Identity and exclusion - Migration and diaspora

Question 1

Does it matter what race/gender one is?

Answer 1

• determines whether they are accepted into/excluded from society.
  e.g., different immigration policies and responses to asylum seekers.

Question 2

History of migration:

Answer 2

migration crisis and boat crossings has made migration appear to be fairly recent.
- However the term pre-dates highly globalised society.
e.g., Pilgrims fleeing to N. America away from religious persecution and Irish migrants fleeing potato famine.
- changes in current trends - e.g., more female.
*2005 - UN reported nearly half of all migrants were female.

Question 3

Recent trends of migration:

Answer 3

• 2021 Afghanistan - 244,000 displaced rising power of the Taliban.
• 2014 - 1/6 of Syria’s population were refugees.
• applications for asylum doubled from 2014-2016. Main countries included Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
• 2016 - 65 million were displaced globally.
• 21.3 million refugees at the end of 2015.

Question 4

Difference between migrant and refugee?

Answer 4

• refugees are people fleeing armed conflict or persecution where their situations are often perilous and intolerable.
• dangerous for refugees to return to home country - need to find sanctuary elsewhere.
• migrants choose to move to further/better their employment/find work. Not due to direct threats - voluntary move.

Question 5

Diaspora:

Answer 5

• ‘scattered population’
• prominent historical links to international Jewish population.
• Armenia diaspora was oldest and largest globally until 2019.
  Indian diaspora - 17.5 million (UN 2019).
• refers to the idea of a community existing outside of a homeland country.
• idea has grown significantly since end of WW2 - due to independence of previously colonised countries. Political upheaval led to the expulsion and emigration of many groups.
• desire to return to their homeland - can be both physical or romantic notion.
• growing sense diasporic populations are integral to how a country operates - e.g., Greece and Ukraine.

Question 6

Spatio-temporal processes of migration:

Answer 6

• continual reshaping of place as people move between various origins and destinations.
• significant increase in means and quantities of migration over past 200 years.
• core area of geographical interest - fundamental links with development, poverty, human rights, social justices, conflict, national security, etc.
• Massey et al 1993 - migration as a consequence of the expansion of markets within the global political hierarchy.

Question 7

Geographies of P, I & C through migration:

Answer 7

• diaspora and migration flows create specific transnational connections (Cloke 2014).
• he argues concept helps us to conceptualise migration flows - due to transnational connections created and gives rise to specific geographies of P, I & C.
• help us to think about particular linkages and intersections between global and local.
• links to geographical work on mobilities and access to rights, citizenship, and emigration.
• before Brexit, UK passport was most valuable due to access to EU and Commonwealth countries.
• increased mobility leads to increased migration.

Question 8

Geographies of P, I & C through migration (Massey):

Answer 8

• migration can also be a process which is inherent to globalisation - places are becoming increasingly interconnected through transport links, new trade networks, new political agreements - e.g., the Schengen Agreement.
• Massey - talks about how this facilitates our ability to move and the extent of our mobility.
• however, she also highlights when these processes occur there are places that fall through the gaps.

Question 9

Geographies of P, I & C through migration (Blunt 2007):

Answer 9

• migration, diaspora, transnational citizenship are kinds of processes and conservations from an implicit critique of the notion that countries and nations are static entities.
• e,g., how do we measure a country’s border? What are the limits to a border? Does having a significant diaspora in another country complicate the idea of borders and barriers.

Question 10

Geographies of P, I & C through migration (Cloke 2014):

Answer 10

• ‘Transnational spaces’
• spaces and places that almost exist beyond neatly definable national boundaries.

Question 11

Socio-material geographies of migration:

Answer 11

• food and culture particularly tied together.
• issues of identity shaping migration - ‘the embodied politics of identity and difference that span gender, ‘race’, and ethnicity, class, sexuality, nationality, age and religion’
• Johnstone and Longhurst (2011) - explore the ‘Affective geographies of belonging and/or not belonging’ via practices of cooking, eating food and sharing stories with a group of migrant women.
• Exeter - international food stores on Sidwell street with more diverse populations.

