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In the name of women's protection, Dutch immigration authorities police cross-border marriages differentiating between acceptable and non-acceptable forms of marriage (e.g. 'forced', 'sham', 'arranged'). The categorisation of marriages between 'sham' and 'genuine' derives from the assumption that interest and love are and should be unconnected. Nevertheless, love and interest are closely entwined and their consideration as separate is not only misleading but affects the exchanges that take place within marriage and, therefore, has particular implications for spouses, especially for women. The ethnographic analysis of marriages between unauthorised African male migrants and (non-Dutch) EU female citizens, often suspected by immigration authorities of being 'sham', demonstrate the complex articulation of love and interest and the consequences of neglecting this entanglement – both for the spouses and scholars. The cases show that romantic love is not a panacea for unequal gender relations and may place women in a disadvantaged position – all the more so because the norms of love are gendered and construe self-sacrifice as more fundamental in women's manifestations of love than that of men's. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of the strict migration regimes that prevent permanent settlement and naturalisation, migrants have, for decades, made the UAE their unofficial home, something that has led to the existence of subsequent generations of non-citizens who are born there. However, reaching the age of 65 marks retirement for migrants, who can no longer receive work visas in the UAE. Prolonging residency is possible, yet without social security and pensions, maintaining a decent life requires significant financial investment and reliance on family and social networks. Based on interviews with the adult children of first-generation migrants from the 'Global South', this paper provides insights into a number of strategies their parents develop in order to navigate restrictive immigration regimes upon retirement in the UAE. Most migrants prefer to stay put in the UAE upon retirement, where their children continue to live. Drawing on 'immobility' debates, this paper argues that immobility is an active – and relatively privileged – response to restrictive immigration policies in the UAE that enforce mobility upon retirement. Whilst a preference for 'ageing in the UAE' is often costly and precarious, older migrants' social and emotional attachments often outweigh economic reasons to leave, as this paper shows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Select research has indicated that widespread migration is catalysing the novel reimagining of eldercare and transformative changes in the local eldercare economy in the Global South. Yet research on ageing and migration from the South has largely focused on transnational care practices of providing emotional support and economic remittances. Drawing on ethnographic research among the privileged and affluent community of Syrian Christians of Kerala, India, I argue for a diverse and complex Southern reconfiguration of eldercare at the intersection of migration, which also includes 'market transfer' of proximate care services as reciprocal filial care. Further, the paper illuminates how specificities of migration, ageing and care are locally nuanced and shape diverse transnational care practices. In turn, transnational care strategies employed by the migrants to overcome distances transform the local eldercare economy and (re)produce class-stratified eldercare spaces. Through the study of a privileged community, the paper highlights the increasing marketisation of the eldercare landscape in the sending countries of the South and contributes to furthering diversified understandings of the ageing-migration nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing literature on older refugees has primarily focused on the experiences of those living in more developed countries in the global North. This paper examines later-life experiences in displacement settings and the global South by discussing the East Timorese case in West Timor, Indonesia. In considering how the ageing and forced migation nexus manifests in a Southern context, the paper argues that global, regional and local histories matter and profoundly shape older people's ageing and displacement processes. Specifically, they produce multiple gendered marginalities and possibilities relating to older persons' perceived (im)mobility to travel to their places of origin and the meanings they attach to place. Although East Timorese people's experiences of displacement and resettlement are diverse, the male perspective often takes precedence in scholarly and public discourse. This article thus zooms into older East Timorese women's experiences and how after over two decades of living in Indonesia, the conditions shaping their everyday lives remain deeply entangled and are negotiated within the gendered narratives of displacement and citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waiting is often perceived as an inactive or static period and is mostly linked to a hope for a better future among youth. This paper pays special attention to older internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Cameroon and how they use their experiences, knowledge, and capabilities to create new livelihoods as they 'wait' to return to their original homes. Specifically, the paper elucidates how 'aged' care for family members, create new jobs, do old jobs in a new manner, or 'do nothing' at all. Special attention is paid to the reconfiguration of family life and relationships, as well as to gender roles and shifting (in)dependencies. This paper goes beyond the notion of older people as vulnerable, inactive or frail, and highlights that work and activity at an older age generate new forms of mobility, resources and new ideas about the future. Drawing on ethnographic research among internally displaced families in Bafoussam, the Francophone capital of the West region of Cameroon, this paper illustrates that the condition of 'waiting' is productively and actively shaped by Anglophone IDPs who dynamically combine practices of the past with their present status, as well as notions about their still-uncertain future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 9/11, representations of Muslims and the Islamic world in Western mass media have received much scholarly attention, not least because such representations influence how Muslims are perceived by and integrated into Western societies. Most existing studies have shown that Muslims and Islam tend to be framed negatively through orientalist and Islamophobic discourses. However, this paper argues that in specific contexts, neoliberal ideology has generated mass-media representations of Muslims and the Islamic world that differ from orientalist versions. In contexts relating to the globalised halal market, for example, neoliberal discourses portray Muslims and the Islamic world as economically useful and/or exploitable rather than culturally threatening. This argument is supported by an analysis of representations of Muslims and the Islamic world in local and regional newspapers in Brazil, one of the largest halal meat and poultry exporters in the world. Drawing on theories of neoliberalism, a discourse theoretical approach and the notion of imaginative geographies, the study examines newspaper articles on the halal business. Based on the findings, this paper suggests that scholars should subject neoliberal ideology (and