78774 - Sociology of Migrations (LM)

Learning outcomes

The student acquires a general introduction to the study of contemporary international migrations. It will focus on the main issues in the sociology of migration, ad on the most important interpretative models of the migratory processes. Students will be introduced not only to the classical sociological conceptualizations derived from economics and demography, but also to the most recent theoretical and explanatory patterns.

Course contents

ASIAN IM/MOBILITIES IN AN ERA OF PANDEMIC

This year the course takes into account the recent pandemic and its upending effects on im/mobilities and ultimately on how global society is organized.

Im/mobilities are now at the forefront of research. In the pandemic era, mobilities are increasingly discussed as taking new forms – for instance, shock mobilities, or survival mobilities. Scholars look at mobilities from new and different angles, increasingly speaking of governance, redistribution, outsourcing, commodification, and securitization of mobilities. The Chinese state, for example, is being accused of ‘weaponizing’ its students’ mobility, planning to use their mobility as ‘bargaining chips”. It is thus clear that the meaning and implications of mobilities are changing with and after the pandemic.

While it is too early to capture the long-term trends, this course strives to unveil the emerging patterns of im/mobility triggered by the pandemic, and emerging conceptualizations, with a focus on Asia. Forms of im/mobility discussed in the literature before the pandemic will be analyzed in the light of the new historical conjuncture.

Besides, the course also offers an introduction to visual sociology as a tool that enables the students to elaborate sociological interpretations of the images and videos proposed by the instructor.

Guest lecturers may be invited

Link to further informationhttps://unibo.academia.edu/antonellaceccagno

Readings/Bibliography

1. CHANGING MOBILITIES AMID COVID-19

Xiang, Biao (2020) ‘The emerging business of mobility, Part 1 30 July. The coronavirus and mobility forum, https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/2020/the-emerging-business-of-mobility-part-i/

Xiang, Biao (2020) ‘The emerging business of mobility, Part 2, 30 July. The coronavirus and mobility forum, https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/2020/the-emerging-business-of-mobility-part-ii/

√ Zheng, Sarah (2020) ‘Wolf Warrior Diplomats, SCMP https://u.osu.edu/mclc/2020/03/24/wolf-warrior-diplomats/#more-32898

√ Gebauer, Matthias et al. (2020) ‘China is Happy to Fill the Leadership Vacuum Left by the US, 06.05.2020

√ Meinhof, Marius (2020) ‘Othering the Virus’, Discover Society, 21 March. https://discoversociety.org/2020/03/21/othering-the-virus/?fbclid=IwAR3Agit4gV5trZ1R41nLZNP_J8Ik4u3cB8SAA47ljUxoVizZ0Oz0sxKv-Lg

√ Feng, Jiayun, (2020) ‘Chinese cartoon depicts rule- breaking foreigners as trash to be sorted’, 6 April, Supchina https://supchina.com/2020/04/06/chinese-cartoon-depicts-rule-breaking-foreigners-as-trash-to-be-sorted/

√ Chun Han Wong et alii (2020) African Countries Complain of Racism in Chinese City’s Pandemic control’ WSJ, https://www.wsj.com/articles/african-countries-complain-of-racism-in-chinese-citys-pandemic-controls-11586808397

√ Ceccagno, Antonella and Alessandra Salvati 'The Chinese 'grid reaction' in Italy', The Coronavirus and Mobility Forumhttps://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/2020/the-chinese-grid-reaction-in-prato-italy/ [http://]

VIDEOS:

√ I am not a virus

√ COVID-19_ Africans 'evicted' from homes in China

√ Once upon a virus

2. RACIALIZATION AND INTERSECTIONALITY

√ Anita Kalunta-Crumpton (2019) ‘The inclusion of the term ‘color’ in any racial label is racist, is it not?’ Ethnicities, 1-21.

√ Hidefumi Nishiyama (2019) ‘Racializing surveillance through language: the role of selective translation in the promotion of public vigilance against migrants”, Ethnic and Racial Studies.

