IMI

Mapping Global Migration Governance

The concept of global migration governance is widely used but remains quite confusing and often poorly defined. This paper attempts to provide a mapping of this notion, in order to understand its different meanings, its usefulness and weakness, and the key questions it raises in terms of understanding and analysing migration politics. It starts by examining matters of definition, before reviewing the multi-actor and multi-level nature of global migration governance. It then moves to a critical discussion around several difficulties raised by the reliance on this notion. The last section provides a tentative historical perspective, to contextualise the concept of global migration governance.

Non-Migration Policies and Mobility Decisions

This paper explores theoretical and empirical research examining the ways in which different policy arenas affect people’s decisions to migrate. We propose an analytical framework to assess various qualities of non-migration policies in a systematic way. We then focus on four diverse policy areas: agricultural policy, transport policy, education policy and social welfare policy, and analyse evidence for their direct impact on migration decisions or their indirect effects as they shape the decision-making context. These policy areas are chosen as examples of different types of policies in terms of their source of impact, level, locus and logic of impact, and – effectively - mechanisms through which they shape decision-making of migrants. Our review is not comprehensive, it rather sets ground for further systematic theoretical and empirical thinking about the role of non-migration policies in migration decision-making.

Changing the Migration Narrative: On the Power of Discourse, Propaganda and Truth Distortion

Despite huge improvement in data and research on migration, most scientific knowledge about migration is ignored in polarized public debates about migration. Migration policies are frequently ineffective or backfire, because they are not based on a scientific understanding of the nature, causes and consequences of migration. ‘Talking truth to power’ will not solve this problem, because politicians, international organizations, and mass media routinely ignore evidence that challenges dominant narratives or actively distort the truth about migration. Four narratives dominate public debates: the (1) Mass Migration Narrative, the (2) Migration Threat Narrative, the (3) Migrant Victim Narrative and the (4) Migration Celebration Narrative. These powerful narratives are one-sided, misrepresent the true nature of migration, and largely disregard migrant agency. This reveals the need for researchers to communicate their insights directly to the general public based on a long-term vision of migration as an intrinsic part of global change and development instead of a priori as a ‘problem to be solved’ or a ‘solution to problems’. The goal should not be to prescribe a particular policy agenda, but to equip the largest possible audiences with knowledge that will enable them to critically scrutinize claims made by politicians, pundits, and interest groups, and see through the various forms of misinformation and propaganda that abound on this subject.

The Impact of Covid-19 on NGOs’ Provision of Primary Healthcare and Its Utilisation by Irregular Migrants in Italy

This paper examines the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on non-governmental organisations’ (NGOs) provision of primary healthcare services and its utilisation by irregular migrants in Italy. Through 30 semi-structured qualitative interviews with key informants – NGO members and healthcare professionals – and migrants, the study highlights the critical role of NGOs in bridging healthcare gaps for irregular migrants, particularly during the pandemic. The study also identifies challenges irregular migrants face in accessing public healthcare in Italy, including bureaucratic barriers in obtaining special healthcare registration cards (STP and ENI codes). Policy implications include facilitating regularisation processes, increasing funding for public healthcare, and harmonising interpretations of norms governing healthcare access across regions. Networking among NGOs and associations is encouraged to enhance comprehensive support for irregular migrants. At the same time, information improvement is vital to mitigate disparities in healthcare access and utilisation among different regions and to empower migrants in seeking timely and relevant healthcare. Overall, the study contributes to understanding the dynamics between NGOs, irregular migrants, and healthcare services during crises, advocating for an inclusive healthcare system based on the human right to health.

Researching the Politics of Knowledge in Migration Policy

This paper explores the intricate relationship between knowledge and power in migration policymaking. It challenges the notion that knowledge exists as an objective truth awaiting application by policymakers and argues that bridging the knowledge-policy gap in migration requires a deep understanding of the politics of knowledge. This entails grasping the power relations within migration research and policymaking and recognizing the diverse roles knowledge plays within the policy process. By bringing into dialogue literatures on knowledge use and knowledge production, the paper discusses how knowledge is always inherently intertwined with power dynamics, who is deemed legitimate to produce knowledge on migration, how policymakers employ knowledge either instrumentally or symbolically, and how this is shaped by the politicization of migration issues at stake. The paper ends with introducing four key methodological strategies for analyzing the politics of knowledge in migration policy: backtracking dominant assumptions, tracing issue-specific dynamics, identifying temporal shifts, and critically assessing the links between knowledge production and utilization. These strategies form the foundation for the empirical investigation of migration policymaking in the PACES project, which hopes to offer novel insights into the power-knowledge nexus in the field of migration.

