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- Convenors:
-
Katie Wright
(University of East London)
Pia Jolliffe (University of Oxford)
Caroline Oliver (University of Oxford)
- Location:
- Oscar Wilde Room (Magdalen College)
- Start time:
- 13 September, 2016 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
This workshop examines the linkages between life transitions, migration and socio-political inequalities. The focus is on relationality, linked lives and intersectionality. It explores life transitions that may be experienced for example as children, in adolescence, in adulthood or by older people.
Long Abstract:
This workshop examines the linkages between life transitions, migration and socio-political inequalities. It contributes to the existing research on how gender ideologies and practices transform as people move across borders using three key concepts - thinking relationally, moving beyond individual outcomes to consider 'linked lives' and addressing intersectionality - since migrants cross multiple boundaries beyond the geographical including age, race and gender. Intersecting inequalities form part of the socio-political context that patterns migration processes and outcomes.
The focus is on life transitions as a broad category of study in relation to mobility. These may be experienced in families as children, in adolescence, in adulthood or by older people (e.g. becoming a parent, being widowed or ageing - processes shaped by culture and socio-political context). Life transitions may also be focused on other areas that go beyond the family or inter-generational relations, for example, in the domain of work, including linkages between production and reproduction.
The existing literature on gender and migration has examined how gender (i) influences migration such as the feminization of migration; (ii) how it shapes and patterns migration processes including how far migration decisions are affected by gendered norms in home country; (iii) the gendered nature of labour markets of receiving countries and (iv) their impact on gender roles, ideologies and divisions of labour; (v) whether ideas around motherhood/ fatherhood are maintained or transformed via migration. This panel seeks to extend this research by examining the intersection of life transitions, socio-political inequalities and mobility.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Pia Jolliffe (University of Oxford) Tatjana Fischer (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna)
Paper short abstract:
This paper compares young adults´ migration behaviour in rural parts of Upper Austria and northern Thailand. Our data highlights the relationship between demographic change and rural communities between rural communities and urban study or working places.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, we compare young adults´ migration behaviour in rural parts of Upper Austria and northern Thailand. By choosing to compare rural migration in these different parts of the world, the authors challenge conventional understandings of rural "development" as processes pertaining to poor regions in the global South. Instead, their comparison highlights that within a context of global restructuring, rural "development" occurs both in richer and poorer parts of the world. Thus based on qualitative and quantitative data sets, case studies in this paper highlight the relationship between demographic change and young men and women´s migratory behaviour between their rural communities and urban study or working places. Data analysis reveals the rationale underlying young adults´ migration out of and back to their rural communities, drawing particular attention to the perceived benefits and deficits associated with life in rural communities as well as rural peoples` ideas of how to improve rural communities so as to encourage younger generations to live and work there. Emerging migration patterns are flexible and shaped by political economic structures as well as subjective emotions. This comparative research builds upon and contributes to theoretical discussions in the fields of International Development, Migration Studies and Planning.
Kerilyn Schewel (Duke University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper presents the mobility history of one village in the central Ethiopia lowlands. I show how individual life trajectories and collective migration patterns relate to broader political, economic, and social change over time.
Paper long abstract:
This paper presents the mobility history of one village in the central Ethiopia lowlands. By weaving together the narratives told by local inhabitants about how rural livelihoods have changed over time, I explore the relationship between broader social transformations and changing migration patterns over the past 80 years. The first part is historical: I consider how and why livelihoods transitioned from pastoralism to agrarianism in the second half of the 20th century and the determinants of increased internal and international migration in more recent decades. The second part links this historical thread with contemporary mobility dynamics. I detail the main migration pathways presently before young people in the village and their motivating reasons: marriage, education, work, access to resources and changing aspirations. Grounded in survey data and in-depth interviews with men and women who currently live in or have left this one rural village, the interlinkages between various migration trajectories are explored, their gendered dynamics underlined, and their historical roots highlighted. In telling this mobility narrative, I aim to show how individual life trajectories and collective migration patterns relate to broader political, economic, and social change over time.
Katie Wright (University of East London)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the gendered processes through which human wellbeing is transferred inter-generationally using the case of Latin American migrant mothers and their daughters in the UK. It takes a life course perspective to examine the extent to which they can be used to achieve human wellbeing.
Paper long abstract:
This paper seeks to understand the gendered processes through which human wellbeing is transferred inter-generationally using the case of Latin American migrant mothers and their daughters in the UK. Specifically, it explores the intersection of material and psychosocial transfers over the life course (including in childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle age and later life). It suggests that mothers and daughters are subject to a range of gendered, material and psychosocial pressures and examines the extent to which they are able to use, negotiate or resist these transfers to achieve human wellbeing. Finally, it considers the policy implications of a greater focus on gendered and temporal complexities.