its interaction with orientalism and Islamophobia) to greater scrutiny in future research on representations of Muslims and the Islamic world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The previous literature suggests that citizens calculate the benefits of immigrants by assessing their impact on economic prospects. This paper argues that a type of social demand–the demand for marriage–also induces support for more liberal immigration policies. We conducted a survey experiment with 3,000 adults in China, where the population faces a shortage of women in the marriage market. The respondents were assigned to four groups, namely, a control group, a group with low-skilled worker shortage cues, a group with high-skilled worker shortage cues, and a group with marriage market crisis cues. We found that the marriage crisis treatment was effective to male respondents but not to female respondents. A supplementary examination of cross-national survey data showed that a gender imbalance at birth can elicit citizens' higher support for immigration in 13 Asian countries/regions. The results show that, other than economic considerations, citizens' concerns about marriage market competition can also stimulate immigration support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the public routines through which migrant domestic workers inhabit a global city such as Hong Kong. Using 'public outings' as a conceptual entry point to understanding migrants' mobile geographies of dwelling, it seeks to present such migrants as ordinary urban actors who inhabit, share and shape the city landscape every day just like many others. Whilst disciplined by their employers in all sorts of ways, domestic workers nonetheless use the public and quasi-public spaces within their neighbourhoods – spaces integral to their work routines – as sites for forging a precarious autonomy. Drawing on a short ethnography – using participant diaries, interviews, and participant observation – of live-in migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong, the paper describes how migrants use a range of neighbourhood spaces to create an improvised infrastructure of care that helps creates a sense of domesticity and home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While considerable attention has been given to the impact of migration on left-behind families, such research focuses on the children of migrants, rather than older members of the family who play crucial roles in maintaining familyhood in place and across borders. Through a multi-sited study of foreign domestic migration between Singapore and Myanmar for eldercare work, we draw attention to the care circulations connecting elderly employers in Singapore with the families of the foreign domestic workers (FDWs), in particular ageing parents in Myanmar. We interviewed 28 current and former FDWs, as well as 10 ageing parents (n = 38), of which there were 7 care dyads (i.e. domestic worker and parent/s). We underline the fraught relations of care and familyhood that are re/constructed by the domestic workers to give meaning to the eldercare work they do abroad, while also drawing out the ways in which left-behind parents both receive and provide care as a result of their daughters' migration. Our paper extends conceptualisation of the 'care slot' by eliciting the multidirectional aspects of caregiving and care receiving in a transnational context, and with respect to ageing and intergenerational familyhood across borders and the life course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The demands of indigenous peoples pose radical questions about how we understand the capitalist mode of production, sociocultural relations and the distribution of political power within a state. This paper presents a systematic study of the way in which these three dimensions (territorial, socio-cultural and political) are addressed in the constitutions of 59 countries in different parts of the world. We identify what we refer to as four worlds of recognition, based on these texts’ distinctive configurations of indigenous rights. We then analyse emblematic cases as a means of better illustrating each of these groups. The paper makes a theoretical–conceptual and empirical contribution by identifying certain clusters of indigenous rights that are present crossregionally and within regions of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against a backdrop of racialised nationalism and widespread securitisation of Muslim communities, how are those on the British political left responding to the issue of Islamophobia? This paper draws together empirical accounts from anti-racist activists with a series of theoretical contributions from scholars in the field of ‘race’ and racism studies. I point towards an ambivalence in talking about and challenging Islamophobia amongst non-Muslim activists, and highlight accounts by Muslim activists of marginalisation and Islamophobia on the British left. I argue that these trends are best understood – and critically addressed – by drawing on understandings of racialisation and nationalism. Finally, I consider how we might think about the role of Muslim activists on the left, drawing on the concept of the ‘racialised outsider’ (Virdee [2014. Racism, Class and the Racialized Outsider. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan]) to argue that their experiences and analyses place them in a unique position from which to challenge Islamophobia in the current moment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In examining the ageing-migration nexus from a Global South perspective, this paper explores the obligations, opportunities and constraints of caregiving performed by Vietnamese grandparent visitors during their sojourns in Australia. Employing a grounded theory approach and care circulation framework, we investigate how grandparent visitors and adult migrant children experience and understand care and ageing in contexts of mobility, including an analysis of how gender, age, socio-economic contexts and culture shape and affect their care norms and practices. The analysis emphasizes the critical contributions that Vietnamese grandparents make to the reproductive labour of their adult migrant children who often face challenges in balancing their family and work life. The resultant 'informal unpaid care mobility' of Vietnamese grandparents visitors creates 'informal care chains' that underscore the role of mobility as a care resource and the need for unpaid family care in migrant families due to the high cost of formal childcare in Australia. This analysis extends our understanding of the political economy of care, by highlighting the need for greater analysis of South–North informal care flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immobility is to be complicated as a topic of study in research on human migration. This paper analyses different ways of staying put, investigating the motivations, degree of (in)voluntariness and associated narratives, to show how immobility is as complex a research category as mobility. It does so in the context of irregular male migration from a rural location in Andean Ecuador to the USA. This paper also focuses on the interactions between mobility and immobility. Families with migrant and non-migrant members are imbued with and affected by changing mobility–immobility dynamics. This paper explores such dynamics to facilitate the understanding of local sociocultural logic, where mobility and immobility are infused with specific meaning, while placing such dynamics within global regimes of (im)mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing scholarship on the active citizenship of undocumented migrants is inconclusive on its perils and promises. While some scholars see it as symptomatic of the moral economy that makes legal recognition dependent on demonstrating civic deservingness, others argue that it represents a potential site of contestation against illegalisation. In this paper, we argue that we need to focus on the complex processes that drive undocumented migrants' quest for recognition in order to understand the political ambiguities implicated in how they civically engage themselves. We use the case of CollectActif (CA), an undocumented-led anti-food waste collective in Brussels, to argue that methods of participatory action research (PAR) are better placed than ex-post analyses to show how recognition processes unfold and evolve over time. We show that recognition depends on establishing 'equivalence' to prevailing norms and forms of civic organisation. Hence, CA members generated solidarity and created new publics by behaving as active citizens. Yet, despite increased visibility, CA struggled to be recognised by established actors in the field as actors with equal rights to being and speaking. Based on these findings, we argue that tensions between equivalence and equality help to explain the political ambiguities of active citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how spouses waiting in Turkey to be reunited with their partner in Europe experience border regimes and deal with the transnationalised discourses on 'marriage migrants' they encounter. It is based on the analysis of a single narrative interview, that of a woman taking German classes at Goethe Institute in Istanbul in order to pass the required language test. Like other respondents, she is confronted with negative gendered preconceptions regarding 'Turkish import brides'. Her boundary work involves mobilising alternative hierarchies in an attempt to discursively construct a different Turkey than the one generally represented: she draws on social class (positioning herself as a member of the highly educated, mobile and economically better off), socio-spatial units (focusing on her urbanity) and gender (experiencing 'modern' and equal gender relationships). The paper emphasises the importance of the socio-spatial context, here the classroom, where boundary-making takes place. It also provides insights into the effects of global spatial hierarchies on migrants and their alternative narratives, a dimension that can only be understood through a decentred analysis. The article contributes to studies on cross-border marriages by analysing the 'outgoing' side, a perspective still rarely addressed in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rise of China's economy, more and more white Westerners are moving to China for better job or business opportunities. In addition to the so-called transnational elites, there are an increasing number of middle-stratum white migrants whose lived experiences in China are marked by notable tensions between privileges and precariousness. Based on research in Beijing and Xi'an, this paper examines how white migrants from different backgrounds make strategic choices in coping with the decline of white skin privilege in China and feelings of insecurity in a highly competitive Chinese labour market. It identifies China as a new frontier zone where the meanings of whiteness are contested and reconstructed in interracial encounters between white migrants and various groups of Chinese. I argue that although these white migrants have little control over the multiple and contradictory ways that they are racialised in Chinese society, they still demonstrate a certain degree of agency in manipulating the Chinese gazes for their benefits through the strategic performance of different versions of whiteness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

FitzGerald and Arar (2018. "The Sociology of Refugee Migration." Annual Review of Sociology 44 (1): 387–406) suggest that adapting the New Economics of Labour Migration Theory (NELM) to include the risk of violence as another risk managed through migration could provide a framework to analyze refugee and 'mixed migration' decision-making. I use original data from a case study to evaluate this proposed theoretical extension. Drawing on interviews with 21 middle-class Iraqis who settled in the Greater Toronto area following the 2003 US-led invasion, I find that participants who entered Canada as both refugee and non-refugee migrants self-insured against risks to physical and socio-economic safety through migration. I argue that foregrounding state policies, which delineate the legal statuses available to potential migrants and their associated rights and obligations, improves NELM's utility for explaining migration from conflict. By sampling on the country of origin, rather than destination country entry category, I show that host-state policies structure the risks of migration and, consequently, family risk-management decisions and mobility patterns. Additionally, those motivated to migrate due to violence can self-insure against these risks by negotiating legal status as a means to safety if they have the resources to meet restrictive policy requirements. Thus, this paper suggests that better-resourced migrants may be at an advantage when fleeing conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses two dimensions of 'waiting' in the realm of family reunification: the policy perspective and the immigrants' experience. First, in line with the migration management paradigm, the Canadian government has introduced various measures to reduce 'waiting times'. We discuss changes in the family reunification programme of parents and grandparents implemented since 2011 as emblematic of these measures. Such changes are also situated within global trends that make family reunification policies more restrictive. Second, based on 19 interviews with already established immigrants who are sponsors of a parent, we analyse the experience of 'waiting for care'. For families attempting to reunite to fill care needs, new measures may speed up reunification, but they may also mean that being together is, for many, more difficult to achieve, temporary, and precarious. We argue that the politics of 'waiting times' management has depoliticised the right to family reunification and institutionalised temporariness in this component of immigration policy. These repercussions of state policies significantly alter how immigrant families can provide care to their members and sustain social reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Programmes to encourage the return of migrants living with irregular status are prominent in many OECD countries. Bearing titles like ‘assisted voluntary return and reintegration’ (AVRR), they are often rationalized as a more humane alternative to forced deportation. Critics question their voluntariness, suggesting they are actually an extension of the deportation apparatus. While broadly sympathetic to these criticisms, this paper offers a novel perspective on AVRR. We argue AVRR is reshaping what we call the political imaginary of deportation. Focusing on the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a leading architect of AVRR, we insist scholars take seriously the visual images and narratives through which voluntary return is discursively constructed. First, we discuss the political imaginary, and clarify what this concept brings to deportation studies. Second, we present a mapping of the political imaginary of deportation as this appears within IOM