√ Helena Hof (2020): Intersections of race and skills in European migration to Asia: between white cultural capital and “passive whiteness”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2020.1822535

VIDEOS

√ The Qiaobi ad, + Coloreria italiana: What Women Want + Coloreria italiana Colored is Better

3. THE VERY RICH …

Gracia Liu Farrer, (2016) ‘Migration as Class-based Consumption: the Emigration of the Rich in Contemporary China’, The China Quarterly, 227, 499-518.

M. F. Amante & I. Rodrigues (2020): ‘Mobility regimes and the crisis: the changing face of Chinese migration due to the Portuguese golden visa policy,’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2020.1752640

He Huifeng, 2020, ‘Coronavirus: wealthy Chinese families say pandemic has eroded appetite for overseas schooling and investing’, South China Morning Post, https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3085758/coronavirus-wealthy-chinese-families-say-pandemic-has-eroded

VIDEOS

√ The costs of China’s millionaire migration

√ Coronavirus backlash …

4. …AND THE HIGHLY SKILLED

√ Liu Farrer, Gracia, Brenda S. Yeoh, Michiel Baas (2020) ‘Social construction of skill: an analytical approach toward the question of skill in cross-border labour mobilities’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

√ Ajay Bailey & Clara H. Mulder (2017) ‘Highly skilled migration between the Global North and South: gender, life courses and institutions’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 43:16.

√ Roohi, Sanam (2017) ‘Caste, kinship and the realization of ‘American dream’: high skilled Telugu migrants in the U.S.A.’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 43:16, 2756-2770.

√ Oishi, Nana (2020) ‘Skilled or unskilled? The reconfiguration of migration policies in Japan, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1-18.

5. WARS FOR SUPREMACY AND THEIR EFFECTS ON THE MOBILITY OF SCIENTISTS

√ Na Ren and Hong Liu (2018) ‘Domesticating transnational cultural capital the Chinese state and diasporic technopreneur returnees’ , Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, pp. 1-21.

√ Yingchan Zhang (2019) ‘Making the transnational move: deliberation, negotiation, and disjunctures among overseas Chinese returnees in China’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45:3, 455-471.

√ Yuan Yang and Nian Liu (2019) ‘China hushes up scheme to recruit overseas scientists’, Financial Times, 2 pp. https://www.ft.com/content/a06f414c-0e6e-11e9-a3aa-118c761d2745

√ Meng Jing (2019) ‘China mutes volume on thousand Talent Plan as US spy concerns rise’, South China Morning Post, 2 pp.

√ Ellen Barry and Gina Kolata,(2020) ‘China’s Lavish Funds Lured U.S. Scientists. What Did It Get in Return?’ New York Times, 4 pp https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/us/chinas-lavish-funds-lured-us-scientists-what-did-it-get-in-return.html

√ David Armstrong, Annie Waldman and Daniel Golden (2020) ‘The Trump Administration Drove Him Back to China, Where He Invented a Fast Coronavirus Test’, Propublica, 14 pp https://www.propublica.org/article/the-trump-administration-drove-him-back-to-china-where-he-invented-a-fast-coronavirus-test

VIDEO

√ Trump trade war targets Chinese scientists

6. STUDENT’S MOBILITIES IN A PANDEMIC ERA

√ Lau, Joyce (2020) ‘Post-Pandemic, Will China Use Its Students as Bargaining Chips?’, Times Higher Education, June 26.

√ Raghuram, Parvati and Sunjan Sondhi (2020) ‘Stuck in the middle of a pandemic: are international students migrants?, 11 May, https://www.open.edu/openlearn/society-politics-law/geography/stuck-the-middle-pandemic-are-international-students-migrants

√ Breiner Andrew (2020) “How Distance Learning Could Put Chinese Students at US Universities at Risk” August 21, 2020, by Library of Congress, https://blogs.loc.gov/kluge/2020/08/how-distance-learning-could-put-chinese-students-at-us-universities-at-risk/

√ Karl, Rebecca E. (2020) ‘The Future of China Studies in the U.S.: A ChinaFile Conversation”, August 27, ://www.chinafile.com/conversation/future-of-china-studies-us [https://www.chinafile.com/conversation/future-of-china-studies-us]

√ Xi, Chen and Yuqiao Ji, (2020) “More Chinese students want to study in UK than US: survey’, Global Times, 2 June, https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1193281.shtml

√ Ceccagno, Antonella e Amina Crisma (2020) “Durante e dopo il covid. Come la guerra di propaganda tra Usa e Cina sta cambiando le università nel mondo” Inchiesta online

VIDEO

√ China versus America. Why universities are on the front line

7. LOW-SKILLED TRANSNATIONAL MIGRANT WORKERS

√ Biao Xiang (2012) ‘Labor transplant: “Point-to-point” transnational labor migration in East Asia’ The South Atlantic Quarterly 111 (4): 721-739.

