78774 - SOCIOLOGY OF MIGRATIONS (LM)

Conoscenze e abilità da conseguire

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.

Contenuti

ASIAN IM/MOBILITIES:

MOBILITY, MIGRATION AND SOCIETY IN ASIA

The course deals with mobility, immobility, and migration involving Asian countries -with the main focus on East and Southeast Asia - and the relevant socio-cultural changes.

One central issue discussed will be how mobilities and migration affect differently the different social strata, with 1) the capital rich free to leave and return as they please, 2) transnational elites attracted back by governments interested in their technical expertise, and 3) transnational migrant workers coerced to return to their place of origin.

In the framework of a growing entanglement of care and control in Asian mobilities and migration, the course will analyze; 1) the increased use of social robotics to address the widespread sentiments towards the arrival of aliens in the national territory; 2) birth tourism as a way to escape limits imposed by citizenship, 3) the heightened surveillance of marriage migration and sex migration as they are sources of public anxiety, perceived as they are as inseparable from sexual morality, national identity, and border security, and 4) other related issues.

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.

Testi/Bibliografia

1. VISUAL SOCIOLOGY

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

2. RACIALIZATION AND INTERSECTIONALITY

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

3. HIGHLY SKILLED AND VERY RICH

√ 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.

√ Sarah Kunz (2019) ‘Expatriate, migrant? The social life of migration categories and the polyvalent mobility of race’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, pp. 1-19.

√ Gracia Liu Farrer, (2016) ‘Migration as Class-based Consumption: the Emigration of the Rich in Contemporary China’, The China Quarterly, pp. 1-20.

√ 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,

√ Stephen Cho Suh (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.

√ Sean H. Wang (2016) ‘Fetal Citizens? Birthright citizenship, reproductive futurism, and the ‘panic’ over Chinese birth tourism in southern California’ Environment and Planning D.

√ Mengwei Tu 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.

4. LOW-SKILLED TRANSNATIONAL MIGRANT WORKERS

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

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

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

√ 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.

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

√ 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.

4. 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.

√ Rachel Silvey & Rhacel Parreñas (2019) ‘Precarity chains: cycles of domestic

worker migration from Southeast Asia to the Middle East’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

√ 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.

√ Nicole Constable (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.

√ Kellynn Wee, 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.

√ 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.

√ Maria Cecilia Hwang 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.

√ Saskia Sassen ‘Land Grabs Today: Feeding the Disassembling of National Territory’, Globalizations 10:1, 25-46.

Further reading

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

√ Bittiandra Chand Somaiah, Brenda S. A. Yeoh, and Silvia Mila Arlin (2019) ‘Staying among left-behind young women in Indonesia’s migrant-sending villages’ in Routledge Handbook of Asian Migrations, (edited by Gracia Liu-Farrer and Brenda S. A. Yeoh), Routledge, pp. 51-63.

√ 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.

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

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.

√ Sean H. Wang (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.

√ Jamie Coates, ‘The cultural and economic logics of migration’ in Routledge Handbook of Asian Migrations (edited by Gracia Liu-Farrer and Brenda S. A. Yeoh), 162-172.

√ Peng, Ito. 2016. «Transnational Migration of Domestic and Care Workers in Asia Pacific». International Labour Office; Global Action Programme on Migrant Domestic Workers and Their Families.

Metodi didattici

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

Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

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 readings list;
2. write a final paper (3000- 3500 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 issues 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

Strumenti a supporto della didattica

Readings are complemented with videos and images. Guest lecturers may be invited.

Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Antonella Ceccagno