Migration

Citation:

Myrttinen, Henri. 2017. "The Complex Ties that Bind: Gendered Agency and Expectations in Conflict and Climate Change-related Migration." Global Policy 8 (1): 148-54.

Author: Henri Myrttinen

Abstract:

For the past decade, western public discourse and the policy world have become increasingly concerned about ‘irregular’ migration and, to a slightly lesser extent perhaps, what driving role conflict and climate change play in triggering it. Addressing the causes and effects requires having a better understanding of the impacts that climate change has on multi‐dimensional crises and the knock‐on effect this has on migration. A key factor in understanding how these processes affect different women, girls, men, boys and other gender identities is gender. Much of the analysis, however, has tended to be based on relatively simplistic teleological models and gender stereotypes. Based on case studies, this article argues for more nuanced understandings of how gender and other societal markers affect people differently in different contexts of crisis and climate change‐related migration to better formulate policy responses.

Topics: Conflict, Displacement & Migration, Migration, Climate Displacement, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Gender Analysis

Year: 2017

Citation:

Abebe, Medhanit A. 2014. "Climate Change, Gender Inequality and Migration in East Africa." Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy 4 (1): 104-140.

Author: Medhanit A. Abebe

Abstract:

East Africa, one of the most volatile regions in Africa, has been suffering from enormous problems caused by population growth, weak governance, war, and famine. Recently, the advent of climate change has exacerbated these pre-existing problems. These impacts are not felt equally across populations, and, according to various studies, disproportionately affect women. Despite reforms, rural East African women still struggle to access resources or participate in decision-making processes. As a result, they have a weaker ability to adapt to climate change than men. This weaker adaptive capacity influences migration patterns between the genders, and creates its own set of problems. Indeed, migration influenced by climate change forces women to take greater roles at home and confront increased violence. While not fully understood, there is growing evidence of the connection between climate change, migration, and gender disparities. Addressing these issues in isolation cannot bring a sustainable solution, but this article will explore the legal and policy measures needed to solve the complex societal and ecological problems facing the region. Through international collaboration, East Africa can take action to improve the lives of women, limit violence, and fight back against the rapidly changing climate.

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Climate Displacement, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality Regions: Africa, East Africa

Year: 2014

Citation:

Marchetti, Sabrina, and Ruba Salih. 2015. “Gender and Mobility across Southern and Eastern European Borders: ‘Double Standards’ and the Ambiguities of European Neighbourhood Policy.” IAI Working Paper 19, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSC), European University Institute, Italy.

Authors: Sabrina Marchetti, Ruba Salih

Abstract:

This article proposes a gendered critique of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), a policy framework that, amongst other things, aims to facilitate the mobility of migrants to the EU from the bordering countries. We highlight the ambivalences of European regimes of gender and migration, and we take issue with the celebration of the “feminisation of migration.” The former fails to offer opportunities to women to safely embark on autonomous migratory projects, the latter contributes to reproduce traditional gender biases in the countries of origin as well as of destination. We conclude by suggesting that the EU critique to emigration countries for failing to tackle women’s discrimination falls short of persuasiveness when confronted with the curtailment on women’s independent mobility within the ENP framework.

Annotation:

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Gender, Women Regions: Europe, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe

Year: 2015

Citation:

Hiralal, Kalpana, and Zaheera Jinnah, eds. 2018. Gender and Mobility in Africa: Borders, Bodies and Boundaries. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave MacMillan.

Authors: Kalpana Hiralal, Zaheera Jinnah

Abstract:

Annotation:

1. Introduction: Gender and Mobility in Africa: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives - Hiralal, Kalpana
2. Why Were the Women Left Behind? Chinese and Indian Migration in the Indian Ocean Region: A Historical Perspective - Hiralal, Kalpana
3. The Migration of Women in Tunisia: Between Tradition and Modernity - Bouchoucha, Ibtihel
4. (Re)negotiating Gender Identity Among Zimbabwean Female Pentecostal Migrants in South Africa - Chimbidzikai, Tinashe
5. Migration, Mobilities and Families: Comparative Views Amongst Congolese, Burundian and Zimbabwean Female Refugees - Rugunanan, Pragna (et al.)
6. Negotiating Culture and Responses to Domestic Violence in South Africa: Migrant Women and Service Providers’ Narratives - Kiwanuka, Monica
7. ‘Who I Am Depends on Who I Am Talking To’ - Oliveira, Elsa (et al.)
8. Between Prosecutors and Counsellors: State and Non-state Actors in the Rehabilitation of Victims of Human Trafficking in Nigeria - Ikuteyijo, Lanre Olusegun
9. Crossing Borders, Present Futures: A Study of the Life Histories of Pakistani Immigrants in Durban - Rai, Sasha
10. Senegalese Migrants in Morocco: From a Gender Perspective - Ait Ben Lmadani, Fatima
11. Mobile Women: Negotiating Gendered Social Norms, Stereotypes and Relationships - Matshaka, Sarah
12. Social Control in Transnational Families: Somali Women and Dignity in Johannesburg - Shaffer, Marnie
13. Concluding Thoughts and Pathways for Future Research - Jinnah, Zaheera

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Gender, Gender Analysis, Gender Roles, Women Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe

Year: 2018

Citation:

Bélanger, Danièle, and Rachel Silvey. 2020. “An Im/Mobility Turn: Power Geometries of Care and Migration.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 46 (16): 3423-40.

Authors: Danièle Bélanger, Rachel Silvey

Abstract:

This special issue explores the analytical significance of immobility for understanding the inequalities that animate—and co-exist in tandem with—growing global mobility and migration. With a particular focus on the literature on migrant care workers, the collection examines how the socio-spatial mobility of these workers is blocked, stuck, and constrained, and how these immobilities are integral to their migration experiences. Extending Doreen Massey’s idea of ‘power geometries’ to migration studies, we offer the concept of an ‘im/mobility turn’—wherein the back slash highlights the connections between immobility and mobility—to emphasise how particular forms of movement are shaped by the regulations, inequalities, and disciplinary pressures that delimit that movement. In the current global context where anti-immigration and xenophobia are on the rise, and where temporary migrant labour regimes of all kinds are increasingly common, we argue that attention to the many forms of immobility that are evident in care work migration may offer clues for grasping how immobilities function in relation to contemporary migration politics more generally.

Keywords: immobility, mobility, care work, migrants, gender, power geometries, social reproduction, inequality

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Economies, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality

Year: 2019

Citation:

Vidal, Sergi, and Johannes Huinink. 2019. “Introduction to the Special Collection on Spatial Mobility, Family Dynamics, and Gender Relations.” Demographic Research S24 (21): 593–616. 

Authors: Sergi Vidal, Johannes Huinink

Abstract:

Background: There is growing evidence that spatial mobility has an impact on and is driven by family dynamics and gender relations. In contexts where family diversity and complexity have increased and gender inequalities persist, it is particularly urgent that we advance our understanding of decisions regarding spatial mobility and of its patterns and outcomes, in relation to families and gender.

Contribution: This special collection highlights the importance of and presents novel findings on the interplay between spatial mobility, family dynamics, and gender relations. It unites new research perspectives that expand existing horizons with rigorous and innovative empirical studies. Contributions to this special collection deal with a number of under-researched areas that include, but are not restricted to, non-coresident family ties and gender differences in willingness to move, circular mobility patterns, and the nonlabour market outcomes of family migration. The insights contained in the articles in this collection not only clarify concrete associations but also offer roadmaps for revealing the mechanisms that explain them.

Annotation:

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Households

Year: 2019

Citation:

Bryceson, Deborah Fahy. 2019. “Gender and Generational Patterns of African Deagrarianization: Evolving Labour and Land Allocation in Smallholder Peasant Household Farming, 1980–2015.” World Development 113: 60-72.