√ Yunchen Tian (2018) ‘Workers by any other name: comparing co-ethnics and ‘interns’ as labour migrants to Japan’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, pp. 1-20.

√ Yinni Peng (2018) ‘Bringing children to the cities: gendered migrant parenting and the family dynamics of rural-urban migrants in China’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

8. MARRIAGE MIGRATION/MIGRATION OF CARE AND SEX WORKERS

√ Joëlle Moret, Apostolos Andrikopoulos & Janine Dahinden (2019) ‘Contesting categories: cross-border marriages from the perspectives of the state, spouses and researchers’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

√ Elena Barabantseva, Antonia Chao, Biao Xiang (2015) Introduction to “Governing Marriage Migrations: Perspectives from Mainland China and Taiwan”, Cross Currents, 15, pp. 1-8.

√ Kristel A. F. Acedera & Brenda S. A. Yeoh (2019) ‘”Until death do us part”? Migrant wives, left-behind husbands, and the negotiation of intimacy in transnational marriages’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, pp. 1-18.

√ Bittiandra Chand Somaiah, Brenda S. A. Yeoh and Silvia Mila Arlini (2019) ‘“Cukup for me to be successful in this country”: ‘staying’ among left-behind young women in Indonesia’s migrant-sending villages’, Global networks.

√ Theodora Lam & Brenda S. A. Yeoh (2019) ‘Parental migration and disruptions in everyday life: reactions of left-behind children in Southeast Asia’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

√ Anna R. Guevarra (2018) ‘Mediations of Care: Brokering Labour in the Age of Robotics’, Pacific Affairs, 91/4, pp. 739-758.

√ Mark Johnson and Johan Lindquist (2019) ‘Care and Control in Asian Migrations’, Ethnos, pp. 1-13.

√ Nicolas Lainez (2018) ‘Social structure, relationships and reproduction in quasi-family networks: brokering circular migration of Vietnamese sex workers to Singapore’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, VOL. 45, N. 9, 1631–1649.

VIDEOS:

√ I married a beautiful Ukrainian woman and so can you

√ Domestic helpers in Singapore

√ Eng Key

9. CHINA IN AFRICA

√ Shinn, David H. (2019) ‘China’s Economic Impact on Africa’ in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, 1-19.

√ Carlos Oya (2019), Building and Industrial Workforce in Ethiopia’, SOAS, https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/31451/

√ Botchwey, Gabriel, Gordon Crawford, Nicholas Loubere, Lu Jixia (2018) ‘South‐South Irregular Migration: The Impacts of China's Informal Gold Rush in Ghana’ International Migration, 310-328.

√ Hausermann, Heidi, Janet Adomako, and Maya Robles (2020) ‘Fried eggs and all-women gangs: the geopolitics of Chinese gold mining in Ghana, bodily vulnerability, and resistance’, Human Geography.

VIDEOS

√ Storyville - When China met Africa

√ China's African Gold Rush | 101 East

10. AFRICANS IN CHINA

√ Lan Shanshan (2017), Mapping the New African Diaspora in China, Chapter 2: Chinese Internet Representation of African Migrants in Guangzhou’, pp 45-71

√ Lan Shanshan (2017), Mapping the New African Diaspora in China, ‘Conclusion: China as a Ley Site of Transnational Racial Knowledge Production’, pp. 185-200.

VIDEOS

√ Africans in China

√ The Guangzhou Dream Factory

Further reading

√ Hof, Helena (2020) ‘Intersections of race and skills in European migration

to Asia: between white cultural capital and “passive

whiteness”’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2020.1822535

√ Ferguson, T. (2013) 'Using Visual methods in Social Science Research' in Social Research Methods, Oxford University Press: Melbourne.

