Ethiopia is one of the major origins for international migrants to the Middle East in Africa regardless of the risks and the abuses that migrants face. The study aims to analyse the determinants of international migration of Ethiopians to the Middle East and its impact on the income of households staying behind particularly in the Dessie Zuria district of the Amhara region in Ethiopia. Data were randomly collected from 346 households and analysed using descriptive statistics, logit regression, and Propensity Score Matching (PSM) models. The logit regression analysis indicates that bigger family size, network with migrants/returnees, and the presence of peer/family pressure influence the probability of international migration positively. On the contrary, being a male household head, ownership of larger farmland and livestock, and participation in additional non-farm activities determine international migration negatively. The findings from the PSM model revealed that international migration increased the annual income of migrant-sending households by 13,079.51 ETB per year over non-migrant sending households. However, the benefits enjoyed by the families staying behind have been at the expense of migrants, whose income is hard-earned and they often take a risky route to reach the destination regions. The findings call for an integrated policy approach to control population pressure that depletes the key financial and physical assets of households in the origin and thus forces individuals to look for alternative livelihood strategies such as migration. Location-specific policy interventions are needed to create non-farm and alternative livelihoods, improve agricultural productivity, and access information to reduce exaggerated and misleading information about the destination areas.

Over the years, some scholars have not only written against the concept of immigrant integration but have called for its rejection and abandonment. Critics argue that the concept is normative, objectifies others, mirrors outmoded imaginary of society, orients towards methodological nationalism, and a narrow emphasis on immigrants in the forces defining integration progression. Nonetheless, the concept continues to receive academic and policy attention. Against the backdrop of this polarized view, this paper raises an important question relating to the benefit or otherwise of writing against the concept of integration in the field of integration studies. Specifically, the paper asks: Is it appropriate to write against and reject the concept of integration? The paper responds to this question from a provocative conceptual perspective. Here, the paper argues that when the concept is purged of its inherent criticisms and rather reconceptualize as a wicked concept, it still offers a unique analytical spectrum with which scholars can approach several substantive critical questions regarding immigrants’ integration.

This paper analyses the dynamic interactions between space and identity by focusing on Syrian students in Turkey. It specifically asks how their migration experiences differentially affect their place-based identities and relationships. I use an intersectional approach and add dimensions of space, time, and everydayness to capture the relationship between the agents (Syrian youth) and the structure (norms, values, and institutions). Drawing on participant observation and in-depth interviews with 30 men and women Syrian students in Istanbul, I show how Syrian students negotiate interactions in the public space, working life, and gender roles, as well as their sense of freedom in the new context. Nevertheless, the migration process does not create the same results for both genders, and expecting a total transformation is not realistic. Women are more eager to adapt themselves to change when they are compared to men respondents. Space-based organizational culture in the daily life of Istanbul contributes to this main difference. In this regard, with sociological imagination, this article draws attention to the role of geography, which in its essence examines temporality and spatiality, and which has been underestimated in migration studies.

European migration studies have been criticised for having certain epistemological and theoretical underpinnings that reproduce hegemonic structures, especially the ‘national order of things’ and colonial legacies. In this article, we propose the concept of ‘entangled mobilities’ to address some of these challenges. Entangled mobilities as a theoretical lens enables us to study specific global and transnational processes, the ways in which they are historically and locally situated, and how they materialise in individual mobilities of differently positioned actors within an unequal political global economy. This lens helps us simultaneously overcome nationality- and ethnicity-centred epistemologies, confront colonial aphasia, and be sensitive to the multiple inequalities and mobility regimes within which human mobilities evolve. Furthermore, the prism of entangled mobilities provides an ideal methodological departure point from which to systematically examine how human mobilities are intertwined and interdependent and to reveal how they are embedded in and shaped by asymmetric, historically evolved power structures. We propose three pragmatic entry points for mobilising the concept: in specific places, in terms of the intersections and interdependencies of different mobile people, and in the context of the biographical trajectories of individuals. Finally, we invite scholars from other fields, such as policy research, to innovatively adapt this approach to gain alternative knowledge and address inequalities.

To what extent has Covid-19 policy responses exacerbated the already existing multiple vulnerabilities of female migrants in Southern Africa? Using strategic conversations, the paper explores personal experiences of key conversants, to explore how gender blind policy responses to the pandemic have heightened female migrants’ socio-economic challenges. The paper recommends gender sensitive and context specific policy responses to mitigate the existing socio-economic challenges.