Researching Decisions to Stay and Migrate: A Temporal Multilevel Analysis framework

This paper explores how people make migration decisions. After a review of the rich literature and models that capture the factors, mechanisms, and phases of migration decision-making, this paper presents the Temporal Multilevel Analysis (TMA) framework, which examines how people decide whether to stay or migrate as their personal and societal situations change. The TMA framework explores how people perceive social change, and their role within it, with the goal of identifying under what contextual and personal circumstances people choose to migrate. The framework proposes a two-level comparative model that explores people’s perceptions of their social and personal circumstances, and investigates the role of social norms and values, with the understanding that these are fundamental yet relatively understudied influences on a decision to stay or migrate. The TMA framework also integrates a time dimension to explore how changing views about the past, present, and future influence mobility choices. This document should be read as an introduction to the TMA framework, which will be further refined through its application in empirical research through the PACES project.

Immigration attitudes, national identity, and development in mainland China

As China transforms into a global power and an emerging immigrant country, this paper investigates how Chinese citizens experience the increase in immigration over the past decades and what their policy priorities are. Based on 46 semi-structured interviews in three locations, as well as national-level online survey data, I find a shift in societal attitudes from viewing immigration as a necessary and largely beneficial aspect of China’s economic modernization towards a more multi-dimensional issue with rising socio-political salience. While moderate views occupy most of the spectrum of Chinese immigration attitudes, the paper identifies an uptick in anti-immigrant sentiment in the past decade, most notably among higher-educated groups. However, examining attitudes towards immigration effects, selection and control among a diverse national sample, it finds less anti-immigrant sentiment than existing studies conducted within population subgroups suggest, including towards African migrants. Overall, I argue that immigration attitudes are shaped by broadly shared perceptions of China’s national identity as a country rising in a global developmental hierarchy, with a growing need - but also more capacity - to manage immigration. The connection this paper identifies between developmental status and public views of desirable immigration policy brings out contrasts between the Chinese case and early-stage immigrant reception in Western countries, with wider relevance for the study of immigration attitudes outside Western and other high-income contexts.

Voluntary Immobility: A Global Analysis of Staying Preferences

In the last decade, there has been growing interest from both policy and academic communities in understanding why people migrate. The focus, however, remains biased towards understanding mobility, while the structural and personal forces that restrict or resist the drivers of migration, leading to different immobility outcomes, are much less understood. This paper offers the first global analysis of staying preferences, enhancing knowledge about the factors associated with voluntary immobility, defined here as the aspiration to stay in one’s country of residence. We make use of the unique Gallup World Polls which provide information on aspirations to stay (as opposed to migrating abroad) as well as on individual characteristics and opinions for 130 countries worldwide between 2010-2016. Staying aspirations are far more common than migration aspirations, and we uncover important ‘retain factors’ often overlooked in research on migration drivers – related to social ties, local amenities, trust in community institutions, and life satisfaction. Overall, those who aspire to stay tend to be more content, socially supported and live in communities with stronger institutions and better local amenities. We further explore differences in the relative importance of retain factors for countries at different levels of urbanization, and for different population groups, based on gender, education, rural/urban location, migration history, religiosity, and perceived thriving. Our findings contribute to a more holistic understanding of migration decision-making, illuminating the personal, social, economic, and institutional retain factors countering those that push and pull.

Mobilization trajectories as a tool to study migration and protest intentions: An illustration from Morocco

When dissatisfied with socioeconomic and political conditions, why do some people migrate, others protest, and others do neither? While existing literature shows that migration and protest are both responses to discontent, and that migrants and protesters have similar sociodemographic profiles, the initial choice between these two behaviors and their relationship at the individual level need further investigation. In this conceptual paper we introduce mobilization trajectories, an original analytical conceptual device that allows a combined analysis of migration aspirations and protest intentions as alternative, but not always equally available, strategies that individuals can adopt when dissatisfied with socioeconomic and political conditions. We argue that mobilization trajectories as an analytical tool offers three contributions: it (1) uncovers individuals’ negotiations between multiple possible courses of action and inaction, (2) illuminates how intentions are shaped by changing socioeconomic and political conditions at home and abroad, networks, previous experiences with protest or migration, and gender, and by doing so (3) aids our understanding of why aspirations may or may not lead to actual migration. We illustrate the working of mobilization trajectories as an analytic tool for the combined analysis of migration and protest intentions with vignettes from interviews conducted in 2020 and 2021 with Moroccan youth aged 18-35.

