International Migration and Sending Countries: Perceptions, Policies and Transnational Relations

252 Pages·2003·0.798 MB·English

by  Eva Østergaard-Nielsen (eds.)

International Migration and Sending Countries
Also by Eva Østergaard-Nielsen
TRANSNATIONAL POLITICS: Turks and Kurds in Germany
International Migration
and Sending Countries
Perceptions, Policies and
Transnational Relations
Edited by
Eva Østergaard-Nielsen
Marie Curie Research Fellow
Migration Research Group
Department of Geography
Autonomous University of Barcelona
Editorial matter, selection and Chapters 1, 4 and 10
© Eva Østergaard-Nielsen 2003
Chapters 2–3 and 5–9 © Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 2003
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2003 978-1-4039-0251-1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
International migration and sending countries: perceptions, policies and
transnational relations/edited by Eva Østergaard-Nielsen.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Emigration and immigration. 2. Transnationalism.
I. Østergaard-Nielsen, Eva, 1969–
JV6032.I573 2003
325’.2—dc21 2003045692
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03
Contents
Preface vii
Notes on the Contributors viii
List of Abbreviations x
Part I Introduction
1 International Migration and Sending Countries:
Key Issues and Themes 3
Eva Østergaard-Nielsen
Part II From Exit to Voice?
2 Los OlvidadosBecome Heroes: The Evolution of
Mexico’s Policies Towards Citizens Abroad 33
Jesús Martínez-Saldaña
3 Dominicans Abroad: Impacts and Responses in
a Transnational Society 57
David Howard
4 Turkey and the ‘Euro Turks’: Overseas Nationals as
an Ambiguous Asset 77
Eva Østergaard-Nielsen
5 Overseas Filipino Workers: Sacrificial Lambs at the
Altar of Deregulation 99
Mary Lou L. Alcid
Part III Old Homelands, New Policies
6 Mother India’s Forgotten Children 121
Marie Lall
7 Courting a Diaspora: Armenia–Diaspora Relations
since 1998 140
Razmik Panossian
v
vi Contents
Part IV Sending Countries in Conflict
8 Long-Distance Nationalism and the Responsible State:
The Case of Eritrea 171
Khalid Koser
9 Priming the Diaspora: Cyprus and the Overseas
Greek Cypriots 185
Madeleine Demetriou
Part V Conclusion
10 Continuities and Changes in Sending Country
Perceptions, Policies and Transnational Relations
with Nationals Abroad 209
Eva Østergaard-Nielsen
Bibliography 225
Index 236
Preface
This volume originates in a workshop organized at the London School
of Economics and Political Science in July 2000. The result of this
workshop and subsequent discussions between the editor and the
contributors is a volume that focuses on eight sending countries, from
the Americas, Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia. Drawing on the exper-
tise and recent research of the eight contributors, the volume’s primary
aim is to highlight sending countries’ role and influence on migration
management and relations with emigrants or established diasporas, in
particular the extent to which these countries facilitate overseas nation-
als’ engagement in the national economy and political sphere. It shows
the differences and parallels between sending countries previously
involved in labour export but now trying to include these emigrants in
the national polity from afar; homelands who, after gaining indepen-
dent statehood, struggle to find the right balance between support from
and interference by already established diasporas; and sending countries
in conflict who may or may not turn to their overseas nationals for
support.
Some of the original contributions to the workshop are, for various
reasons, not included in this volume, but have been replaced with
other chapters by authors joining the project at a later stage. I am
grateful to all contributors for their enthusiasm for this volume and for
going through several rounds of revisions so carefully. I would like to
thank the Economic and Social Research Council’s Transnational
Communities Programme and the International Relations Department
at the London School of Economics for their financial and logistic
support during the initial stages of this project. I am grateful to those
colleagues and friends, in particular William Wallace, Rebecca Golbert,
Alisdair Rogers and Christian Thune, who have provided thoughtful
comments on earlier versions of the general chapters of the volume.
EVAØSTERGAARD-NIELSEN
