South and southern Africa where xenophobia is distinctive and widespread (albeit uneven across the region) and where the print media in particular has been accused of exacerbating the phenomenon. In a previous article, Danso and McDonald (2001) reviewed English-language press coverage in South Africa from 1994 to 1998 and argued that reportage and editorial comment on cross-border migration was largely anti-immigrant and unanalytical.Not all such treatment of the issue by the media was negative and superficial, and there did appear to be gradual improvement over time, but the overwhelming majority of newspaper articles, editorials and letters to the editor employed sensationalist, anti-immigrant language and uncritically reproduced problematic statistics and assumptions about cross-border migration in the region. The purpose of the current paper is threefold.First, it updates the previous study to determine what, if any, changes have occurred in South Africa with respect to xenophobia in the press by looking at English-language newspapers from 2000 to early 2005 and comparing the results to the former survey.Second, and more im portantly, the paper poses a series of hypotheses as to why press coverage in South Africa is xenophobic (or not) and where we might expect to see trends developing in the future. The paper also expands the analysis to other countries of the region – namely, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and Zambia (with the emphasis on the first two due to the relatively small sample sizes of news material available for the latter). An analysis of these additional countries helps to expand our understanding of the regional aspects of xenophobia in the press and places our study of South Africa in empirical and theoretical perspective.The variations across the region serve to highlight important theoretical differences, which show that there is no

The Costs and Returns of Human Migration

This dossier features 18 interview transcripts with ICT professionals working in or for firms located in the National Technology Park (NTP), Limerick. Conducted by Dr. Anthony D’Andrea (ISSP Research Fellow, Dept. Sociology, UL) over the year 2009 until early 2010, these are semi-structured ethnographic interviews lasting an average of 90 minutes (varying from one to three hours each). Following ethical research protocols, the identity of all interviewees and their firms are protected with the use of pseudonyms. The interviews explore and register three sets of questions: 1) biographical questions about the individual’s background, professional trajectory, basic work function, family and lifestyle; 2) work questions about daily work activities and their integration with new technologies, new forms of employment, mobility, connectivity and networking practices and regimes at local, regional and international levels; 3) institutional questions: firm choices over location, perceptions of quality of services and interaction enabled by regional and national agencies, and socio-economic changes in Ireland, particularly during the “post-Celtic Tiger” years. This dossier provides empirical grounds for research conducted in the project “Nomadic Work/Life in the Knowledge Economy” co-directed by Dr. Breda Gray and Dr. Luigina Ciolfi, respectively from the Departments of Sociology and Computer Science and Information Systems at the University of Limerick. The project was sponsored by the Irish Social Science Platform, funded under the HEA Irish Government PTLI4 (Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions) and EU Regional Development.

The majority of scholarship about caring labour and migration focuses on women migrating from low-income countries to work as domestic workers or healthcare workers in wealthier countries. In this article I seek to examine another dynamic of international mobility engendered by the economic devaluation of care and the so-called ‘care deficit’. This article examines the migration of those from higher income countries who move to lower income countries to afford a higher level of paid care work. I call this Care Extraction Migration (CEM). The term Care Extraction Migration offers a lens through which to understand dynamics of racialised power in forms of mobility that are depoliticised when given other terms, such as lifestyle migration, expatriation, and international retirement migration. Care Extraction Migration as a concept seeks to emphasise and foreground the extractive and exploitative aspects of these types of privileged mobility.

Over the past three decades, a series of relevant geopolitical transformations – including the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the so-called “refugee crisis,” population movements following the post-Yugoslav conflicts, return migration, tourism, and the expansion of international aid economies – have intertwined complex and stratified patterns of mobility linking Eastern Europe to broader global circulations. Building on insights from mobility studies, this thematic section examines the intricate interconnections among these diverse forms of movement and seeks to move beyond conventional dichotomies such as those between internal and international migration, transit and return, or voluntary and forced displacement. Drawing on area studies, it highlights the entangled and hierarchical reconfiguration of borders and the differentiated mobility regimes to which migrants are subjected. Within this shifting landscape, the ethnographic contributions from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, and Moldova trace how interrelated mobilities are embedded in global mobility regimes. Furthermore, they illuminate the emic categories, temporalities, and imaginaries through which local actors make sense of mobility (or immobility) in the specific historical and social settings. By bringing these perspectives into dialogue, this Thematic Section contributes to both area studies and the broader anthropological debate on mobility.