Migration aspirations and preferences to stay in a Brazilian frontier town: Tranquility, hope and relative endowment

What happens to migration when a town undergoes economic decline? Do residents migrate or do they stay? And what motivates this decision? This article answers these questions by analyzing the life and migration aspirations of young people – 17-39 age group – in Caracaraí, a large frontier Brazilian town on the edge of the Amazon forest that has experienced economic decline and stagnation since its heyday in the 1970s-80s. The analysis relies on 41 in-depth interviews (17-91 age group) and a survey with 267 respondents in the 17-39 age-group – who are frequently children of migrants who arrived during the economic boom. The article examines their view of the town, their life aspirations and prospects, and their aspirations to stay or to leave Caracaraí. While we observe ‘conditional’ migration aspirations, many young people show a preference to stay. Three interconnected factors shape this preference: life aspirations, the meaning of a ‘good life’, and hope in local development. Life aspirations often entail the pursuit of education within Brazil to take up public sector employment in Caracaraí. A ‘good life’ frequently involves closeness to family, the town’s natural environment and its peacefulness. Many young people also hold hope for the town’s development in the future. This article introduces the concept of relative endowment to describe how young people in Caracaraì feel privileged in relation to their parents’ upbringing and to people in more peripheral areas, in big Brazilian cities and abroad, thus in relation to diverse reference groups. Moreover, relative endowment can be shaped by non-economic factors, such as what is a ‘good life’ and perceptions of development. This might explain why, even in times of economic decline, many young people may prefer to stay, despite the financial gains that migration could provide.

Managing Migration through Detention and Information-Giving Practices: the Case of the Italian Hotspot and Relocation System

The article explores the relation between detention and information-giving practices and investigates its contribution to migration control and (re)bordering processes at the southern European border. By focusing on the case of the hotspot system implemented in Sicily, the paper explores two main issues: a) the role played by detention practices and their relation with processes of migrant selection and migrants’ rights stratification; b) the link between authorities’ detention practices and information-giving practices carried out by intergovernmental organisations such as the UNHCR and the IOM, and the contribution of this relation to processes of migrant differential inclusion. The research methodology is built on ten months of fieldwork carried out in eastern Sicily between 2017 and 2018, on document analysis and on semi-structured interviews conducted with seventeen key informants. The article argues that the intergovernmental organisations information-giving practices about asylum, identification and relocation procedures a) contributed to perpetuating subtle and indirect forms of migration control and b) were linked, more or less directly, to detention practices carried out by authorities, and this relation contributed to reinforcing the stratification of migrants’ access to mobility and rights.

A Transnational Social Contract: How the South Indian State of Kerala justifies Social Protection Policies towards Non-Resident Keralites

The migration process raises a set of migration-related risks and vulnerabilities that governments first need to recognize as collective problems before formulating public policy responses. The South Indian state of Kerala is among the first subnational states globally to institutionalise various social protection policies towards emigrants and returned migrants, specifically through the department of Non-Resident Keralites' Affairs (NORKA) and its implementation agency, NORKA ROOTS. This article focuses on Kerala to investigate why migrant-origin states assume collective social responsibility for emigrants and include them in social protection policies. By drawing on original data, the analysis shows that (returned) emigrants' access to social protection schemes is built on the state government's understandings of deservingness. Kerala bases deservingness on a combination of instrumentalist and ideational rationales that are rooted in the state's specific developmental and identity discourse. These findings contribute to debates on the social policy-migration nexus, and particularly transnational social protection, in two ways. First, Kerala's approach highlights migration's role in welfare-state expansion and shows that positive discourses on migration can facilitate policy change, especially compared to negative discourses and welfare retrenchment in European destination countries in recent years. Second, the Kerala example underlines the importance of studying subnational governments to understand how transnational labour migration and social policies are made and how these subnational governments shape emigrants' access to social protection.

MADE Policy Brief (no. 1)

Research suggests that rising levels of ‘development’ lead to rising levels of migration. However, little is known about large variations in the way development has shaped human mobility across different societies and periods. To improve understanding on the drivers of migration, the MADE project explored: How do processes of development and social transformation shape human migration? More specifically, how does fundamental societal change affect the direction, timing, selection, and volumes of internal and international migration? To answer these questions, MADE elaborated new theoretical and empirical approaches for migration research. While prior analyses focused on how a limited number of economic and demographic factors affect short-term fluctuations in international migration, we examined how political, economic, technological, demographic and cultural change shape long-term trends and patterns of internal and international mobility.

