Crisis and Migration: Critical Perspectives

224 Pages·2014·3.605 MB·English

by  Anna Lindley (ed.)

‘Welding together the discussion of crisis and migration turns out to be an
inspired intervention, taking us fittingly far from the prosaic categories of
policy analysis.’
Robin Cohen, University of Oxford, UK
‘This book deftly probes the links between migration and crisis, destabilizing
the normative assumptions that migration is crisis. The authors conceptualise
crisisandmigrationnotasisolatedeventsbutratherasco-constitutedprocesses
understood in relation to colonialism, nation-state formation, industrialisa-
tion, and urbanization. And crisis migration, they argue, precipitates crisis
management. A compelling read.’
Jennifer Hyndman, Centre for Refugee Studies,
York University, Canada
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Crisis and Migration
Crisisandmigrationhavealongassociation,inpopularandpolicydiscourseas
wellasinsocialscientificanalysis.Despitetheemergenceofmorenuancedand
evencelebratoryaccountsofmobilityinrecentyears,thereremainsapersistent
emphasis on migration being either a symptom or a cause of crisis. Moreover,
in the context of a recent series of headline-hitting and politically controversial
situations, terms like ‘migration crisis’ and ‘crisis migration’ are acquiring
increasing currency among policy-makers and academics.
Crisis and Migration provides freshperspectives on this routine association,
critically examining a series of politically controversial situations around the
world. Drawing on first-hand research into the Arab uprisings, conflict and
famine in the Horn of Africa, drug cartel violence in Latin America, the
global economic crisis, and immigration ‘crises’ from East Asia to Southern
Africa to Europe, the book’s contributors situate a set of contemporary crises
within longer histories of social change and human mobility, showing the
importance of treating crisis and migration as contextualised processes, rather
than isolated events.
By exploring how migration and crisis articulate as lived experiences and
political constructs, the book brings migration from the margins to the centre
of discussions of social transformation and crisis; illuminates the acute poli-
ticisation and diverse spatialisations of crisis–migration relationships; and
urges a nuanced, cautious and critical approach to associations of crisis and
migration.
Anna Lindley is a Lecturer in the Department of Development Studies at
SOAS, University of London, UK.
Routledge Studies in Development, Mobilities and Migration
This series is dedicated to the growing and important area of mobilities
and migration within Development Studies. It promotes innovative and
interdisciplinary research targeted at a global readership.
The series welcomes submissions from established and junior authors on
cutting-edge and high-level research on key topics that feature in global news
and public debate.
These include the Arab Spring; famine in the Horn of Africa; riots; envir-
onmental migration; development-induced displacement and resettlement;
livelihood transformations; people-trafficking; health and infectious diseases;
employment; South–South migration; population growth; children’s well-
being; marriage and family; food security; the global financial crisis; drugs
wars; and other contemporary crises.
Gender, Mobilities and Livelihood Transformations
Comparing indigenous people in China, India and Laos
Edited by Ragnhild Lund, Kyoko Kusakabe, Smita Mishra Panda
and Yunxian Wang
Intimate Economies of Development
Mobility, sexuality and health in Asia
Chris Lyttleton
Crisis and Migration
Critical perspectives
Edited by Anna Lindley
Crisis and Migration
Critical perspectives
Edited by
Anna Lindley
Firstpublished2014
byRoutledge
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Crisisandmigration:criticalperspectives/[editedby]AnnaLindley.
pagescm.--(Routledgestudiesindevelopment,mobilitiesandmigration)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Emigrationandimmigration.2.Migration,Internal.3.Crises.I.Lindley,
Anna.
JV6035.C752014
304.8--dc23
201305019
ISBN13:978-0-415-64502-7(hbk)
ISBN13:978-0-203-07884-6(ebk)
TypesetinTimesNewRoman
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
Contents
Notes on contributors viii
Acknowledgements xi
1 Exploring crisis and migration: concepts and issues 1
ANNALINDLEY
2 Migration and ‘crisis’ in the Middle East and North Africa region 24
PHILIPMARFLEETANDADAMHANIEH
3 Histories and contemporary challenges of crisis and mobility in
Somalia 46
ANNALINDLEYANDLAURAHAMMOND
4 Criminal violence and displacement in Mexico: evidence,
perceptions and politics 73
LAURARUBIODÍAZ-LEALANDSEBASTIÁNALBUJA
5 The global economic crisis and East Asian labour migration: a
crisis of migration or struggles of labour? 93
DAE-OUPCHANG
6 Crisis, enforcement and control at the EU borders 115
JULIENJEANDESBOZANDPOLLYPALLISTER-WILKINS
7 The social construction of (non-)crises and its effects: government
discourse on xenophobia, immigration and social cohesion in
South Africa 136
IRIANNFREEMANTLEWITHJEANPIERREMISAGO
8 Imagined threats, manufactured crises and ‘real’ emergencies:
the politics of border closure in the face of mass refugee influx 158
KATYLONG
9 Crisis? Which crisis? Families and forced migration 181
TANIAKAISER
Index 203
Contributors
Sebastián Albuja is Head of the Africa and Americas Department at the
Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) of the Norwegian
Refugee Council in Geneva. He has published extensively on forced
migration, human rights, and public policy. He previously practised law in
his country of origin, Ecuador. He holds a PhD in Law and Public Policy
from Northeastern University, the USA, where he was a Fulbright scholar
and taught onvarious undergraduate courses.
Dae-oup Chang is a Senior Lecturer in Development Studies at SOAS,
University of London, and specialises in labour relations, transnational
corporationsandthepoliticaleconomyofEastAsia.Hehaspublishedwidely
on these issues, including Capitalist Development in Korea: Labour, Capital
and the Myth of the Developmental State (Routledge, 2009). He has a PhD
in Sociology from the University of Warwick and previously taught at the
University of Hong Kong, andworked as a research co-ordinator for Asia
Monitor Resource Centre, an NGO specialising in labour issues.
Iriann Freemantle is a researcher based at the African Centre for Migration
andSocietyattheUniversityoftheWitwatersrandinJohannesburg,South
Africa. With a background in sociology, ethnic and migration studies, her
doctoral project focused on cosmopolitanism, and her recent research
explores the social construction of difference, xenophobia, nationalism and
social cohesion in policy and practice in South Africa.
Laura Hammond is a Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of
DevelopmentStudiesatSOAS,UniversityofLondon.Herresearchinterests
include food security, conflict, forced migration and diasporas, and she has
publishedwidelyon these issues, including This Place Will Become Home:
Refugee Repatriation to Ethiopia (Cornell University Press, 2004). She has
worked in the Horn of Africa for the past 20 years, and been a consultant
for awide range of development and humanitarian organisations. She has
a doctorate in Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison
and held previous lectureships at Clark University and the University of
Reading.
Contributors ix
AdamHaniehisaSeniorLecturerintheDepartmentofDevelopmentStudies
at SOAS, University of London. His specialist areas include political
economy, labour migration and Middle Eastern politics. His publications
include Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States (Palgrave Macmillan,
2011). He is on the editorial board of the journal Historical Materialism,
on the management committee of the Council for British Research in the
Levant, and a member of the advisory committee for the Centre for
Palestine Studies at SOAS.
Julien Jeandesboz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics at
theUniversityofAmsterdam.Hisresearchexploresthepoliticsofsecurityand
technologyinEurope,focusingonbordercontrol,andtherelationshipbetween
security and surveillance. He previously worked as a Research Associate at
the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, and earned his
PhD in Political Science and International Relations from Science Po, Paris.
Tania Kaiser is a Senior Lecturer in Forced Migration Studies in the
Department of Development Studies at SOAS, University of London. Her
research interests arein forcedmigration and refugeeexperiences,violence,
conflict and gender, and in culture, aesthetics and social change. Her eth-
nographic work has focused on the socio-cultural and political/protection
consequences of displacement for conflict-affected populations of Southern
SudaneserefugeesinUgandafrom1996tothepresent,andshehaspublished
numerous articles in journals, including the Journal of Refugee Studies,
Mobilities and the Journal of East African Studies. She holds a DPhil in
anthropology from the University of Oxford.
AnnaLindleyisaLecturerintheDepartmentofDevelopmentStudiesatSOAS,
University of London, working on migration, livelihoods and remittances;
conflict and displacement; and migration and refugee policy issues. She is
the authorofThe Early Morning Phone Call:Somali Refugees’ Remittances
(Berghahn, 2010), and previously worked as a researcher at the Refugee
Studies Centre and the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at Oxford
University, where she completed a doctorate in Development Studies.
Katy LongisaLecturerinInternationalDevelopmentatEdinburghUniversity
and a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University. Her research focuses on the
politicsofmigrationandthemeaningofcitizenship.SheistheauthorofThe
Point of No Return: Refugees, Rights and Repatriation (Oxford University
Press,2013).ShewaspreviouslyalecturerattheLondonSchoolofEconom-
ics, and hasworked as a researcher for the Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford,
andtheUnitedNationsHighCommissionforRefugees.SheholdsaPhDin
HistoryfromCambridgeUniversity.
Philip MarfleetisProfessorofMigrationandRefugeeStudiesattheUniversity
of East London. He has published widely on globalisation and migration,
mass displacement, Europe and exclusion, and social and political change