vii
Notes on the Contributors
Mary Lou L. Alcid is Assistant Professor at the Department of Social
Work, College of Social Work and Community Development at the
University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City. She is also
the Executive Director of KANLUNGAN Centre Foundation, a non-
governmental organization that works for the promotion and protec-
tion of the rights and welfare of overseas Filipino workers, especially
women, and their families, and President of the Network Opposed to
Violence against Women Migrants (NOVA). She has been involved in
issues relating to international labour migration as a social worker and
activist since 1986. Her published articles include ‘Remittances: the new
empowering tool of overseas Filipinos’ (co-written with Andres G.
Panganiban), in Helping Build Local Economies: A Framework for
Microfinance Practitioners(New Rural Bank of San Leonardo, 2002); ‘The
impact of the Asian economic crisis on women migrant workers’, and
‘Trends in the overseas employment of Filipina workers four years after
the Asian financial and economic crisis’, in Carrying the Burden of the
World: Women Reflecting on the Effects of the Crisis on Women and Girls
(J. Illo and R. P. Ofreno (eds), University of the Philippines, 2002).
Madeleine Demetriou received her PhD from the Department of
Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent in
Canterbury in 2002. The thesis was entitled ‘Politicising the Diaspora:
Contested Identities Among the Greek Cypriot Community in Britain’.
On diasporic politics, she has published: ‘Beyond the nation-state?
Transnational politics in the age of diaspora’, ASEN Bulletin, no. 16,
1999.
David Howard is Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of
Edinburgh. His principal research and teaching interests focus on the
social and urban geographies of Caribbean and Latin American societies,
with a particular emphasis on issues of international migration, racism
and multicultural policies. Recent publications include Cities of the
Imagination: Kingston(Signal Books, 2003) and Coloring the Nation: Race
and Ethnicity in the Dominican Republic(Lynne Rienner, 2001).
Khalid Koser is Lecturer in Human Geography at University College
London, and a member of the Migration Research Unit. He is co-editor
viii
Notes on the Contributors ix
ofThe New Migration in Europe(Macmillan, 1998), The End of the Refugee
Cycle? (Berghahn, 1999) and New Approaches to Migration? (Routledge,
2002).
Marie Lallis a research associate at the Social Science Research Unit in
the Institute of Education, London. She finished her PhD at the London
School of Economics in 1999. Her thesis was published by Ashgate
under the title India’s Missed Opportunity in 2001. Since then she has
undertaken a study on the Punjab and the Punjabi Diaspora and has
worked and published on a variety of issues relating to diaspora/
migration studies, education policy and social exclusion. The focus
countries have included Britain, Portugal and India.
Jesús Martínez-Saldaña is Assistant Professor at the Department of
Chicano and Latin American Studies at California State University,
Fresno. A native of Michoacán, Mexico, he belongs to a family with a
strong and old tradition of migration. He received a BS in Political
Science from Santa Clara University, an MA in Latin American Studies
from the University of California at Berkeley, and a PhD in Ethnic
Studies from the same institution. His works on Mexican immigration
have been published in Mexico, the United States and Europe. His most
recent work is La dimensión política de la migración Mexicana(The politi-
cal dimension of Mexican migration) (Mexico: Instituto José María Luis
Mora), co-authored with Leticia Calderón Chelius.
Eva Østergaard-Nielsen is a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the
Migration Research Group, Department of Geography, at the Autonomous
University of Barcelona. She is author of Transnational Politics: Turks and
Kurds in Germany(Routledge, 2003) and has published several articles on
the issue of migrants’ political participation, transnational networks and
international relations.
Razmik Panossian teaches at the Department of Government at the
London School of Economics. He has published a number of articles on
Armenia–diaspora relations, and his forthcoming book is on Armenian
nationalism and the diaspora.