Updates on the IMISCOE Book Series

Migration, Transnational Flows, and the Contested Meanings of Race in Asia

Editors: Shanshan Lan, Miloš Debnár

This open access edited volume addresses the multi-layered relations between migration, transnational flows, and the contested meanings of race in Asia. It tries to answer the following questions: how do migration and transnational flows from the Western world impact racial knowledge formation in Asian societies? To what extent do they challenge, perpetuate, and reshape unequal power relations based on the intersection of race, gender, class, nationality, citizenship, and migration status in Asia? How are dominant Western racial categories such as race, whiteness, and blackness redefined and reconstructed in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, when transnational mobility became both heavily restricted and stigmatized ? The book is divided into three parts: Race, Language and Migration status, Covid-19 and the Dynamics of Racialization, Gender and Interracial Encounters. This book positions itself in the nexus of race, migration and pandemic research and will make a significant contribution to critical race studies, whiteness studies, globalization, multiculturalism, and social transformation in Asia. This book is aimed at students and scholars in race and migration studies in Asia and beyond. This is an open access book.

Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Immigrant Health

Editors: Mikolaj Stanek, Sol P. Juárez, Miguel Requena

This open access book analyses the ever-complex relationship between immigration and health in contemporary societies using the Spanish society as a case study. It addresses some of the main dimensions of migrant health in Spain, including migrant-specific vulnerability factors, health changes associated with time spent at the migratory destination, and differentiated problems of certain subpopulations of migrants. The book also examines some of the factors associated with migrant health and explores the mechanisms that might explain this nexus, such as early childhood development, adult and older age health conditions, health practices and coping skills, health culture, social support, physical environment, and access to medical care and health services. While contributing to the effort to create a more comprehensive view of the health status and outcomes of immigrants in developed societies, the book will prove to be a valuable resource to academics, health professionals, various levels of stakeholders and decision-makers, representatives of civil society, and NGOs.

Refugee Protection Crises and Transit Europe: Immediate Responses, Selective Memory, and the Self-Serving Politics of Diversity

Author: Julija Sardelić

This open-access book presents a socio-legal analysis of immediate responses to large-scale refugee displacement in Europe after the 1951 Refugee Convention came into force, focusing on the countries to which refugees initially fled or through which they passed (namely Austria and, initially, Yugoslavia, followed by several of the former Yugoslav countries). First, it investigates the immediate responses to refugee movements following the suppression of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution by Soviet troops. Second, it examines the responses to individuals seeking asylum after being displaced during the post-Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Third, it analyses the responses of the same countries to refugees fleeing Global South countries (predominantly Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan) in 2015 and 2016. Finally, it explores how these countries responded to the mass displacement of refugees from Ukraine. The book argues that these countries have positioned themselves as “transit” or temporary protection countries in order to avoid assuming long-term responsibility for a larger number of refugees. As a consequence, they granted various forms of temporary legal status to refugees that differed from the refugee status defined in the 1951 Refugee Convention. These legal statuses were hierarchical (in terms of the rights attached to them) and racialized, with the fewest rights granted to refugees from the Global South and other negatively racialized groups. The book traces the usage of self-serving politics of diversity and selective memory to legitimise why refugees could not be protected long-term in these countries, and also why there were such differences in treatment of refugees.

Merchants of Migrant Domestic Labour: Recruitment Agencies and Neoliberal Migration Governance in Southeast Asia 

Author: Liberty L. Chee

This open access book discusses the market logic of recruitment agencies who deploy migrant domestic workers in Southeast Asia. Agencies are involved in all stages of worker migration trajectory – from their selection, to their training, and their management at the destination. The book describes how and why these private actors play such an outsized role in this kind of worker mobility, and examines their relations with employers, workers and state apparatuses. It focuses on agents operating in the largest migrant sending countries (the Philippines and Indonesia) and receiving countries (Malaysia and Singapore) in Southeast Asia. These pioneering migration industries in the region have established practices and norms that have and continue to diffuse to other world regions. This book is of interest to policymakers, practitioners, students and researchers in migration studies, global governance, gender and migration, globalization and development, Southeast Asian studies, and area studies in political science.

Migration and European Cities: A Multidimensional Perspective

Author: Nick Dines

This open access book offers a unique and timely investigation of the multifaceted relationship between migration and European cities. Its chapters critically examine the historical, economic, socio-spatial, cultural and policy–political dimensions of the migration–city nexus, bringing together different thematic and disciplinary perspectives that are usually considered separately. The book engages with the growing theoretical and empirical interest in the urban scale within migration studies, while also drawing on the rich and longstanding body of research on migration and cities across other disciplines. It draws attention to the significant variations both between and within European cities, taking stock not only of the extensive scholarship on north-western Europe – the theoretical heartland of European migration and urban studies – but also of the important contributions made by scholars working in the southern and eastern peripheries of the continent. In doing so, the book develops a nuanced understanding of the interconnections between migration and cities, while offering readers a guide to navigating the diverse literature that addresses these themes. Written in an accessible style, it is a valuable resource for students, researchers, academics, policymakers, practitioners, and readers who are new to this key area of migration studies.