Social Transformations and Migrations in Morocco

This paper analyses how fundamental transformations of Moroccan society over the past century have shaped Morocco’s mobility complex and how migration has affected and accelerated these transformation processes in its own right. Economic transitions and the concomitant demise of subsistence-based agrarian livelihoods, urbanization processes and demographic transitions, increasing education and rapid cultural change have increased all forms of migratory and non-migratory mobility within and from Morocco, particularly through large-scale rural-to-urban migration as well as rapidly increasing emigration to Europe. While earlier patterns seem largely consistent with mobility transition theory, the predicted decrease in emigration levels has not occurred, as, since the 1990s, Morocco has entered a migration plateau of persistently high emigration despite significant increases in living standards, a slowing down of internal migration and increasing immigration. Continuously high levels of emigration can be explained by a growing disjuncture between sluggish and uneven economic development that has mainly benefitted certain regions and economic elites on the one hand, and fast sociocultural change across all social classes and regions on the other. This disjuncture has rapidly increased youth’s aspirations for lifestyles and freedoms that they find difficult to imagine in Morocco, but at the same time reshapes Morocco’s internal mobility patterns and attracts growing numbers of immigrants.

Welfare and Migration: Unfulfilled Aspirations to “Have Rights” in the South- Moroccan Todgha Valley

This paper examines how migration is influenced by changing ideas about welfare provisions and how communities envision the role of the state as welfare provider. It does so through a case study of the Todgha Valley, an oasis in South Morocco where, after 60 years of migration history, a culture of migration emerged. The paper explores the meso- and macrolevel political and cultural transformations that shaped the valley’s welfare-related cultural repertoires and explain the changing ways in which welfare provisions drive migration over time in a particular place. To probe such transformations, the paper combines three theoretical components: Inglehart’s postmaterialism theory, the social transformations framework, and Zelinsky’s mobility transition theory. The paper draws on a literature review, empirical qualitative and quantitative data collected over 22 years, and secondary data. It shows that the meaning of migration has changed over time and is currently understood as a possible remedy to persistently unfulfilled aspirations to have rights. The paper contributes to debates on the links between welfare and migration in two ways. First, it broadens the scope of analysis of welfare as a driver of migration. Second, it highlights how migration feedbacks and changes in welfare policies shape perceptions and expectations of how much the state should provide. Migration tends to be a more individualistic and longer-term project than in the past, and intrinsic aspirations to access social rights have become more explicit. The paper also shows that once cultures of migration emerge, they are not fixed even if they persist; the underlying forces sustaining migration aspirations might shift with other social transformations and more cyclical changes.

Migration and Social Transformation in a Small Frisian Town: The Case of Bolsward, the Netherlands

This paper explores processes of migration to and from Bolsward – a small agro-industrial town in the Dutch province of Friesland – with an emphasis on the post-WWII period. While prewar patterns of in- and out-migration were primarily intra-provincial, after 1945 migration became increasingly inter-provincial and, to some extent, international. Out-migrants from Bolsward were partly replaced by unskilled agricultural labourers from surrounding rural areas who lost their employment through agricultural mechanisation and found work in the growing industrial and construction sectors in town. When that labour supply dried up during the 1960s, this led to the recruitment of Turkish ‘guestworkers’. From the late 1950s, a second type of in- migrant, belonging to a high-skilled, often non-Frisian professional class, migrated to Bolsward to fill positions in local government and education. Four interacting social transformation processes explain these changing migration patterns: (1) industrialisation, (2) agricultural mechanisation, (3) state/educational expansion and (4) a broader change in life aspirations and ideas of the ‘good life’. Because of a process of replacement migration from Bolsward’s rural hinterlands, out-migration did not lead to population decline. Concurrently, new economic and educational opportunities arose that matched the life aspirations of town dwellers and agricultural workers from the hinterlands, giving rise to an increase in ‘voluntary immobility’ from the 1960s onwards. This case study highlights the vital ‘linking’ role that small towns and rural areas play in the hierarchical, multi-layered geographical structure of migration systems. It shows that much out-migration from rural areas is directed not to big cities but, rather, to smaller urban areas located in their direct vicinity and that migration from such rural towns is often directed to medium-sized urban settlements rather than to big cities. The analysis also shows that social transformation does not necessarily lead to large-scale out-migration when local opportunities expand simultaneously.