information campaigns concerning AVRR. We organize this material in terms of three analytics: returnees as activists, return journeys as homecoming, and deportation as self-reinvention. In the eyes of many activists and migrants, deportation has very negative and painful connotations. We show that IOM reimagines the landscape of deportation in a positive light. We call this move the deportation twist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on data from in-depth interviews with refused asylum seekers from Zimbabwe and Kurds from Turkey, who have stayed in Britain as irregular migrants, this paper examines everyday lives, strategies and fears. The paper focuses on four main areas: individual experiences of the asylum system leading to irregularity; living as an irregular migrant with the constraints on economic participation and limited housing options; social lives, relationships and community activities alongside the ways in which decisions about social interactions intersect with irregularity and subsistence support; the fears and everyday struggles faced by irregular migrant's living in England, and the ways in which this translates into relationships with place and space. The paper draws out both the commonalities and the diversity of experiences among refused asylum seekers living in England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates opportunities and obstacles refugee women face in establishment in rural areas. Drawing on ethnographic research in three rural municipalities in northern Sweden, including interviews with refugee women, local employers and educational staff, I analyse the women's space for agency and opportunities to use and capitalise on different resources in relation to the local labour market and belonging. Applying Bourdieu's conceptualisation of cultural capital, as read by Skeggs, I show that the women can capitalise on embodied cultural capital of feminine and ethnic caregiving. However, due to lack of the 'right' institutional cultural capital of educational certificates from Swedish institutions, and devaluation of foreign credentials and experiences, this is mainly in difficult-to-fill, unsecure jobs in the elder care or early childhood education and care sectors. The women's limited options and opportunities to 'enterprise themselves up' contribute to ethnicisation of care work in rural labour markets. Moreover, lack of mobility and key cultural capital (cars and driving licences) for work, education and belonging in both the local masculine culture of the remote rural areas and national gender equality culture further limit the women's space for agency and establishment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How immigrants frame their futures through enacting differential aspirations is undertheorised in migration and diasporic studies. This ethnographic study presents three groups of Chinese immigrants in Luxembourg and their differential engagements with education as part of the aspirational project of future making: second-generation youth born into upper-middle-class professional families, second-generation youth with blue-collar restaurant parents, and 1.5-generation youth who arrived during childhood or adolescence. Building on Appadurai's (2013. The Future as Cultural Fact: Essays on the Global Condition. London: Verso) notion of the 'capacity to aspire' and Bourdieu's (1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Translated by R. Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) theorisation of capital and habitus, the paper examines the divergent ways immigrant youth and families negotiate an unequal terrain of educational possibilities and articulate future aspirations. While upper-middle-class professional families are compelled to pursue a future around individual distinction, those of working-class backgrounds engage in less risky credentialing strategies to secure social mobility. 1.5-generation youth and their families, on the other hand, exhibit immigrant pragmatism to obtain stable future livelihoods. Chinese immigrants' divergent aspirations are intertwined with class, race, transnational connections and family strategies to shape the possibilities of future. The study contributes to the understanding of educational mobilities of Chinese immigrants, and illustrates the multiple aspirations, negotiations and educational futures within a rapidly stratifying Chinese diaspora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With child migration on the rise, there is a critical need to understand how migrant children express their agency. To date, popular narratives cast migrant children as either victims or criminals, an unhelpful binary that does little to further efforts to develop effective interventions to help migrant youth. Drawing from 32 in-depth interviews and participatory activities with Mexican and Central American children in Mexican youth immigration detention centres, this paper seeks to reconceptualise current understandings of migrant children's agency. In this paper, we explore how youth express their motivations, assert their will, develop pragmatic dependencies, employ strategic parroting and guard information to achieve their goals. We also examine how state and non-state actors both support and suppress young people's agency as they try to navigate their way to the U.S./Mexico border. In doing so, we argue for a more nuanced approach to child migrants' agency. A non-binary approach recognises the development of agency as a process, embracing children and young people's rights and vulnerabilities, while acknowledging their resiliencies, competencies, goals and strengths. We conclude by proposing a transdisciplinary research agenda to promote this non-binary approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between global inequality and dual citizenship by analysing citizenship acquisition from abroad in the European Union (EU). Most EU countries now offer facilitated naturalisation to descendants of emigrants and co-ethnics abroad, which requires neither residence nor renunciation of former citizenship. Since the 1990s, over 3.5 million people have used this opening to obtain dual citizenship from a European country to which they often have little if any connection. I analyse this phenomenon using a data-set that I constructed from previously unanalysed administrative statistics. The data were used to test an original theory that explains patterns of demand for dual citizenship in the context of a global hierarchy of citizenship worth. The analysis demonstrated that demand was much higher in Latin America and Eastern Europe than in North America and Western Europe. Non-Western applicants were drawn to the practical benefits of EU citizenship, and their level of demand varied in response to economic conditions like unemployment. In contrast, Western applicants displayed lower demand for citizenship and were unresponsive to economic incentives. The paper contributes to the literature by demonstrating the relationship between citizenship and global stratification as well as highlighting a widespread instrumental approach to dual citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper provides insight into remarriages amongst Turkish and Moroccan Belgians. Although the issue of remarriage is of particular relevance, given the rising divorce rates that have been observed amongst these groups in recent decades, it remains largely understudied. We examine remarriage rates and patterns of partner choice in second marriages, taking into account partner-choice patterns in first marriages. We analysed data from the