Question 12

Studying migration and refugees:

Answer 12

• increased focus on giving voices to migrants - through ethnography, oral history, etc.
• Tolia Kelly (2004) - visual methods to explore experiences of migration - exploitation of imagery.
• mapping and technological methods - e,g., GIS becoming more common - map patterns of migration.

Question 13

Examples of migration stories:

Answer 13

• Ka Fue Lay
• Mihir
• I am a refugee: study’s purpose is sharing positive accounts of how migration can improve lives, but also for host countries.

Question 14

Migrant story - Ka Fue Lay:

Answer 14

• Originally from China but parents immigrated to Vietnam.
• Vietnamese refer to him as Chinese, the Chinese refer to him as Vietnamese.
• positive story - experienced feelings of warmth in the UK.
• quickly accepted in the UK - experiences were hospitable.

Question 15

Migrant story - Mihir:

Answer 15

• faced a lot of racism and physically threatened when moved to the UK.
• 1970s - people found his name hard to pronounce - referred to him as Richard instead.
• exclusion and prejudice - elements of identity were stripped away and he was subject to harassment and fear.
• cut off from old life.
• story highlights difficulties with the idea of transnational identities.
• dual nationality cannot be held in certain countries - to be British, he needed to relinquish his Indian nationality (political barriers).

Question 16

Migration in popular discourse:

Answer 16

• language used by newspapers is something that often gets flagged up in these studies - e.g., ‘surge’, ‘swarm’, ‘rob people of jobs’.
• creates a hostile environment, culture, reception - doesn’t provide full story.
• represents host country as neutral.

Question 17

Why isn’t host country neutral?

Answer 17

• UK and Western countries accept a very minor number of refugees.
• most are either internally displaced or move to neighbouring countries.
• we as a country (both historically and culturally) disproportionately create circumstances that cause refugees to leave their country.

Question 18

Ai Weiwei:

Answer 18

• artist living in exile from China.
• ‘I do not have a home country - my native country is the Internet’.
• drifting - documentary in migration at the Greek-Macedonian border.
• highlights complex identities of migrants.
• e.g. Lure of the Journey - produced for 21st Biennial of Sydney.

Question 19

Refugees in Exeter:

Answer 19

• Khaled Wakkaa - fled Syria ‘life was broken’.
• lived in Exeter since 2017.
• been key in establishing a refugee community in Exeter.
• involved in various charity projects such as Exeter Food Fight offering free food on Sundays to those who need it in St Thomas.
• his own experiences as a refugee have encouraged him to recognise others’ suffering and help where he can.
• differing accounts to publications such as the Daily Mail and the Sun.

Question 20

Diaspora and diplomacy:

Answer 20

• Ho and McConnell 2019.
• diasporas are not just receptive/passive things that are prominent and influential actors.
• some diasporas have populations large enough to rival small countries.

Question 21

diplomacy through diaspora:

Answer 21

• bridge between host and homeland countries.
• create economic links.
• products in home country but not host country gathering an audience.
• managed by homeland agencies - e.g., department for diasporic affairs.

Question 22

Diplomacy by diaspora:

Answer 22

• raises awareness of cultural heritage.
• disparate groups of people (through shared culture, history and heritage) can mobilise as influential political actors to serve their needs and establish further representation.
• govt-in-exile/govt-in-waiting.
• e.g., governments in exile - Tibetan govt which operates from a diaspora base in India conducting overseas missions and outreach programs to gain international support and lobby foreign ministers.
• political actors operate on both local scales, global scales (shaping international politics) and in transnational places.

Question 23

Diasporic identity:

Answer 23

• Mavroudi 2020 - study of Greek diaspora in Australia.
• difficulties of maintaining a cohesive sense of identity within a host country.

Question 24

What this means for geography?

Answer 24

• migration creates transnational linkages which need to be understood and studied.
• intersectional - linked to class, race, gender, etc.
• media and representation can be problematic - imaginative geographies.

Question 25

Conclusion:

Answer 25

• migration and movement of refugees has long been significant but has grown since WW2 as a result of changing colonial status of countries.
• migrants and refugees are different - different motives and needs, not always recognised in public discourses.
• human geography is adapting methodological to understand this - e.g. visceral geography.
• migration offers insight onto geographical processes like space time compression and production of transnational linkages.