State Expansion, Mobility and the Aspiration to Stay in Western French Guiana

This paper explores how processes of social transformation since the 1980s have impacted on mobility patterns and migration aspirations in Western French Guiana. The French state showed little interest in the development of this scarcely populated region until the arrival of refugees during Suriname’s War of the Interior (1986–1991), which triggered rapid population growth and pressed the state to provide services. With the expansion of formal education, young people’s life aspirations shifted away from rural economic activities and were increasingly mismatched with locally available opportunities. In line with mobility transition theories, these social transformations diversified and expanded mobility patterns: whereas grandparents relied on short-term circular mobility along the Maroni river to perform agricultural activities in the region’s interior, today’s young people engage in permanent rural-urban and overseas migration in order to access educational facilities and economic opportunities. Despite these ‘instrumental’ aspirations for migration, the analysis of 31 interviews revealed that young people have an ‘intrinsic’ preference to stay in Western French Guiana. Many remain closely attached to their familiar socio-cultural environment and families; at the same time, the French state provides basic economic stability which facilitates staying – e.g. through paid professional training and social benefits. In fact, young people find themselves in a situation of ‘in-betweenness’. They cannot achieve their life aspirations locally but do not aspire to migrate. This finding shows that migration aspirations do not automatically increase with levels of ‘development’. Instead, this paper highlights the ambiguous effects of developmental processes, especially state expansion, on people’s migration aspirations.

A History of Global Migration Governance: Challenging Linearity

In December 2018 states adopted two Global Compacts, one on migration and one on refugees, establishing roadmaps for the future of international cooperation relevant to population movements. While often attributed to the “migration crises” of 2015, the Global Compacts are the product of more than one hundred years of institution-building during which the world has evolved tremendously. Challenging linear accounts of the evolution of global migration governance, this paper reviews the main developments relevant to global migration governance from 1919 to 2018. A tension between informality with action, and formality with inaction, has impacted the way that global migration governance has evolved. Proponents of a ‘management’ approach to global migration governance, primarily countries in the Global North, have preferred to keep intergovernmental discussions regarding migration outside of the United Nations (UN) in various state-led fora in different regional and global settings. Conversely, countries in the Global South, along with normative organizations such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), have sought to further a rights-based approach to the governance of migration within the UN. The ‘migration and development’ approach to global migration governance was used by Kofi Annan and Peter Sutherland in the 2000s to bring together states with fundamentally different views concerning the governance of migration. However, the outcome of these efforts is arguably a form of global governance that continues to reflect the preference of states, particularly in the Global North, to organize intergovernmental relations on migration in an informal and non-binding way.

Le mythe de l’invasion: Migration irrégulière d’Afrique de l’Ouest au Maghreb et en Union européenne

Les médias et les discours de politique générale prédominants véhiculent l'image apocalyptique d'un exode massif et croissant d'Africains désespérés fuyant la pauvreté et la guerre qui sévissent chez eux pour essayer d’entrer dans l’insaisissable « El Dorado » européen, entassés dans des bateaux de fortune flottant à peine (Pastore et al, 2006). Les migrants eux-mêmes sont généralement décrits comme des victimes de trafiquants et de passeurs « impitoyables » et « sans scrupules ». Si bien que les solutions politiques préconisées – qui se résument invariablement à réfréner la migration – se concentrent sur la « lutte » et le « combat » contre l’immigration irrégulière en intensifiant les contrôles aux frontières et en prenant des mesures énergiques contre la traite et le passage en fraude lié à la criminalité. Malgré une augmentation incontestable de la migration régulière et irrégulière d’Afrique de l’ouest en Europe au cours des dix dernières années, les données empiriques disponibles viennent dissiper la plupart de ces suppositions.

Irregular Migration from West Africa to the Maghreb and the European Union

Media and dominant policy discourses convey an apocalyptic image of an increasingly massive exodus of desperate Africans fleeing poverty and war at home trying to enter the elusive European ‘El Dorado’ crammed in long-worn ships barely staying afloat (Pastore et al 2006). The migrants themselves are commonly depicted as victims recruited by “merciless” and “unscrupulous” traffickers and smugglers. Hence, the perceived policy solutions – which invariably boil down to curbing migration –focus on “fighting” or “combating” illegal migration through intensifying border controls and cracking down on trafficking and smuggling related crime. Although there has been an incontestable increase in regular and irregular West African migration to Europe over the past decade, available empirical evidence dispels most of these assumptions.

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