Belgian national register, using piecewise constant log-rate event-history analyses with effect coding on all first marriages that ended in divorce between 1 January 2001 and 1 January 2009. In the second phase of the analysis, which focuses on partner choice in the second marriage, we selected only those respondents who had remarried. Our results indicate that the recent transition in marital behaviour (e.g. lower levels of transnational marriage and higher levels of mixed marriages) has not (yet) been replicated in second marriages. Transnational remarriage is by far the most preferred partner choice, especially amongst former marriage migrants. Especially for them, the access to the local marriage market seems to be restricted, steering them towards the transnational marriage market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how material-based and identity-based concerns influence views on immigration in Japan. Our analysis, based on in-depth interviews with 28 local residents and public and policy opinion leaders conducted in 2015 in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan, found widespread opposition to immigration with the exception of the immigration of care workers. General opposition to immigration stemmed from identity-based concerns, while openness to and support for the immigration of care workers was related to material-based concerns. Our findings suggest that while the identities approach to understanding anti-immigration sentiment has explanatory power in Japan, material-based concerns can, when sufficiently strong, override identity-based concerns in a phenomenon we call 'pragmatic divergence'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the experiences of artists who were forced to leave their homes due to war, persecution, and violence that (re-)started their artistic careers in their arrival countries. Based on an ethnographic study of Syrian refugees' artistic practices in Vienna, Austria, spanning diverse cultural fields (music, theatre, literature, visual art), the paper shows how these artists are not only confronted with what has been called 'the burden of ethnic representation', but also with expectations that emerge from being categorised as 'refugees'. A four-mode typology of the artists' self-presentations (adapting/masking/switching/refusing) uncovers how this 'double burden of representation' shapes their positioning in the field of art – by emphasising either ethnic or refugee labels (or both or neither). The findings contribute to the study of social categorisation of migrants and their artistic practices in the cultural field and how this affects pathways of social incorporation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While scholars have long studied the relationship between nationalist beliefs and anti-immigrant attitudes, such work has proceeded largely independently from research on collective memory, which explores how nationalist narratives are created, maintained, and contested. In this paper, we bring these literatures together by asking how, at the individual level, receptivity to salient narratives about the nation's past is associated with dispositions toward immigrants and immigration policy. Specifically, we focus on two narratives common in a number of contemporary democracies that frame the nation as having been perpetually victimised over its history (i.e. the victimhood narrative) and as having been chosen to carry out a special mission in the world (i.e. the exceptionalism narrative). Using original data from Israel, we demonstrate that stronger agreement with these narratives, and particularly with exceptionalism, is associated with greater propensity to hold anti-immigrant views. Our analyses reveal that this relationship is mediated by ethnic conceptions of the nation's symbolic boundaries and, to a lesser degree, by perceived symbolic and material threats to the nation-state. Building on recent comparative work, we argue that in nations with a history of precarious sovereignty, victimhood and exceptionalism narratives can provide a fertile basis for the exclusionary appeals of radical-right political actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The widespread practice of transnational marriage among British Pakistanis has often been understood through an ethnic lens, as emphasising the boundaries of ethnicity and reaffirming bonds of kinship to Pakistan. Within British Pakistani families, however, a diversity of marriages may exist, with some siblings married transnationally, whilst others have partners from within the UK. Marriage between cousins or more distant relatives is common, but unions between British Pakistanis are less often consanguineous than those involving a spouse from Pakistan. This paper draws on sibling pair case studies to explore the logics and consequences of contrasting marriage choices: those between kin but crossing international borders, and those within the nation-state but crossing the boundaries of the kin-group. In doing so, we suggest that both 'types' of marriage should be understood as part of wider dynamics of creative contextual brightening and dimming of a variety of boundaries of similarity and difference. Negotiations of marriageability may include ethnic, kin and national boundaries, but very often go beyond them. Destabilising these dominant discourses, moreover, also brings into question assumed correlations between cross-border marriage and broader transnational orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of public officials in asylum procedures is generally a critical concern in scholarly and political debates. Focusing on the asylum system in Germany, this paper seeks to understand asylum procedures with regard to officially claimed standards and the still varying practices of decision-making. It draws on the findings of a qualitative study based on a multi-method design and carried out in the asylum administration. Based on a sociology of knowledge approach, the paper shows that administrative practices are largely a matter of how decision-makers on the ground interpret legal and political regulations. We demonstrate that decision-makers utilise shifting strategies to handle official claims and cope with local settings in their daily work, from defining the applicant to reaching decisions about asylum requests. The administration of asylum applications is discussed as a field that uses and (re-)produces both authorised and informal knowledge. Caseworkers develop a pragmatic knowledge of how to deal with the discrepancies between official standards and local working conditions. However, it is the asylum institution that provides the context in which they navigate the pitfalls and challenges of the asylum procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transnationalism is generally acknowledged as a positive agentic force in the literature describing the transnational experiences of older migrants who stretch their lives between global North and global South. What has been less explored is the extent to which migration policies influence the lived experiences of older migrants travelling from global North to global South, particularly for first-generation migrants who could be viewed as 'returning' to their home country. Although the number of older Filipino migrants in Australia is increasing, existing research on older Filipino migrants in Australia has been rather limited. Through the examination of data collected from fieldwork and interviews, this research aims to bridge this gap by examining the lived experiences of older Filipino migrants who stretch their lives