City Makers and the Politics of Urban Diversity Governance:Comparative Approaches from Europe and Asia

Editors: Jeremie Molho, Marie Gibert-Flutre, Kong Chong Ho

This open access book examines the rising challenges of managing diversity in European and Asian cities. It spotlights the roles of varied city makers - from urban leaders to migrant communities and civil society activists - in negotiating and transforming their city’s diversity governance. The book brings together the contributions of urban studies and migration studies scholars, which offer rich empirical analyses on various European and Asian cities, such as Paris, Singapore, Barcelona, and Guangzhou. Adopting a comparative lens, the book presents a decentered understanding of 'super-diverse' cities, examining shifts in urban policy-making within different geographical contexts, with distinct patterns of migration and diversification. By advancing urban comparison as a research tool, it contributes to the contemporary discussions on the local turn of migration and diversity policies.

Reflexivities and Knowledge Production in Migration Studies: Pitfalls and Alternatives

Editors: Janine Dahinden, Andreas Pott

This open access book brings together cutting-edge work on reflexive approaches within migration studies and emphasizes the boundedness and political character of knowledge production. Beyond presenting a state-of-the-art of the problematic aspects of knowledge production in migration studies, this volume is innovative insofar as the contributions all formulate alternatives. They should lead to transform knowledge production in relation to migration and therefore contribute to alter our ways to do research and tackle established power relations. By discussing a diverse range of topical subjects – among others, epistemology, power, ethnocentrism, racism, decoloniality, gender and methodology – this volume is a great resource to students, to junior and senior academics in migration studies and social sciences more general as well as to policy-makers in European countries.

A New Wave of Anti-Racism in Europe? Racialized Minorities at the Centre 

Editors: Ilke Adam, Jean Beaman, Mariska Jung

This open access book provides a way to understand the current manifestations of anti-racism in Europe, including changes that became particularly visible with the Black Lives Matter related protests beginning in May 2020. The so-called ‘new' anti-racism is often described as being led by racialized minorities themselves, foregrounding structural racism, and drawing connections between contemporary racism and the colonial past. But are these features truly new? And can we speak of a new 'wave' of anti-racism, and what does wave-thinking clarify or obscure? The chapters in this volume explore anti-racist struggles and practices across a range of European contexts, tracing both change and continuity over time. They illuminate how several features of antiracism, now considered distinctive -  including the leadership by racialized minorities, have deep roots, though they were pushed to the margins, unrecorded or silenced by the mainstream. Today, these voices are beginning to rise, echoing -sometimes modestly - in the centre.  By providing a solid empirical portrait of current and past anti-racist movements in different parts of Europe, this book is a vital resource for students and scholars of race, anti-racism and migration in Europe, as well as for activists and policy-makers navigating the evolving terrain of anti-racist thought and action.

Diasporas, Voting and Linguistic Justice: A Study of Second- and Third-Generation Italo-Australians

Author: Matteo Bonotti, Chiara De Lazzari,Narelle Miragliotta

This open access book analyses the relationship between language proficiency and political participation from abroad among Italians living in Australia, focusing specifically on second- and third-generation Italians. It evaluates how confident second- and third-generation Italians in Australia are in understanding and participating in Italian political debates from abroad. The book also assesses how effective Italy’s language policies are in providing Italians in Australia with the language skills necessary to understand and participate in those debates and be informed voters. Furthermore, it advances more general policy proposals to improve language proficiency and political participation among transnational communities abroad. By providing a solid empirical analysis based on mixed methods combining survey data and semi-structured in-depth interviews, informed by a rigorous theoretical framework, this book is a great resource for students and academics working on migration studies,transnational politics, and linguistic justice as well as for policymakers and other key stakeholders concerned with the promotion of homeland languages among citizens living abroad.

Researching Migration on Indigenous Lands: Challenges, Reflections, Pathways

Editors: Andonis Piperoglou, Francesco Ricatti

This open access edited collection provides an interdisciplinary assessment of research about migration on Indigenous lands. Via an assortment of critical reflections from settler colonial Australia, it identifies tensions between colonialism and Indigenous sovereignty as an increasingly salient topic of analysis within migration research. It poses challenges to migration research that takes place on Indigenous lands, reflects on the methodological and theoretical issues at play when studying migration in settler colonial Australia, and outlines potential pathways for ethical migration research agendas that genuinely engage with Indigenous knowledges and scholarship.  The book also compares and synthesizes where studies of settler colonialism and migration have intersected and contributing authors profile how migration, colonialism and Indigenous sovereignties intersect in multicultural Australia’s pasts and presents. At its core, the volume challenges migration studies, from Australian shores, to reimagine itself. In doing so, questions related to migration are altered and the basis of discussion around colonial legacies, multiculturalism, integration and diversity is recast. By providing nuanced theoretical, historical, and reflective case studies from a rage of disciplinary approaches, the volume will be a great resource to students, academics in migration and refugee studies, Indigenous scholars, activists, as well as policymakers in settler colonial societies.