Session 5: Migration

1) Migration (Chapter 5: 5.1): What is migration?

2) Migration (Chapter 5: 5.2): Why do people migrate?

Fouberg, E. H., Murphy, A. B., De Blij, H. J. and C. J. Nash (2012). Human Geography: People, Place, and Culture. John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd., Mississauga.

February 6, 2015

Section 5.1 - What is Migration?

Migration: A change in residence intended to be permanent.

International migration: Human movement involving movement across international boundaries.

Migrants as a percent of total population

Nomadism: Movement among a definite set of place – often cyclic movement

Nomadic shelters (yurts) - Mongolia

Nomadic people can pose problems in terms of governments because they are not easily classified, controlled, and accounted for as easily.

Example mentioned in text: Roma people

• Several European countries have policies relating to Roma

• Often critiqued for being highly discriminatory

• Roma settlements are often destroyed and Roma people may be expelled

• Often do not have the same rights as citizens of nations

Emigration: The act of leaving one location or place for another, from the perspective of the beginning location.

Immigration: Human movement involving movements across international boundaries.

Example: Canada

CanadaOther country

Internal migration: Human movement within a nation-state, such as ongoing westward and southward movements in Canada.

In Canada, migration is characterized by rural to urban movement, but is also heavily influenced by economic factors relating to natural resources.

Example: major shift from the Maritimes following fisheries collapses and declines to provinces that were developing oil and gas (mostly Alberta).

Migrant labour: A common type of periodic movement involving tens of millions of workers worldwide who cross international borders in search of employment and become immigrants, in many instances.

• Occurs globally

• In some cases is very profitable and highly benefits the worker

• In other cases can be highly exploitative, and in some instances can result in forms of modern day slavery

• Example: Migrant workers in Dubai (many from Bangladesh, India and elsewhere) start off in debt and have their passports detained upon arrival

Guest worker: Legal immigrant who has a work visa, usually short term.

Remittance: Money migrants send back to family and friends in their home countries, often in cash, forming an important part of the economy in many poorer countries.

Global remittance

Remittance corridors from the US

Refugees: People who have fled their country because of political persecution and seek asylum in another country.

United Nations Definition

“The 1951 Refugee Convention spells out that a refugee is someone who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country”

Individual countries interpret “well founded fear”

Refugees make up some of the most vulnerable populations in the world

UNHCR – United Nations Refugee Agency

Internally displaced persons (IDPs): People who have been displaced within their own countries and do not cross international borders as they flee.

Asylum: Shelter and protection in one state for refugees from another state.

• States can offer asylum to people from other states

Repatriation: A refugee or group of refugees returning to their home country, usually with the assistance of government or a non-governmental organization.

Example from text: Rwandans returning home after the disputes between Hutus and Tutsis that resulted in genocide

Genocide: The deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.

Examples:

• Holocaust

• Rwandan Genocide

• Darfur: ethnic cleansing of non-Arabs

• Tasmanian Genocide

• Point of debate in Canada: Genocide inflicted by the Canadian government against First Nations

• others throughout history

Section 5.2 - Why do people migrate?

Voluntary migration: Movement in which people relocate in response to perceived opportunity, not because they are forced to move.

Forced migration: Human migration flows in which the movers have no choice but to relocate.

TED Ed Video: The Atlantic slave trade: What too few textbooks told you – Anthony Hazard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NXC4Q_4JVg

At least 60 of the ships used by the British to transport slaves were made in Canada

From 1628 to 1834, slavery was an institution in Canada.

Birchwood Nova Scotia was home to the largest population of free Blacks outside of Africa in the late 1700s.

Diaspora: From the Greek “to disperse”, a term describing forceful or voluntary dispersal of a people from their homeland to a new place. Originally denoting the dispersal of Jews, it is increasingly applied to other population dispersals, such as the involuntary relocation of Black peoples during the slave trade or Chinese peoples outside of Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

2.8 million Canadian diaspora worldwide

Top 8 places for Canadian diaspora

1. United States = 1,062,640 Canadian citizens

2. Hong Kong = 300,000

3. United Kingdom = 73,000

4. Lebanon = 45,000

5. Australia = 27, 289

6. Mainland China = 19,990

7. South Korea = 14,210

8. Germany = 13, 290

Voluntary Migration

Laws of migration: Developed by British demographer Ernst Ravenstein, five laws that predict the flow of migrants.

1. Every migration flow generates a return or counter-migration.

2. The majority of migrants move a short distance.

3. Migrants who move longer distances tend to choose big-city destinations.

4. Urban residents are less migratory than inhabitants of rural areas.

5. Families are less likely to make international moves than young adults.

Voluntary Migration

Gravity model: A mathematical prediction of the interaction of places, the interaction being a function of population size of the respective places and the distance between them.

Essentially, is the inverse relationship between the volume of migration and the distance between source and destination…

or put much more simply…

…the number of migrants to a destination declines as the distance they must travel increases.

Push and Pull Factors Influencing Migration

Push factor: Negative conditions and perceptions that induce people to leave their abode and migrate to a new locale.

Pull factor: Positive conditions and perceptions that effectively attract people to new locales from other area.

Question:

What are some of the push and pull factors for Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada?

Push and Pull Factors Influencing Migration

Step migration: Migration to a distant destination that occurs in stages; for example, from farm to nearby village, and later to town and city.

Intervening opportunity: The presence of a nearer opportunity that greatly diminishes the attractiveness of sites farther away.

Legal Status

Deportation: The act of a government sending a migrant out of its country and back to the migrant’s home country.

• usually because the migrant is “illegal” or “undocumented”• may also occur if the migrant breaks the law of the nation in

which they have settled

Example:

Refugees that come over as youth (typically with their families) and commit crimes (through gang involvement or otherwise) can be deported to their home countries even after living in Canada for years.

Economic Conditions

Poverty is a major factor in migration – as is the case with migrant workers

United Nations Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families

Nations signed to the convention:

https://treaties.un.org/pages/viewdetails.aspx?src=treaty&mtdsg_no=iv-13&chapter=4&lang=en

Power Relationships

Power Relationships

Factors: gender, ethnicity, race, money, class…

Example in text:

Middle Eastern women hiring Southeast Asian women as housekeepers and nannies

The cultural difference is used to set them apart and establish authority

Other examples of this:

Many nannies from Mexico in the USA; Many nannies in Canada from the Philippines

Political Circumstances

Example: Homosexual couples moving to places that are more tolerant and where same sex marriage is legal

Video – Al Jazeera news: Ugandan president signs anti-gay bill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcBhOJY1Cb8

Armed Conflict and Civil War

• Armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia drove 3 million people from their homes

• 3 million refugees have fled to neighboring countries, and 6.3 million are internally displaced

Environmental Conditions

• can be environmental disasters or conditions resulting in lost production of food crops

Culture and Traditions

• Populations will leave during transitions in they fear that their traditions will not be maintained

Kinship Links: Types of push factors or pull factors that influence a migrant’s decision to go where family or friends have already found success.

Chain migration: Pattern of migration that develops when migrants move along and through kinship links (i.e., one migrant settles in a place and then writes, calls, or communicates through others to describe this place to family and friends who in turn then migrate there).

Immigration wave: Phenomenon whereby different patterns of chain migration build upon one another to create a swell in migration from one origin to the same destination.