across Australia and the Philippines. This research finds that, instead of framing their transnational lives as an agentic response, older Filipino migrants in Australia frame their transnational existence in terms of 'curtailed dreams', resulting in an experience that is not widely explored in the existing literature. This research, therefore, calls for a more critical examination of transnational experiences of older migrants who live in a single social field between global North and global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every year thousands of Hakka Chinese Indonesian youth leave towns in West Kalimantan to go overseas to work and study in Malaysia, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Australia, America and the UK. Many have their sojourns abroad stopped by parents who 'call them home' (Hakka. ham chon; Indo. disuruh pulang) to perform family duties, primarily taking over family businesses and taking care of aging parents. Being 'called home' is rarely optional; it is a form of return that makes explicit the moral economy inherent in hierarchical family relationships. The ways internationally mobile youth respond to this request and make sense of their lives after returning, reveal complex and ambiguous feelings towards family, self, and community. Cosmopolitan transnational aspirations conflict with the daily realities of immobility, filial duty, and the monotony of small-town life. This is expressed in a series of changing states that move between love and acceptance, resentment and anger. Using three illustrative cases from long-term ethnographic fieldwork, this paper describes this process of being 'called home', showing how the tensions between personal aspirations for transnational mobility and the realities of small-town immobility linked to filial duty are a more significant experience of contemporary youthful sojourns than previously imagined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the 'power geometry' (Massey [1994]. Space, Place and Gender. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press) of mobility/immobility of foreign domestic workers in Singapore and Hong Kong. In both contexts, the policing and surveillance of pregnancy and marriage reflect and reinforce power inequalities of gender paired with migratory, ethnic/racial and employment status. Pregnancy is considered incompatible with employment, but the specifics differ. In Singapore pregnancy results in automatic expulsion of the worker, while in Hong Kong workers are protected by antidiscrimination laws and some labour rights. Legislation of marriages to locals contrast greatly as well, producing subtle but significant differences in im/mobility and citizenship rights. These differences reveal unequal social positioning and different state priorities and regimes of control. While both states aim to restrict migrant workers, Confucian and familial notions of hierarchy reinforce Singapore's approach, while neoliberalism and individual responsibility play a greater role in Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how migrant wives and left-behind husbands negotiate their gendered identities across the multi-layered spatialities of homeland and host society. Using a qualitative, multi-sited approach, we analyse the mutual constitution of labour migration and transnational marriages by focusing on the transnational negotiation of intimacy between Filipino migrant wives working in Singapore and Filipino left-behind husbands living in the Philippines. First, we examine how gendered ideologies rooted in notions of women as 'light of the home' and men as 'pillar of the home' shape and undergird the discourse and practice of Filipino marriages. But even as these gendered constructs travel beyond the homeland, restrictive gendered identities become increasingly untenable as women's labour migration brings about shifting power dynamics in transnational marriages. Second, drawing on the affective structures of shame and guilt, we argue that the regulation of the homeland's hegemonic gendered constructs are internalised and imbibed through 'symbolic violence'. At the same time, we also show that migrant wives and left-behind husbands find ways to navigate the liminal space of migration by rationalising gendered forms of transgression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing feminisation of transnational labour migration has raised concerns over potential 'care crises' at home, and consequently a 'care deficit' for children left in origin countries. Our paper focuses on how left-behind children from Indonesia and the Philippines understand, engage and react to changes in their everyday lives in their parents' absence. While many children had no say over their care arrangements, some were able to assert their agency in influencing their parents' decisions and eventually migratory behaviours. Their thoughts and actions reinforce the importance of including children's views in development and migration studies to improve both the children's and families' well-being, and make migration a sustainable strategy for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crossing borders for work is commonly recognised as an important opportunity to enhance cross-cultural skills. Implicit here is the assumption that labour migration entails a level of cross-cultural receptivity as the basis for learning new skills etc.; a trait that in its expanded sense is also central to the discussion of cosmopolitanism. This paper explores the relationship between work and cosmopolitanism, enquiring into the influence of the concrete conditions of cross-border work on the potential for cosmopolitan engagement. The analysis focuses on four categories of cross-border work undertaken by Indonesian women from Sambas in West Kalimantan. The findings illuminate three work-related factors that shaped these women's engagement with cross-border cultural and social differences that are arguably relevant to other cross-border workers: the type of work, the nature of workplace relations and women's access to independent social spaces outside of work. These findings support the argument that our understanding of cosmopolitanism could be enriched by further study into the conditioning of cultural openness and critical reflexivity at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides a qualitative exploration of the impact of family migration policies on Latin American migrants in Italy. As the data collected reveals, the right to family life is differently accessed and regulated along lines of nationality/ethnicity, gender and class, reflected in more or less rigidly constrained formal and informal reunification pathways, which differently affect gender, intergenerational and care relationships in the family. While Italy, compared to other European countries, still regulates the matter in a relatively generous way, the increasing restrictions, matched with widespread informality in labour and housing markets, make access to this fundamental human right highly uneven and stratified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resilience, exposure and transferability are the most common explanations of immigrant political mobilisation in the context of the host society. They are based on assumptions about socialisation and institutionalisation, which are common to native-born groups as well. They lead to hypotheses about the impact of ‘cultures of voting turnout.’ This paper tests these hypotheses through cross-classified multilevel logistic regression analysis of immigrants' voting intentions. The method is new to the analysis of voting behaviour, and allows the comparison of immigrants of multiple origin groups in multiple host countries. This paper provides support for exposure effects: living in a society where most people cast ballots in national elections increases the odds that immigrants are willing to vote. Transferability is not evident, as coming from a culture of high turnout actually lowers the probability of voting. Such impact is not mediated by the length of stay or by the political opportunity structure specific to immigrants, but is stronger in systems of compulsory voting. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper studies the upward occupational mobility trajectories of immigrant women performing unskilled work as a first job in Spain. The goals of the research are to go beyond the debate that focuses on the structural elements that condition their labour trajectories in Spain and to include both personal factors and the way in which these women use their agency in order to shape their labour trajectories. We have opted for a mixed-method approach, using data from the National Immigrant Survey ENI-2007, combined with 42 socio-biographical interviews with immigrant women from Latin America living in the metropolitan areas of Barcelona and Madrid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sheds light on the relationship between individual agency, transnational social relations, geographic place, and cultural constructions of life phase and gender among highly skilled Indian migrants to the Netherlands. Amsterdam is attracting an increasing number of Indian migrants who work primarily in the fields of information technology, engineering and business management. The nature of this highly skilled work requires mobile, flexible workers, and therefore mainly attracts single men between 25 and 34. Their migrant experiences and choices are marked by a ‘performance of liminality’: migration is part of a coming of age ritual that both structures their lives and is structured by circumstances and agency. The experience of bachelors in particular can be understood as a ‘double liminality’ in that it is both temporary and spatial. Many of our bachelor informants felt they were ‘betwixt and between’ the socio-cultural expectations they grew up with and what they perceive to be Dutch or Western culture, and between those that pertain to childhood and to adulthood. They live on a metaphorical threshold, shaped by their masculine ideals, beliefs about ‘Indian culture’, their expected life trajectories, and their experiences in and expectations of the Netherlands and the city of Amsterdam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reformulates classical questions regarding the plans and strategies of Polish migrants in the UK-such as decisions to leave or remain in the host country, or be 'deliberately indeterminate' about future plans-from a sociologically situated 'rights-based' perspective. This approach considers migrant's attitudes towards specific 'civic integration' measures in a medium-term time frame, as well as in the new context created by the UK's vote to leave the EU. Based on the quantitative analysis of original survey data, we investigate the factors behind Polish migrant's migration strategies and we argue that basic socio-economic and demographic factors are inadequate, on their own terms, to explain future migration and civic integration plans. Instead, we find that aspects such as interest in and awareness of one's rights, as well as anxieties about the ability to maintain one's rights in the future are stronger determinants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about mortality among descendants of immigrants in western host countries because many descendants have not yet reached the ages of high mortality. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether the migrant mortality advantage recently observed among immigrants in England and Wales persists, converges to levels of the White England and Wales-born population or reverses among their descendants. Survival analysis is used to study mortality among over 500,000 individuals in a large, longitudinal dataset (Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study). A recent update to this data provides a longer time series with an older sample of descendants to study. The analysis finds that, as a combined group, the descendants of immigrants have higher mortality than immigrants and White England and Wales-born. After adjusting for socioeconomic characteristics, mortality among descendants attenuates to the mortality level among the White England and Wales-born but remains high relative to immigrants. Analysis by ethnic minority group suggests there are important differences in mortality among descendants, particularly in the persistent high mortality among the descendants of Black Caribbeans. However, the age structure among descendants is still young and the estimates for ethnic minority sub-groups may not be robust. We await the further ageing of descendants to confirm or challenge these interesting sub-group findings by ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates migrant access to employment using concepts from Granovetter [1973. “The Strength of Weak Ties.”American Journal of Sociology78 (6): 1360–1380; Granovetter, M. 1983. “The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited.”Sociological Theory1: 201–233] relating to ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ ties in networks and from Coleman [1988. “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital.”American Journal of Sociology94: 95–121] and Putnam [2000.Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster] relating to the role of social capital in creating bonding and bridging relationships. Ethnographic research was conducted among Brazilian labour migrants in small towns in Ireland and returnees in Brazil who were recruited initially through an agent in the late 1990s to work in meat processing. Within a short time social networks began to assume importance in accessing employment, including family and friends, Brazilian ‘brokers’ and ‘non-pay Irish intermediaries’. Strong ties and bonding social capital were present within the migrant group, but weak ties and bridging social capital were also established which provided access to employment locally. These results provide further support for recent advice by Patulny and Svendsen [2007. “Exploring the Social Capital Grid: Bonding, Bridging, Qualitative, Quantitative.”International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy27 (1/2): 32–51] and Ryan[2011. “Migrants’ Social Networks and Weak Ties: Accessing Resources and Constructing Relationships Post-Migration.”The Sociological Review59 (4): 707–724] that researchers should examine the ways in which social capital and resources are used in networks instead of assuming a simple dichotomy between the roles of different types of ties. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For undocumented people who become eligible for a US immigrant visa, the pathway to lawful status bifurcates around one central question: how did you get into the USA? While most visa overstayers can adjust their status within the USA, undocumented border crossers must leave the USA to change their status. When they do, all but a few trigger a 10-year bar—often called ‘el castigo’ in Spanish or ‘the punishment’—on their return. This paper draws on a three-year ethnographic study to explore the process of legalisation for Latinos who entered and lived in the USA unlawfully. I pay particular attention to how ‘grounds of inadmissibility’ and federal criminal prosecutions for unauthorised entry disproportionately penalise working-class Latinos, creating a minefield of racialised obstacles to their lawful status. Together, I argue, racialised criminalisation and higher hurdles to lawful status amount to a one–two punch that makes it extraordinarily difficult for undocumented Latinos to ever change their status, even when they are eligible for an immigrant visa based on their marriage to US citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As one of the predominant means of legal entry into the European Union (EU), family reunification has moved to the centre of public and political debates on immigration. Many Member States’ governments have put in place a net of highly selective policies in order to limit the number of foreigners entering as family migrants. This paper contrasts the underlying normative claim of a fundamental and universal right to family life against the existing evidence of unequal conditions and effects of family reunification policies for different groups and categories of third-country national migrants. Questioning the legitimacy of these differential policies, I build on Habermas’ distinction between pragmatic, ethical and moral modes of justification to develop a framework that helps to distinguish the various logics and arguments underlying this increasingly complex system of differentiated rights. I argue that within European family reunification policy-making the three types of justification, while often used in combination, tend to serve different functions and to inflict distinctive shortcomings in terms of the legitimacy of the selection mechanisms they underpin. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Several Western European countries have adopted policies of mandatory integration, requiring immigrants to acquire country knowledge, language and values as conditions for immigration, settlement and citizenship. The underlying concept is that—in promoting civic skills—immigrants are better equipped to politically, socially and economically integrate. However, the question of whether civic integration is designed to be a real solution to repair integration problems has gone untested. This paper presents results, across a wide range of outcomes, which finds much more support for a symbolic narrative than a functional one. Using a unique data-set to measure civic integration policy across six waves of the European Social Survey (2002–2012), we find little evidence that these requirements produce tangible, long-term integration change. This does not diminish their significance; instead, we find requirements serve a meaningful gate-keeping role, while simultaneously repositioning the state closer to immigrant lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates have persisted about the character of the East–West population flows that followed the EU expansions. Some of the discussions surround the extent to which the mobility has been temporal and hence how likely these migrants are to settle permanently or to stay for long periods in host countries. This paper enhances the understanding of such issues through examining survey data on 700 Polish recent migrants in seven English and Welsh towns and supplemented by an analysis of qualitative data. Three categories of migrants are initially identified on the basis of their intentions of stay in the UK. Multinomial logit models are then estimated to examine the characteristics of individuals in each category to establish the factors that influence migration strategies and changes in plans. Results indicate that although standard socio-economic characteristics tend to be insignificant, migration strategies and changes in intentions are affected by migrant's view of whether their job matches their expectations, the time of entry into the UK and remittances. Analysis of the qualitative information reinforces some of the key findings and also indicates the importance of migrants' ability to reference their experiences in two settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizenship scholars in Europe often focus on the institutional factors that influence naturalisation, but a less explored topic in the literature is the role of politics and group belonging in naturalisation behaviour—factors that have been proven to influence immigrants' behaviour in the North American context. Through analysis of the extensive Trajectories and Origins (2008) data-set, I find that interest in politics shapes naturalisation behaviour and outcomes, and living in an anti-immigrant climate, identifying as Muslim and feeling otherised is negatively correlated with naturalisation behaviour. Lastly, Arab immigrants are more likely to seek French naturalisation and have this status than White, non-EU immigrants. This paper sets a quantitative foundation for the role of political orientation and context, and ethnic group belonging in shaping immigrants' naturalisation behaviour in France. It ends with proposals for a future research agenda on studying the political integration of different ethnic groups in France, and Europe generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the determinants of the political participation of Muslims. We assess the impact of associational involvement on their overall political participation and their involvement in protest activities. We do so using original survey data consisting of a random sample of Muslim residents in Switzerland. Our analysis provides support to the argument that associational involvement is a strong predictor of political participation. The findings suggest that Muslims involved in cross-ethnic organisations are more likely to engage in politics. This holds for the overall political participation and for engagement in protest activities. In terms of social capital theory, our findings confirm that bridging social capital is as crucial when it comes to explaining the political participation of Muslims as it is when dealing with migrants in general. However, we also observe a positive impact of the involvement in religious associations. We interpret this effect as an indication that bonding social capital plays a role in the political participation of ethno-religious minorities, but one based on a religious rather than an ethnic cleavage. Future research should pay more attention to this relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine the contradictory migration experiences of Indian youth who recently moved to Britain on a student or temporary work visa and discuss the perspectives of their middle-class families in Gujarat. Like many young people in developing countries, our informants dreamed of going to the West to earn money and improve their prospects at home but ended up in low-status, semi-skilled jobs to cover their expenses, living in small guesthouses crammed with newly arrived migrants. Why did these young people leave India and go to London and what do they get by moving abroad? Based on research in London and Gujarat, our findings show that the decision to migrate is shaped by a combination of individual and social motivations. These young people moved to London not only to earn money and gain new experiences but also to escape family pressures by living away from their parents. Their parents encourage them, though they are aware of the difficulties their children face in London. They regard the migration as a requisite precautionary strategy to maintain their status as middle-class families in India, thereby safeguarding the next generation's future prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]