Paper short abstract:

Regional organizations moderate the effect of nationalistic rhetoric on labor migration. By examining the case of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), this paper finds that regional organizations balance out nationalist rhetoric and serve both stabilizing and legitimating functions.

Paper long abstract:

From Brexit to Trump, polarization and nationalism have been a central feature of political discourse in 2016. The polarizing tactics of President Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines indicates that Southeast Asia is not immune to this trend. With the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Chairmanship rotating to Manila in 2017, this paper explores the implications of such instability on ASEAN's response to migration.

The 2015 ASEAN Economic Community' promised to revitalize ASEAN's role in uniting its 10 members, defending against accusations of it being an ineffective "talk-shop" (e.g. Acharya 2003). However, as political regimes utilize increased nationalist rhetoric to maintain power, some may politicians find it compelling to limit or terminate regional cooperation, especially when domestic perceptions of ASEAN legitimacy is low.

While states have policy levers to encourage or curb migration at the national level, regional organizations also have an influence. By examining interactions amongst domestic political interests, ASEAN and international labor migration, this study finds that domestic political concerns of labor-sending countries are more economic while those of labor-receiving countries are more cultural. While both sending and receiving countries seek greater domestic legitimation through ASEAN, member states have differential regional influence on ASEAN's position depending on whether they seek to promote or block action.

Through a nuanced thematic synthesis of "Arrivals" (Labor Receiving Countries), "Departures" (Labor Sending Countries), "Passengers" (Labor Migrants) and "In-Transit" (ASEAN's Regional Project), this project integrates individual, state and regional discourses to determine the prospects of regional mobility and integration amidst an uncertain climate.

Paper short abstract:

The paper wants to reconstruct the history of Indian educators in Ethiopia and inquire the historical as well as individual reasons why they moved and still move to the African country.

Paper long abstract:

The history of Indians in Ethiopia is much different from the history of Indians in the rest of the continent, especially the rest of East Africa. While in other East African countries Indians were predominantly dukawalla, traders, who had followed the Arab trading routes, in Ethiopia Indians have been closely associated with formal education since the times of Emperor Haile Selassie. When secondary schools were established in the 1940s, Haile Selassie had not only Indian advisors, but Indian teachers arrived in large numbers. Around six decades later, when a similar fast expansion took place in the higher education sector, Ethiopia turned again to India as one of the possible source countries for recruiting university lecturers. While the employment of academics from other contemplated countries like Cuba and Nigeria stayed low for various reasons, Indian academics were ready to come and today they still arrive in large numbers.

The paper wants to reconstruct the history of Indian educators in Ethiopia and inquire the historical as well as individual reasons why they moved to the African country.

Paper short abstract:

The rise of radical Islam after the dissipation of the socialist world has brought forth new challenges to the post-cold war era. Internal conflicts in Muslim dominated countries has impacted substantially on the freer movement of people throughout the world.

Paper long abstract:

Samuel's Huntington's prediction in his classical account of early twenty-first politics that the rise of radical Islam will replace the dynamics of the cold-war confrontations between socialist and capitalist countries was prophetic. But it did not anticipate the nature of the rivalry between internally based groups in Middle-Eastern countries that would raise the ire of Vladimir Putin's leadership of a seemingly complacent Russia. Russia's aerial confrontation against ISIS has had a somewhat overpowering image over the American engagement in the Middle East. And neither did it anticipate the uncertainties and failures of European countries attempts to unify and present itself as a formidable block to the rest of the world. "Brexit" in the UK and Donald Trump's election in the USA, jointly presents a new era in international migration patterns. "Building defenses against Islamic fundamentalism, saving jobs and protecting social welfare for local citizens against foreign migrants" is the contemporary catch-phrase in the developed world. This paper will present an historical overview of migration in the second half of the 20th century and newer possibilities for viewing the inhibitive phenomenon around this issue as a corollary of early 21st century politics.

Paper short abstract:

A brief description of current Brazilian policy for refugees’ rights was performed. To understand the actual scenario, the case of refugees from the DRC in Rio de Janeiro was analyzed through a participant observation and a literature review. Refugees have little support, thus policies need to be updated.

Paper long abstract:

The number of refugees and asylum seekers in Brazil has increased substantially in the last 5 years. They are a group of high vulnerability because of many material and symbolic losses. Also, they face language and cultural barriers and suffer an acculturation process. This article briefly describes the Brazilian refugee acceptance process and the current policy for refugees' rights. The Brazilian health policy is presented in more detail since it is based in the human rights and guarantees access to any person in Brazilian territory. In order to analyze the actual situation and support of refugees, the case of refugees and asylum seekers from the DRC in Rio de Janeiro was mobilized as an example. How they access health services will be analyzed in comparison to other services. We performed a participant observation with the RDC Community during a year, along side health promotion actives we implemented. Also, we carried out a literature review in the grey literature. We found out that Brazilian Public Policies of immigrant integration are outdated. The refugee acceptance process is slow. Hence, they do not have access to all the rights they are entitled to. The Brazilian health policy is advanced and the system is universal, so they enter the health services. Nevertheless, they face barriers to have full access. Some of them are similar when searching for legal or social services, too. Obstacles faced in Brazil do not help to promote integration in society. Policies and support programs need to evaluated and updated.

Paper short abstract:

This paper provides an ethnographic examination of the Frontera Sur Program. I study the ways in which the Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM)-National Institute of Migration---implements and enforce the Frontera Sur Program against Central American migrants.