√ Harper, Douglas (2002) “Talking about pictures: a case for photo elicitation’, Visual Studies, 17 (1), 13-26.

√ Faist, Thomas (2016) ‘Cross-Border Migration and Social Inequalities’, Annu. Rev. Sociol., pp. 323-346.

√ Maneri, Marcello (2020) ‘Breaking the race taboo in a besieged Europe: how photographs of the ‘refugee crisis’ reproduce racialized hierarchy, Ethnic and Racial studies.

√ Ceccagno, Antonella and Devi Sacchetto (2019) ‘The mobility of workers living at work in Europe’ Current Sociology, pp. 1-17.

√ Jayadeva, Sazana (2029) ‘Keep calm and apply to Germany: how online communities mediate transnational student mobility from India to Germany’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 46:11, 2240-2257.AU,

√ Lan, Pei-Chia (2016) ‘Deferential Surrogates and Professional Others: Recruitment and Training of Migrant Care Workers in Taiwan and Japan’.

√ Wang, Sean H. (2018) ‘Intra-Asian infrastructures of Chinese birth tourism. Agencies’ operation in China and Taiwan’ in New Chinese migrations: Mobility, Home, and Inspirations (edited by Yuk Wah Chan and Sin Yee Koh), Routledge.

√ Baas, Michiel (2018) ‘Temporary labour migration’ in Routledge Handbook of Asian Migrations (edited by Gracia Liu-Farrer and Brenda S. A. Yeoh), 51-63.

√ Tu, Mengwei and Daniel Nehring (2019) ‘Remain, Return, or Re-migrate? The (Im)mobility Trajectory of Mainland Chinese Students after Completing Their Education in the UK’, International Migration, pp. 1-15.

√ Cho Suh, Stephen (2019) ‘Racing “return”: the diasporic return of U.S.-raised Korean Americans in racial and ethnic perspective’, Ethnic and Racial Studies,pp. 1-20.

√ Harald, Conrad and Hendrik Meyer-Ohle (2019) ‘Transnationalization of a Recruitment Regime: Skilled Migration to Japan’, International Migration, pp. 251-265.

√ Xiang, Biao and Johan Lindquist (2014) ‘Migration infrastructure’ International Migration Review.

√ Hwang, Maria Cecilia and Rhacel Salazar Parreñas (2018) ‘Intimate migrations: the case of marriage migrants and sex workers in Asia’, in Routledge Handbook of Asian Migrations (edited by Gracia Liu-Farrer and Brenda S. A. Yeoh), pp. 64-74.

√ Wee, Kellynn, Charmian Goh and Brenda S. A. Yeoh (2018): Chutes-and-ladders: the migration industry, conditionality, and the production of precarity among migrant domestic workers in Singapore, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

√ Constable, Nicole (2019) ‘Tales of two cities: legislating pregnancy and marriage among foreign domestic workers in Singapore and Hong Kong’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, pp. 1-19.

Teaching methods

Lectures and discussions in class, including watching and discussing films and videoclips. Students are strongly encouraged to present in class.

Assessment methods

Students attending classwork will

1. Make one or more presentations to the class and stimulate the classroom discussion on one or more papers included in the reading list;
2. write a final paper (3000 words) - agreed with the instructor - on one of the topics addressed in class. A topic not included in the readings list – and the relevant bibliography- can be agreed with the instructor. Student initiative in articulating themes, connecting different texts and visual materials, proposing videoclips or other visual products linked to the topic of the course will be positively evaluated.

Students not attending classwork will take an oral exam on the readings and the videos of the course. Questions will aim at testing the student ability to critically address the proposed topics and build an argument with an appropriate language.

For both students attending and not attending classes, the assessment will take into consideration:

1. Proper knowledge of the subjects
2. Ability to critically analyze and connect concepts, images, and themes
3. Competences in the use of appropriate terminology

Teaching tools

Readings are complemented with videos and images. Two guest lecturers have been invited, others may be invited.

Office hours

See the website of Antonella Ceccagno