Negotiating precarious labour relations: dynamics of vulnerability and reciprocity between Chinese employers and their migrant workers in Santiago,Chile

Precarious labour research has highlighted the multidimensional factors shaping migrants’ vulnerability to labour exploitation. This article takes a different approach by attending to the possible reciprocity in labour relations– despite unequal power dynamics– particularly when workplaces are small and involve daily interactions between migrant workers and migrant employers. Methodology is based on observations in Chinese-run retail shops and restaurants in Santiago, and interviews with Chinese employers and their Latin American migrant employees of diverse backgrounds. Proposing the concept of “precarious labour relations”, we examine the independent and shared uncertainties between migrant employers and workers who are differently marginalized through race/migrant status axes in Chile. Analyzing dynamics of hierarchy, (mis)trust, and reciprocity in how these actors negotiate precarity and security as workers and/or migrants, we complicate dichotomies of exploitation and resistance in migrant labour research, by foregrounding the multidimensional relationship between employers and workers when both are racialized migrants and minorities.     

Swimming in and out of Focus: Second Contact,Vietnamese Migrant Others and Australian Selves

Anthropologists and others have always used the Other to define themselves. Using Michael Taussig's idea of ‘second contact’, I argue that this is inappropriate and that the imagined borders between us and them in relationships between Vietnamese and other Australians are less than stable, continually losing their polarity and swimming in and out of focus. In light of the Vietnamese migrant case, I argue that similar ethnographic research projects cannot rely on stable boundaries between the host and the migrant community to organise explanations. Rather than simply registering ‘cultural contacts’, we have to engage the interplay between the strange and the familiar in specific contexts. Furthermore, my reading of Vietnamese migrant identity obliges us to listen to Vietnamese Australian voices as they attempt to respond to the fluctuating interstices of an intercultural borderland. This implies the mutual anthropological interrogation of both self and other.     

Transitions in Taste in Vietnam and the Diaspora

This paper argues that food and styles of eating have become the predominant markers of social change for the Vietnamese in both Vietnam and in the diaspora. In post‐socialist Vietnam the transition to a market economy has allowed for a huge growth in the number of restaurants and cafés, and in the north, a return to an earlier style of cooking. The intense interest and emphasis on food as embodied pleasure has meant that it has come to stand for the transition away from a heavily state‐controlled economy. The new configurations of family and friendship are being framed by newly available ways of ‘eating out’, which are both a means of social display and distinction as well as an indicator of the tensions between reform and festivity within an authoritarian nation‐state struggling to define itself in a globalising world. At the same time as food in Vietnam is undergoing rapid transformation so too has the Vietnamese diaspora generationally changed its eating patterns. Although there has been a focus in the literature on food in the diaspora that emphasises the nostalgic and recuperative elements of ‘migrant food’, I argue that food is the prime mechanism of intercultural engagement for each diasporic generation. For older Vietnamese, Vietnamese restaurants and barbecues have been the sites of interplay between cultural ‘tradition’ and innovation, and between Australianness and Vietnameseness, and these interstitial places continue to be important for younger Vietnamese. Within this established framework of cross‐cultural interaction, for Vietnamese youth, the social settings of ‘ethnic food’, eaten at home and shared with family, have been grafted onto a sociality of eating fast food. This melding together of both invention and convention, of transgression and ordinariness provides the background against which young people from migrant backgrounds are reinvigorating the social spaces of food consumption and in the process both re‐enchanting and destabilising the notion of migrant food.     

The equilibrium population size of a partially migratory population and its response to environmental change

A partially migratory population consists of non‐migrant and migrant individuals that share a common site during one period of the annual cycle. In this paper, we derive the expected equilibrium population sizes of migrants and non‐migrants and show how the abundance of one type is dependent on the other because their dynamics are coupled through density‐dependent effects. We present an approach for developing hypotheses about how changes in the environment will influence partially migratory populations and for formulating testable predictions about the effects of future changes on the proportions of migrants and non‐migrants. We apply this approach to a hypothesis put forward by Berthold that improved environmental conditions at the shared site will generally increase the number of non‐migrants and decrease the number of migrants, and to a study by Nilsson et al. which observed an increase in the number of migrants in a partially migratory blue tit Cyanistes caeruleus population in Sweden, but an overall maintenance of the proportion of migrants.     