Paper long abstract:

This paper provides an ethnographic examination of the Frontera Sur Program. I study the ways in which the Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM)-National Institute of Migration---implements and enforce the Frontera Sur Program against Central American migrants. I assess the program's efforts to identify, screen, and remove migrants before they reach the US-Mexico Border. A legal violence model is employed to provide a theoretical framework for understanding the significance of state-driven initiatives aimed on the implementation of legal systems intended to benefit the greater good while its application creates a social environment of fear and suffering among targeted population groups. This approach focuses on the ways in which Central American migrants' lives are affected by actions from corrupt state officials and abusive practices. This article uses visual and ethnographic data gathered between winter 2014 and fall 2016 in the southern, central, and northern Mexico. The paper found that Mexican migration officers make significant efforts to not only identify and interdict migrants in transit across Mexico, but also to appropriate US Border Patrol tactics to remove undocumented migrants. The US sponsored Frontera Sur Program has enabled INM officers to screen, sift, and remove migrants without the due process protection they need from maltreatment and extortion by state officials.

Paper short abstract:

Short Abstract: This paper aims at a comparative analysis on how cities as Buenos Aires, Delhi and Durban become/ remain attractive for West African Migrants despite local political problems, discrimination in social life, racial animosity and/or xenophobic reactions.

Paper long abstract:

Long Abstract:

The paper aims to comprehend the versatility of Migration flows by juxtaposing the global politics of incentives, disincentives and South- South migration to newer sets of migrants and mobilities in three Southern cities. By focusing on how the South can also move to the South to create newer flows and equilibriums in the current global political economy, I would like to argue that the growth of attractive Southern Cities as migration hubs is not only a promising but also a noteworthy phenomenon for understanding global mobility. Following the migration- trail of viable Southern alternatives acquires particular significance as many actors in the Western world look at international migration, in contrast to previous positions of a, 'compassions galore'- from within the lens of a 'compassion fatigue'. By tapping into this particular case of South-South migration namely the west Africans relocating to the cities of Buenos Aires, Delhi and Durban, the paper aims to open up as well as contribute to two main ideas: Primarily- that in terms of migration we seem to have arrived at a critical juncture in global politics in this second decade of the 21st century. Next, that at such a moment when many forces in the west appear to turn their back on International migration, far reaching implications traversing the 'regressive' to the 'irreversible' glare at us, while migration flows continue to depict newer socio-political versatilities

Paper short abstract:

This presentation introduces David Vine's "Base Nation," a follow-up to his own book about the base on Diego Garcia "Island of Shame." Then I will use literary texts in order to explore the situations of Okinawans and Chagossians after review how the US military bases made the islanders refugees.

Paper long abstract:

I would like to start this paper asking why 1810 was so important for the area in the Indian Ocean. If the British had not taken over Mauritius from France; that is, if Mauritius were like Reunion, a territory of France, what would be happening to the Chagos islands now?

Our world is far from being in unity, or even far from consensus on the way to achieve world peace. Out of human desires, we can re-image situations for desirable contemporary living. We may at least discover a new vocabulary or political and social concepts to resolve conflicts which should be fought in courtrooms or in election campaigns rather than on the battlefield. US military issues shared by Chagossians and Okinawans are likely to be louder and more rancorous in a few years to come. In fact, both desire to unity and tendencies toward diversity have created human history.

I would like to make a new line from Okinawa to Diego Garcia visible. Ilois, or Chagossians, have been refugees since 1965 before the independence of Mauritius. Their state as refugees seems/seemed to remain everlasting. Right before their complete removable from the Chagos Archipelago in 1973, the reversion of Okinawa to Japan was announced in 1972. These incidents occurred separately; however, they may have been interlinked in a new line drawn by the US. How did Okinawan history have had a major impact on Chagossian marginalization, and vice versa?

Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses the question of how non-established South Asian researchers building a career in Europe lead a mobile life across different countries in a context of growing precarization of academia. It takes into account the current dominance of short-term, non-renewable contracts that prompt scholars to mobile lives in order to reflect on how the experience of kinship and conjugality become specially complicated aspects of one’s life.

Paper long abstract:

As “academic mobility” becomes one of the watchwords of contemporary scientific policies, universities and research institutions in the global North adopt new strategies to attract “talented” foreign scholars. In this context, in which historical intellectual circulations between Europe and its ancient colonies are strengthened and resiginified, a growing number of South Asian researchers are recruited as postdoctoral fellows at European institutions. At the same time, European institutions are reshaped by pervasive managerial practices based on the notions of “flexibility” and “accountability”, which are translated into the proliferation of short-term contracts as the dominant model for the recruiting of their academic staff. Those “academic workers” are often postdoctoral fellows. Although both of these phenomena – that is, international mobility and neo-liberalization of academia – have been object of a growing amount of research, all these efforts have been analysing them separately; little attention, if any, has been paid to the complex connections between them.

Having said that, this paper explores the experience of continuous and indefinite mobility amongst South Asian social scientists who seeks to build an academic career in Europe, with a special focus on Germany. Considering the fact that a proliferation of short-term contracts has meant a shrinking of permanent positions in European academia, this paper gives an account of how these relatively young scholars have been prompted to build “postdoctoral careers” in different countries, and how lives can be lived in such circumstances of indefinite mobility. More specifically, it considers the implications of this circulation for two fundamental and related aspects of life, namely conjugality and kinship. Drawing on ethnographical work and in-depth interviews, this paper discusses the case of South Asian scholars trying to build not only a career, but also a family on the road; as well as the case of those who did not manage to. In sum, it argues that the growing precarization of academic jobs in conjugation with contemporary scientific policies has meant a particular kind of precarization of life to these scholars who are part of such historical circulations between Europe and South Asia.