The coloniality of Zimbabwean transnational migration in NoViolet Bulawayo’s We need new names (2013) : lessons for African migrants

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-105
Author(s):  
Terrence Musanga ◽  
◽  
Theophilus T. Mukhuba ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Werner ◽  
Holly R. Barcus

Inquiry into the causes and outcomes of transnational migration spans numerous disciplines, scales and methodological approaches.  Fewer studies focus on immobility.  Utilizing the Kazakh population of Mongolia as a case study, this paper considers how non-migrants view the economic and cultural costs of migrating.  We posit that three factors, including local place attachments specific to Mongolia, access to information about life in Kazakhstan and the importance of maintaining social networks in Mongolia, contribute substantially to their decision to not migrate. Our findings suggest that the decision to not migrate can be very strategic for non-migrants in highly transnational contexts.  


2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey H. Cohen ◽  
Bernardo Rios ◽  
Lise Byars

Rural Oaxacan migrants are defined as quintessential transnational movers, people who access rich social networks as they move between rural hometowns in southern Mexico and the urban centers of southern California.  The social and cultural ties that characterize Oaxacan movers are critical to successful migrations, lead to jobs and create a sense of belonging and shared identity.  Nevertheless, migration has socio-cultural, economic and psychological costs.  To move the discussion away from a framework that emphasizes the positive transnational qualities of movement we focus on the costs of migration for Oaxacans from the state’s central valleys and Sierra regions.   


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Katherine Kirk ◽  
Ellen Bal

AbstractThis paper explores the relationship between migration and integration policies in the Netherlands, diaspora policies in India, and the transnational practices of Indian highly skilled migrants to the Netherlands. We employ anthropological transnational migration theories (e.g., Ong 1999; Levitt and Jaworsky 2007) to frame the dynamic interaction between a sending and a receiving country on the lives of migrants. This paper makes a unique contribution to migration literature by exploring the policies of both sending and receiving country in relation to ethnographic data on migrants. The international battle for brains has motivated states like the Netherlands and India to design flexible migration and citizenship policies for socially and economically desirable migrants. Flexible citizenship policies in the Netherlands are primarily concerned with individual and corporate rights and privileges, whereas Indian diaspora policies have been established around the premise of national identity.


Author(s):  
Lillian Mwanri ◽  
Leticia Anderson ◽  
Kathomi Gatwiri

Background: Emigration to Australia by people from Africa has grown steadily in the past two decades, with skilled migration an increasingly significant component of migration streams. Challenges to resettlement in Australia by African migrants have been identified, including difficulties securing employment, experiences of racism, discrimination and social isolation. These challenges can negatively impact resettlement outcomes, including health and wellbeing. There has been limited research that has examined protective and resilience factors that help highly skilled African migrants mitigate the aforementioned challenges in Australia. This paper discusses how individual and community resilience factors supported successful resettlement Africans in Australia. The paper is contextualised within a larger study which sought to investigate how belonging and identity inform Afrodiasporic experiences of Africans in Australia. Methods: A qualitative inquiry was conducted with twenty-seven (n = 27) skilled African migrants based in South Australia, using face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Participants were not directly questioned about ‘resilience,’ but were encouraged to reflect critically on how they navigated the transition to living in Australia, and to identify factors that facilitated a successful resettlement. Results: The study findings revealed a mixture of settlement experiences for participants. Resettlement challenges were observed as barriers to fully meeting expectations of emigration. However, there were significant protective factors reported that supported resilience, including participants’ capacities for excellence and willingness to work hard; the social capital vested in community and family support networks; and African religious and cultural values and traditions. Many participants emphasised their pride in their contributions to Australian society as well as their desire to contribute to changing narratives of what it means to be African in Australia. Conclusions: The findings demonstrate that despite challenges, skilled African migrants’ resilience, ambition and determination were significant enablers to a healthy resettlement in Australia, contributing effectively to social, economic and cultural expectations, and subsequently meeting most of their own migration intentions. These findings suggest that resilience factors identified in the study are key elements of integration.


Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 99
Author(s):  
Nicola Bermingham

Changes to the global infrastructure have contributed to the growing (linguistic) diversity of large metropolises. However, there have been calls from scholars to explore “emerging superdiversity” (DePalma and Pérez-Caramés 2018) in peripheral regions in order to fully understand the complexities and nuances of the sociolinguistics of globalisation (Wang et al. 2014; Pietikäinen et al. 2016). This article, therefore, explores language ideologies among a purposive sample of five young adults of Cape Verdean origin living in the peripheral region of Galicia, Spain, and draws on interview data to examine the ways in which multilingual migrants engage with the language varieties in their linguistic repertoire. In studying immigration from a former African colony to a bilingual European context, we can see how language ideologies from the migrant community are reflected in local ones. The sociolinguistic dynamics of Cape Verde and Galicia share many similarities: both contexts are officially bilingual (Galician and Spanish in Galicia, Kriolu and Portuguese in Cape Verde), and questions regarding the hierarchisation of languages remain pertinent in both cases. The ideologies about the value and prestige of (minority) languages that Cape Verdean migrants arrive with are thus accommodated by local linguistic ideologies in Galicia, a region which has a history of linguistic minoritisation. This has important implications for the ways in which language, as a symbolic resource, is mobilised by migrants in contexts of transnational migration. The findings of this study show how migrants are key actors in (re)shaping the linguistic dynamics of their host society and how, through their practices and discourses, they challenge long-standing assumptions about language, identity and linguistic legitimacy, and call into question ethno-linguistic boundaries.


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