Life History Consequences of Bioenergetic and Biomechanical Constraints on Migration

In this paper I test the hypothesis that bioenergetic and biomechanicalconstraints to migration play a pivotal role in shaping thelife history characteristics of migrants. Firstly, I examinebioenergetic constraints on the ability to migrate by activetransport and how they shape the life histories of insects andfish, and, secondly, the consequences of biomechanical constraintsto the migration by passive transport in insects and spiders. In both insects and fish the mass-specific energetic costs ofactive transport (flight and swimming, respectively) decreasewith body size, and hence selection should favor large sizein migrant species. Because their habitats are ephemeral, migrantinsects must grow rapidly. In fish, migrant species are ableto exploit resources unavailable to more sedentary species andhence should also show an enhanced rate of growth. These predictionsare supported by comparisons within populations, between populations,and among species in both groups. In contrast to the above, biomechanical factors limit the uppersize at which insects and spiders can migrate by passive transport.Theory predicts that ballooning will be most likely in spidersconsiderably less than 6 mm in length. Therefore, species thatmigrate as adults are predicted to be smaller than those thatdo not. This prediction is supported by a comparison of migratoryand non-migratory spider species from the United Kingdom. Theaverage length of species that migrate as adults, and of migratingyoung of spiders too large to balloon as adults, is about 2mm. Further, within this geographic species assemblage, thesize distribution of adult spiders is markedly peaked in the2 mm region, suggesting that biomechanical constraints on ballooningmay have a major influence on the evolution of body size inspiders.     

‘It's not how it was’: the Chilean diaspora's changing landscape of belonging

Abstract

The increasingly diverse character of London's multicultural landscape has shaped how migrants interact with(in) the different spaces of the city. This process entails both settled and incoming migrants' participation in place-making; a mutual imbrication that might promote the long-settled migrants' evocation of a lost terrain. This article unpacks that process by looking at the Latin American social football scene of South London, specifically a space known as la cancha (the pitch). This was founded by Chilean political refugees during the 1970s and it has incorporated Latin American ‘economic’ migrants and ‘local’ Britons through time. Starting from the evocation of a lost ‘golden age’ of la cancha, the paper unpacks this space's contested, complex and changing nature. It presents diaspora space, community and belonging as lived processes. Through this depiction, the assumptions of homogeneous and isolated migrant communities are challenged, as are the diaspora's nostalgic claims that also emerge from them.     

Vietnamese migrant networks in Taiwan: the curse and boon of social capital

Drawing on ethnographic research on Vietnamese migrant workers in Taiwan, I seek to engage with and contribute to the scholarship on migrant networks and social capital. My research demonstrates that migrant networks are central to the social life of Vietnamese workers, offering not only a vital source of material and psychological support but also a platform where relationships are developed, sustained and contested. It reveals both productive and destructive potentials of social capital in situations where the migrant labourer becomes a disenfranchized underclass and their radius of trust is unsettled by physical displacement. Through this research I highlight the complexities and subjectivities in individual experiences of social capital and offer important insights into the various ways in which social networks are reinterpreted and reconfigured at the intersection of mobility, class and ethnicity within the context of Asia.     

Moving ethnography online: researching Brazilian migrants' online togetherness

Abstract

This article contributes to recent scholarship on the changing nature of fieldwork practices within migration research, focusing on the practice of online ethnography. It makes a case for the significance of the internet and, more specifically, social network sites, in the experience of many migrants. I state that online togetherness is an integral part of the lives of many migrants which also interrelates with ‘offline’ aspects of their social lives. Therefore, I argue that current research on migration would benefit from a more balanced combination of offline and online ethnography, taking into account how online connectivity affects the nature of migration and the conditions of being a migrant. Methodologically, I suggest that ethnography is well suited for generating understandings of the significance of the internet in the experience of migrants, but that a number of adjustments in methods of data collection and analysis must be made.     