Economics of global interactions: Introduction to the special issue

This article discusses the employment experiences of Basotho migrant domestic workers in South Africa. As they generally do not possess South African identity documents, these migrants are constructed (legally, socially and discursively) as ‘illegal’ workers. In 2008, the commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) and the Labour Court officially extended basic labour protections and rights to apply to foreigners working ‘illegally’ in South Africa. Despite these moves, Basotho domestic workers find labour institutions, including unions, inaccessible. As deportable migrants they are afraid of being detected by the authorities; this precludes any engagement with institutions, and often even with fellow domestic workers. Living-in with employers – while an effective strategy for migration and even for concealment from the authorities – also heightens their dependence on employers. Unsurprisingly, these workers' isolation and dependence create the conditions for their exploitation, as reflected by their long working hours, low and/or variable pay levels, and limited access to leave. As with other domestics working under similar structural conditions, Basotho domestics' strategies for stabilising their employment and managing the employment relationship involve cultivating a ‘mask of deference’ and submissiveness. Migrants' reliance on this strategy – and by extension, the significance of migrant ‘illegality’ in shaping their structural position – is evidenced by their popularity with employers. Alongside other cross-border migrants, Basotho women are therefore known amongst employers for their submissiveness vis-àvis their ‘troublesome’ South African counterparts. This analysis carries numerous implications for the regulation of domestic service, while highlighting the significance of employment relations and labour institutions in constructing and reinforcing the ‘illegality’ of unwelcome migrant workers in South Africa.

Internal migration rates in the United States have been steadily declining for at least twenty-five years: In 1984, 6.4 percent of the population moved between counties but by 2006—well before the most significant economic crisis since the Great Depression—annual intercounty migration rates had already declined to 4.7 percent and by 2010 to 3.5 percent. Despite the implications of the migration decline, it is poorly recognized and understood. The analysis shows that over the last thirty years, three broad trends have combined to pull migration rates dramatically lower: an increase in dual-worker couples, increased household indebtedness, and the widespread rise of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The first two are probably linked, as households have responded to decreasing real income over the last quarter-century through greater female labor force participation and maintaining current levels of consumption by borrowing ever more heavily from the equity in their homes. Thus, although this analysis shows that the decline in migration rates is not directly linked to the Great Recession, the migration decline is surely linked to the broader macroeconomic shifts that gave rise to it. With respect to the role of ICTs, it is not surprising that as ICTs have transformed nearly everything else across society, their use has affected migration rates. It is presumed that ICTs are providing new forms of mobility that are substituting for migration.

Apartheid, colonisation, genocide: some of the words at the centre of the intense debates on the characterisation of the violence in Palestine and Israel have a particularly charged history in Africa. To open a dialogue between specialists of these various regions, the Institut des mondes africains has organised a series of round tables on these concepts. On 19 June 2024, sociologists and historians of Africa, international law, Israel and Palestine examined the use of the term “apartheid”, its political and legal implications, particularly its appropriation in activist arenas and international law, as well as the knowledge it produces or conceals about power dynamics and forms of mobilisation. By tracing its genealogy in South Africa, its circulation and the controversies it arouses, the researchers analyse its role in understanding relations of domination and forms of resistance in Palestine and Israel.

Apartheid, colonisation, genocide: some of the words at the centre of the intense debates on the characterisation of the violence in Palestine and Israel have a particularly charged history in Africa. To open a dialogue between specialists of these various regions, the Institut des mondes africains has organised a series of round tables on these concepts. On 19 June 2024, sociologists and historians of Africa, international law, Israel and Palestine examined the use of the term “apartheid”, its political and legal implications, particularly its appropriation in activist arenas and international law, as well as the knowledge it produces or conceals about power dynamics and forms of mobilisation. By tracing its genealogy in South Africa, its circulation and the controversies it arouses, the researchers analyse its role in understanding relations of domination and forms of resistance in Palestine and Israel.

Introduction How do capital and labour mobilities interact in the context of Indian nurse training and migration, and what kind of institutional actors facilitate the multiscalar mobility of this labour? This chapter will address this question using the example of the global mobility of nurses. Nurses represent the largest, most internationalized and feminized section of the health profession, and developed regions of world have demanded well-trained nurses because of demographic and health care delivery changes. These changes are connecting regions of the world through increasingly globally oriented models of nursing training, skills development, and labour and related capital mobility. The nature of historic and new migration corridors marks the evolving spatiality of this labour mobility and associated capital flows. Novel state–market interactions structure these processes of labour mobility and mark new institutional forms of governance related to nurse training and deployment of migrant labour. Nursing is a specifically gendered occupation, and the cultural context allows us to understand the particular embodied nature of nursing—how this contributes to the disciplining and controlling of workers, and how their skills and capabilities are constructed and utilized. This chapter makes explicit connection between labour and capital mobility by drawing upon research conducted in India and Canada to highlight how labour and capital mobilities interact in global nursing labour circulation. The health care services industry is one of the most significant and growing parts of the global economy. The United Nations’ International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) categorizes the health care industry as hospital activities, medical and dental practice activities, and other human health activities that occur under the supervision of health professionals in various areas. In terms of value, a 2017 health care outlook report by Deloitte (2017) indicated that health care spending represents 10.4 per cent of global GDP in 2015 (US$7 trillion in 2015) and is expected to rise over the next 5 years, especially in low-income nations. Health care is witnessing neoliberal industrialization in terms of the division, standardization, deskilling of health care labour, and rise of managerial superstructures (Rastegar, 2004), including widespread but differentiated engagement with New Public Management approaches to increase efficiency and enhance innovation (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2017).