MOBILITY AND MIGRATION CHOICES
The crossing of national state borders is one of the most-discussed issues of contemporary times and it poses many challenges for individual and collective identities. This concerns both short-distance mobility as well as long-distance migration. Choosing to move or not across international borders is a complex decision, involving both cognitive and emotional processes. This book tests the approach that three crucial thresholds need to be crossed before mobility occurs; the individuals mindset about migrating, the choice of destination and perception of crossing borders to that location and the specific routes and spatial trajectories available to get there. Thus both borders and trajectories can act as thresholds to spatial moves.
The threshold approach, with its focus on processes affecting whether, when and where to move, aims to understand the decision-making process in all its dimensions, in the hope that this will lead to a better understanding of the ways migrants conceive, perceive and undertake their transnational journeys. This book examines the three constitutive parts discerned in the cross-border mobility decision-making process: people, borders and trajectories and their interrelationships. Illustrated by a global range of case studies, it demonstrates that the relation between the three is not fixed but flexible and that decision-making contains aspects of belonging, instability, security and volatility affecting their mobility or immobility.
Martin van der Velde is Associate Professor at Radboud University, Nijmegen. He is co-founder of the Nijmegen Centre for Border Research and was co-editor of the Journal of Borderland Studies. In 2014 he was president of the Association for Borderlands Scholars.
Ton van Naerssen is retired Associate Professor of Development Geography at Radboud University, Nijmegen and currently works as a freelance researcher and consultant on migration and development issues.
Border Regions Series
Series Editor: Doris Wastl-Walter, University of Bern, Switzerland
In recent years, borders have taken on an immense significance. Throughout the world they have shifted, been constructed and dismantled, and become physical barriers between socio-political ideologies. They may separate societies with very different cultures, histories, national identities or economic power, or divide people of the same ethnic or cultural identity.
As manifestations of some of the worlds key political, economic, societal and cultural issues, borders and border regions have received much academic attention over the past decade. This valuable series publishes high quality research monographs and edited comparative volumes that deal with all aspects of border regions, both empirically and theoretically. It will appeal to scholars interested in border regions and geopolitical issues across the whole range of social sciences.
Mobility and Migration Choices
Thresholds to Crossing Borders
Edited by
MARTIN VAN DER VELDE
TON VAN NAERSSEN
First published 2015 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright The editors and contributors 2015
Martin van der Velde and Ton van Naerssen have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mobility and migration choices : thresholds to crossing borders / by Martin van der Velde and Ton van Naerssen.
pages cm. -- (Border regions series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4094-5803-6 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-3155-9574-0 (ebook) --
ISBN 978-1-3170-9510-1 (epub)
1. Emigration and immigration--Social aspects--Case studies. 2. Emigration and immigration--Psychological aspects--Case studies. 3. Immigrants--Psychology--Case studies. 4. Ethnopsychology--Case studies. 5. Identity (Psychology)--Social aspects--Case studies. 6. Assimilation (Sociology)--Case studies. I. Velde, M. van der (Martin) editor of compilation. II. Naerssen, A. L. van, editor of compilation.
JV6225.M637 2015
304.8--dc23
2015004240
ISBN: 9781409458036 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781315595740 (ebk-PDF)
ISBN: 9781317095101 (ebk-ePUB)
Contents
Ton van Naerssen and Martin van der Velde
Bianca B. Szytniewski
Lothar Smith
Zaheera Jinnah
Maggi W.H. Leung
Ton van Naerssen and Maruja M.B. Asis
Alexander Izotov and Tiina Soininen
Pol Fbrega and Helena Lim
Victor Konrad
Doaa Elnakhala
Ninna Nyberg Srensen
Fabio Baggio
Marie Sandberg and Roos Pijpers
Gery Nijenhuis
Graeme Hugo and Caven Jonathan Napitupulu
Joris Schapendonk
Xavier Ferrer-Gallardo and Keina R. Espieira
Martin van der Velde and Ton van Naerssen
Henk van Houtum
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
Tables
Notes on Contributors
Maruja M.B. Asis is director of research and publications at the Scalabrini Migration Center, Quezon City, the Philippines. She is a sociologist who has been working on migration and social change in Asia for many years. She is currently involved in several research projects dealing with migration and development, among others on youth, employment and migration in the Philippines, and capacity-building of migrant associations and Philippine government institutions as development partners. She is co-editor of the Asian and Pacific Migration Journal.
Fabio Baggio is missionary of the Scalabrinian Congregation. From 1998 to 2002, he worked as researcher in the Center for Latin American Migration Studies (CEMLA), in Buenos Aires. He was director of the Scalabrini Migration Center (SMC) in Manila and co-editor of the Asian Pacific Migration Journal and Asian Migration News from 2002 to 2010. At present, he is ordinary professor at the Pontificia Universitas Urbanian in Rome, invited professor at the Universidad de Valencia Spain, and director of the Scalabrini International Migration Institute in Rome.
Doaa Elnakhala