Author: Deborah Fahy Bryceson

Abstract:

This article traces smallholder peasant household production and reproduction trends against the background of profound change in African agriculture’s terms of trade between 1980 and 2015. The gender and generational dynamics of African peasant households, which evolved under European colonial policies from the late 19th century and largely persisted in the early post-independence era, were disrupted by the 1970s oil crises. By the 1980s, peasant labor displacement was gaining momentum, as evidenced by declining smallholder commercial agriculture, often but not always accompanied by rural out-migration. Ensuing differentiated involvement of peasant smallholder family members in unfolding processes of deagrarianization and depeasantization are explored on the basis of statistical data and qualitative case studies. The article’s broad spatial focus and 35-year overview are accommodated in a human geography methodology, which synthesizes multi-disciplinary social scientists’ research findings on the gender/age division of labor, allocation of decision-making power and welfare provisioning patterns within smallholder households. Spatial and temporal analysis of sex/age ratios derived from published data on sectoral labour force participation, quantitative surveys of intra-household labour time allocation and national census population data provide insight into the differential effects of deagrarianization on household members. Salient trends are: labor contraction in male commercial peasant family farming, smallholder subsistence-based land cultivation squeezed by medium-scale commercial farmers, female resource control and labor autonomy continuing to be impinged by male patriarchal attitudes, and an emerging tendency for “older women left behind” in the countryside, who provide an agrarian fallback for returned migrant family members and other members engaged in local non-agricultural occupations needing subsistence food support.

Keywords: rural labor, agricultural land, family, gender, age, Africa, deagrarianization

Topics: Age, Agriculture, Migration, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Gender Hierarchies, Households, Livelihoods Regions: Africa

Year: 2019

Citation:

Ajaero, Chukwuedozie K. 2017. “A Gender Perspective on the Impact of Flood on the Food Security of Households in Rural Communities of Anambra State, Nigeria.” Food Security 9 (4): 685–95.

Author: Chukwuedozie K. Ajaero

Abstract:

This research examined gender perspectives of the implications of the severe 2012 flood on household food security in rural Anambra state, Nigeria. Two hundred and forty flood-affected migrant households, made up of 120 maleheaded households (MHHs) and 120 female-headed households (FHHs) in four rural local government areas (LGAs) were interviewed using a questionnaire. In addition, 12 focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted in the LGAs. Data analysis was by descriptive statistics, use of a food security index, and binary logistic regression. Before the flood, 89% of FHHs and 84% of MHHs reported they had been food secure, but after the flood only 34% of MHHs and 22% of FHHs remained food secure. The regression results identified higher incomes, marital status, and larger household sizes as significant predictors of food security for both MHHs and FHHs after the flood. Engagement in other occupations apart from farming and severity of damage from the flood prior to migration were the most important factors that predicted the food security status of MHHs after the flood, while an increase in the age of household head and higher levels of education were significant predictors of food security among FHHs after the flood. These results show that the diversification of income away from a reliance on agriculture, early warning systems for disasters, and improvement in the educational status of women could help households to remain food secure after future floods in Nigeria.

Keywords: gender, 2012 flood, food security, Nigeria, migration, rural communities

Topics: Agriculture, Displacement & Migration, Migration, Environment, Environmental Disasters, Infrastructure, Information & Communication Technologies, Security, Food Security Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Nigeria

Year: 2017

Citation:

Rowlands, Dane. 2004. “The Effects of Poverty, Environmental Degradation, and Gender Conditions on South—to—North Migration.” Canadian Journal of Development Studies / Revue Canadienne d'Études du Développement 25 (4): 555-72.

Author: Dane Rowlands

Abstract:

This paper reviews the evidence on how poverty, environmental degradation, and gender conditions affect migration, and then tests some of the hypotheses that emerge using emigration rates from low- and middle- income countries to wealthier industrial countries. At the source country level of analysis, the relationship between income and emigration rates is non-linear. Several other variables, such as economic growth, education level, and access to health care, help to explain migration rates. While the results here must be considered preliminary, evidence does emerge that gender conditions and environmental degradation may also be associated with South-to-North migration rates.

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Climate Displacement, Economies, Poverty, Environment, Climate Change, Gender

Year: 2004