In contrast to discourses of multiraciality as leading to a future beyond race, this commentary looks at how multiracial discourses and symbols underline race. Taking an overview of multiracial discourses and identities in relation to Blackness in the United States and Brazil, this commentary examines the deployment of multiraciality to maintain white supremacy. Under global capitalism, United States multicultural discourses, and Latin American foundational narratives, multiracial peoples are often propped up as a solution to racism, the eradication of race, or reduced to racial binaries centering whiteness. The section ends with considerations of how fears of racial passing and fraud coincide with multiracial identities. Questions for further consideration on the nexus of political identities and racial identities are proposed in relation to multiraciality.

For decades, Malaysia has been heavily dependent on unskilled and temporarily contracted migrant workers to fulfil labour gaps in the country. While Malaysia’s economy continues to rely on migrant workers, the COVID-19 pandemic has further aggravated their precarious working and living conditions. In-depth interviews with Nepali migrant workers and community leaders in Malaysia and Nepal in 2021 revealed the incidence of labour rights violations, compounded by the lack of access to justice and effective remedies. Besides, workers are allegedly no longer benefiting from the competitive wages, subsequently limiting the value of their remittance to Nepal. We argue that these incidents serve as the drivers of the changing views of mobility, eventually influencing the emigration environment in which the social construction of migration exists in Nepal. This study examines the migratory realities in the Nepal–Malaysia migration corridor during the pandemic, subsequently contributing to current debate on the aspiration–ability model as a class of research.

The promise of artificial intelligence has been originally to put technology at the service of people utilizing powerful information processors and ‘smart’ algorithms to quickly perform time-consuming data analysis. It soon though became apparent that the capacity of artificial intelligence to scrape and analyze big data would be particularly useful in surveillance policies. In the wider areas of migration and asylum management, increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence tools have been used to register and manage vulnerable populations without much concern about the potential misuses of the data collected and the overall ethical and legal underpinnings of these operations. This article examines three cases in point. The first case investigates the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ decision to deploy a biometric matching engine engaging artificial intelligence to make accessing identification documents easier for both refugees and asylum seekers and the states and organizations they interact with. The second case focuses on the New Zealand government’s introduction of artificial intelligence to improve border security and streamline immigration. The third case looks at data scraping and biometric recognition tools implemented by the United States government to track (and eventually deport) undocumented migrants. The article first shows how states and international organizations are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence tools to support the implementation of their immigration policies and programs. Subsequently, the article also outlines how even despite well-intentioned efforts, the decision to use artificial intelligence tools to increase efficiency and support the implementation of migration or asylum management policies and programs often involves jeopardizing or altogether sacrificing individuals’ human rights, including privacy and security, and raises concerns about vulnerability and transparency.

In India, the major drivers of both internal and international migration are the prevailing unemployment, competitive labour market and enhanced livelihood prospects in the destination state or country. However, the nationwide lockdown and the sealing of inter-state and international borders to control the COVID-19 pandemic triggered the reverse migration of informal migrant workers. This requires the central and state governments to collectively forge strategies to enable their reverse migration and smooth reintegration in the post-COVID economy. In this paper, we have focused on the inter-state migrants in India and returnee migrants only from Gulf countries as they account for two-thirds of Indian migrants living abroad. This study conducted a comparative analysis of the Indian government’s varied approach towards its internal and international migrants during their reverse migration, repatriation and reintegration after the announcement of the lockdown. Firstly, the paper compares the challenges faced by internal and international migrant workers during these stages with the help of in-depth interview data collected from migrants and social workers. Secondly, the varied governmental responses towards their repatriation are discussed. Thirdly, it analyses the obstacles in their economic reintegration to help frame suitable welfare policies for the Indian migrant community.

In recent decades it has become a common practice for political parties to have active branches operating outside of their countries. The main reason for this practice is to mobilize potential voters living abroad. Israel, however, is a country in which citizens cannot vote abroad yet some parties nevertheless invest resources for sustaining their activities and branches outside of the country. Using the Israeli case, we aim to uncover additional incentives for parties to be present and active abroad. To do so, we map the activities of Israeli parties abroad and analyse their incentives, relying on documents and in-depth interviews with the parties’ directors of external relations. We find that parties’ activities can be divided into two basic groups. The first one includes diaspora-oriented activities, focusing mainly on maintaining ties with the Jewish communities abroad and gaining control over the institutions of the Zionist organizations. The second is focused on the Israeli state, by both improving the position of the party domestically and promoting Israel internationally according to the party’s ideology.