“Grateful” subjects: class and capital at the border in Philippine–Canada migration

This paper considers how Philippine migrants prepare themselves and are prepared by others for emigration to Canada. In particular, it emphasizes how class-differentiated migrants are rendered socially homogenous as they are encouraged to be “grateful” transnational citizen subjects throughout their migration trajectories, commencing with initial decisions to migrate. Preparations for migration include individual decisions to increase marketability by acquiring particular kinds of skill sets matched to one of a variety of immigration streams. Despite such individual projects, the inequalities associated with gendered and racialized characteristics of Philippine migration trajectories and class dynamics are enduring for many migrants, though not all. Historical structural processes shaping the contours of global migration in the example of Philippine–Canada migration are compounded by the contradictory practices and outcomes associated with various preparations for migration. Current reforms to Canada’s immigration system to a “just-in-time” model promise to cause major disruptions to long-held migrant plans. Meanwhile, migrants are preconditioned to accept uncritically the multiple forms of subordination encouraged through the policies of multiple states and to accommodate themselves to new immigrant/citizen social identities which are devalued in a multiplicity of ways. This paper shows how, through the collusion of agents that migrants encounter in multiple sites, the disciplining of mobile citizens becomes more formalized and the contradictions between migrant ambition and neoliberal imperatives more visible.     

“Not helping out”: classed strategies of the (non) contribution of children in immigrant family businesses

This article analyses the role of immigrant entrepreneurs’ class positions in understanding the participation of children in business activities. Immigrant entrepreneurship scholarship has highlighted how the participation of children depends on relations of reciprocity as well as on the lack of opportunities in paid employment. I argue that the (non) contribution of children has to do with the social mobility strategies that migrant families put in place. Drawing on the narratives of fifty-five Latin American entrepreneurs and family members in Spain, I explain (i) the role of the small firm in trajectories of social mobility, (ii) how class positions explain the (non) participation of children, and (iii) the mechanisms by which downward mobility is cushioned through practices of distinction for middle-class entrepreneurs. The article contributes to nuance our understanding of the role of family ties in migrant firms by integrating the impact of class on the lives of migrants’ children.     

Researching ethnicity,identity, subjectivity: anything but the four-lettered word

This article gives a frank account of how anthropological research on Cape Verdean migrant experiences of parenthood in Portugal developed from avoiding the use of the analytical concept of ‘race’ to encountering ‘race’ as a category of practice in fieldwork and discusses the implications of this for analysing the data. Although the aim of the research was to look beyond categorizations, in order to explore the emotional dimensions of lived experience, the effects of ‘racial automatisms’ upon migrant subjectivities cannot be ignored. Racist effects are nonetheless distinguished from racist intentions. The ethnography elucidates the political potential of ‘race’ to foment critical reflection upon the relationship between an individual's personal and collective identities.     

The Flight Apparatus of Migratory and Sedentary Individuals of a Partially Migratory Songbird Species

Variations in the geometry of the external flight apparatus of birds are beneficial for different behaviors. Long-distance flight is less costly with more pointed wings and shorter tails; however these traits decrease maneuverability at low speeds. Selection has led to interspecific differences in these and other flight apparatuses in relation to migration distance. If these principles are general, how are the external flight apparatus within a partially migratory bird species shaped in which individuals either migrate or stay at their breeding grounds? We resolved this question by comparing the wing pointedness and tail length (relative to wing length) of migrant and resident European blackbirds (Turdus merula) breeding in the same population. We predicted that migrant blackbirds would have more pointed wings and shorter tails than residents. Contrary to our predictions, there were no differences between migrants and residents in either measure. Our results indicate that morphological differences between migrants and residents in this partially migratory population may be constrained.     

Consequences of the settlement of migrant European Robins Erithacus rubecula in wintering habitats occupied by conspecific residents

In wintering areas where migrant birds meet sedentary conspecifics, early settlement of local residents in the best habitat patches might reduce the availability of suitable sites for arriving migrants. We studied how sympatric migratory and sedentary European Robins Erithacus rubecula occupy two wintering habitats of different quality (forests and shrublands) in southern Spain, and how such a distribution affects individuals of each population sector. In September, before migrants arrived, Robins were only found in forests, and they had already saturated these habitats, so that rather than increasing Robin abundance in these habitats, the arrival of migrants caused a massive occupation of the previously vacant shrublands. During the winter, we captured Robins and identified them as migrants or residents using a discriminant function based on morphological traits. Residents always predominated in forests, and migrants in shrublands, but through the winter around 35% of residents (mainly juveniles) moved to shrublands, having been replaced by some migrants in forests. Although food was more abundant in shrublands, Robins had better body condition in forests, suggesting that other factors determined habitat preferences (e.g. shelter availability or food diversity, which were higher in forests). In addition, we observed a greater variance in body mass relative to body size in forests, suggesting that energy management was less constrained in this habitat (for example owing to a lower exposure to predators or a higher food predictability). Our results suggest that sedentary Robins benefit from an early occupation of the best habitats in the wintering grounds, forcing migrants to colonize apparently less suitable sites. This would explain the persistence of these small southern populations despite the yearly flooding of the area by huge numbers of migrant conspecifics.     

Engaging New Migrants in Infectious Disease Screening: A Qualitative Semi-Structured Interview Study of UK Migrant Community Health-Care Leads

Migration to Europe - and in particular the UK - has risen dramatically in the past decades, with implications for public health services. Migrants have increased vulnerability to infectious diseases (70% of TB cases and 60% HIV cases are in migrants) and face multiple barriers to healthcare. There is currently considerable debate as to the optimum approach to infectious disease screening in this often hard-to-reach group, and an urgent need for innovative approaches. Little research has focused on the specific experience of new migrants, nor sought their views on ways forward. We undertook a qualitative semi-structured interview study of migrant community health-care leads representing dominant new migrant groups in London, UK, to explore their views around barriers to screening, acceptability of screening, and innovative approaches to screening for four key diseases (HIV, TB, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C). Participants unanimously agreed that current screening models are not perceived to be widely accessible to new migrant communities. Dominant barriers that discourage uptake of screening include disease-related stigma present in their own communities and services being perceived as non-migrant friendly. New migrants are likely to be disproportionately affected by these barriers, with implications for health status. Screening is certainly acceptable to new migrants, however, services need to be developed to become more community-based, proactive, and to work more closely with community organisations; findings that mirror the views of migrants and health-care providers in Europe and internationally. Awareness raising about the benefits of screening within new migrant communities is critical. One innovative approach proposed by participants is a community-based package of health screening combining all key diseases into one general health check-up, to lessen the associated stigma. Further research is needed to develop evidence-based community-focused screening models - drawing on models of best practice from other countries receiving high numbers of migrants.     

Gifting as Governance: NGO Service Projects and Disciplinary Power in Rural Migrant Settlements in China

ABSTRACT

In contemporary China, migrant workers have gathered in urban villages and formed communities of their own. The regulative power of the state has not fully penetrated these enclaves, thus creating opportunities for NGOs to shoulder many of the ongoing welfare responsibilities. The primary goal of this study was to explore how NGO service projects can generate a new type of disciplinary power through give-and-take practices. I argue that service projects allow the givers to transform their economic power and social resources into political power, through which social inequality is obscured, legitimised, and translated into the delivery of ‘love’, ‘caring’ and ‘compassion’. Such political power also delivers middle-class values and lifestyles to rural migrants, who feel obligated to transform their subjectivities in order to reciprocate.     

Distinguishing between juvenile anadromous and resident brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) using morphology

Phenotypic variation linked to habitat use has been observed in fish, both between and within species. In many river systems, migratory and resident forms of salmonids coexist, including anadromous (migrant) and resident brook trout, Salvelinus fontinalis. In such populations, juvenile anadromous (migrant) brook trout, prior to migration, inhabit regions of higher current velocity than residents. Because it is more costly to occupy fast currents than slow currents, differences in morphology minimizing the effects of drag were expected between the two forms. As predicted, migrant brook trout were found to be more streamlined (narrower and shallower bodies) than resident brook trout, and these differences persisted into the marine life of the fish. Migrants also exhibited shorter pectoral fins, which facilitate pelagic swimming, indicating that migrants, prior to their migration to the sea, possess the appropriate morphology for swimming in open water habitats. The reported differences between migrants and residents were powerful enough to derive discriminant functions, using only five of the seven measured traits, allowing for accurate classification of brook trout as either migrants or residents with an overall correct classification rate of 87%. Importantly, this study contributes to the notion that a link exists between morphology, habitat use, metabolic costs and life-history strategies. Contribution to the program of CIRSA (Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherche sur le Saumon Atlantique).     

Bangladeshi migrant associations in Italy: transnational engagement,community formation and regional unity

Referring to the case studies of two cities in Northern Italy, this article seeks to understand how Bangladeshi migrants use associations to seek transnational “ways of belonging” and “ways of being”. It analyses how this transnational attachment to their home country has played an important role in building their own “community”. The findings reveal that Bangladeshi migrant organizations work to maintain “transnational ways of belonging” by enabling migrants to retain their cultural roots; this is reflected in their observation of festivals, national days, and other practices and rituals. Although, as a relatively new migrant community, they do not share as many economic links through these associations as many other “diasporic” organizations, migrants widely express a sense that these economic connections are with their country of origin. However, there is competition within the community based on regional origin, as well as have many ambivalences and contradictions.     

A family affair: how and why second-generation Filipino-Americans engage in transnational social and economic connections

In this article, I argue that second-generation migrants can engage in cross-border ties as a result of first-generation migrants mediating relationships between their children and those abroad. This paper draws on interviews with second-generation Filipino-Americans to demonstrate how and why respondents engage in mediated social and economic cross-border ties collectively with first-generation migrant parents. Second-generation Filipino-Americans feel an obligation, not necessarily to those in the Philippines, but to parents who request that their children engage in transnational social and economic ties. Just as parents serve as the means and reasoning for why these transnational connections persist among their children, parents play a role in why ties fail to manifest. By looking into why some engage in social and economic cross-border ties while others do not, I provide insight into how the children of migrants participate in the transnational social field.     

Obstetric violence as immigration injustice: A view from the United States and Colombia

In September 2020, Project South, along with numerous other organizations, released a report detailing abuses in a Georgia Detention Center – including forced hysterectomies. Whatever other factors are at play, one of them is an intrinsic connection between obstetric violence against pregnant migrants and immigration injustice. It is not incidental that these acts – in US detention centers, along the US-Mexico border, in Colombian hospitals and clinics – are being perpetrated on immigrant bodies. And it is not accidental or random which immigrant bodies are vulnerable to these violations. Understanding and confronting obstetric violence directed at pregnant migrants, though, requires reconceptualizing the nature of obstetric violence itself. In particular, we must recognize that obstetric violence against pregnant Latin American migrants in the United States and Colombia is a type of immigration injustice, a means to perpetrate immigration injustice, and a product of immigration injustice. As such, bioethicists need to collaborate with immigration scholars to resist it. After providing some background on the nature of obstetric violence and some ways it is perpetuated against pregnant migrants in the United States and Colombia, I will give a brief overview of how I conceptualize immigration justice. From there, I explain how this type of obstetric violence constitutes a type of immigration injustice, a means to perpetrate immigration injustice, and a product of immigration injustice. My hope is that this analysis motivates bioethicists throughout the Americas to engage with immigration scholars and activists to confront the issue more forcefully.     

Challengers in the migrant field: pro-migrant Irish NGO responses to the Immigration,Residence and Protection Bill

This article examines the dynamics through which the migrant field in Ireland is governed, and, through analysing NGO contention over the Immigration, Residence and Protection (IRP) Bill, explores the role they play in the field. The article argues that NGOs both influence and are institutionally channelled by state discourse surrounding migrants. The IRP Bill was designed to regulate non-EU citizens in Ireland, and codified the discretionary powers of the Irish state over migrants. While NGOs offered an influential critique of this process, in doing so they reproduced the dominant representation of migrants in Ireland as problems to be separated out and managed by elite experts. In explaining why this was so, I draw on Bourdieu's argument that those within a field of practice articulate their identities and goals through the dominant language of that field.