International Migration最新文献

Many countries of the Global North depend on the economic benefits of migration even as their citizens and leaders evince ever more open opposition to immigrants settling and becoming citizens. One result of this misalignment of interests and goals has been the proliferation of visa statuses that commit their bearers to not seeking permanent settlement or citizenship and offer them very few rights. Many scholars have debated whether and in which ways short-term migration may be normatively problematic, and in particular, exploitative. In this paper we add to existing critiques of temporary migration regimes as unjust and materially exploitative the claim that such schemes exploit not just the labor and other material contributions of short-term immigrants, but also the social capital they build by necessity when they are in residence.

This paper views migration management campaigns through the lens of involuntary immobility and containment development, which aim to geographically localise Gambian desires and imaginations, to the extent that they are being subjected to border controls that discriminate and dehumanise irregular migrants. Migration Information Campaigns (MICs) advocate a sedentary bias that positions Gambian migrants with the injustice of migration departheid, whereby Western states intentionally implement a racialized mobility regime. I present the results of ethnographic field work undertaken in The Gambia, West Africa during the period 2018 through 2022. Border externalisation measures in all their forms are having dire consequences for the youth of the Gambia. So-called development is cloaked in containment development initiatives, which are benefiting few and damaging to many. MICs have been documented to be ineffective, and the respondents in this study say the same. Expanding beyond their ineffectiveness, however, is the perpetuation of global mobility injustice, which hasn't clearly been articulated in the literature. Against the backdrop of Gambians pleading for more open visa acquisition, the EU is far more likely to spend their time and money working on campaigns to do just the opposite: keep Gambians at home. Gambian youth are making choices to take dangerous routes to Europe and other international destinations because visas are elusive and their economic prospects at home remain bleak. The discrepancy between MICs and the wishes of Gambian youth to migrate and the associated injustice they feel is presented. This work therefore contributes to the recent and growing literature on migration departheid and mobility justice.

This paper interrogates the structural inequalities underpinning global mobility by introducing the concept of mobility bias, the systemic privileging of Global North citizens and diplomatic infrastructures in transnational movement. Drawing on Doreen Massey's Power Geometry and informed by the works of Foucault, Mbembe and Cortina, the study positions mobility as a spatially governed hierarchy shaped by geopolitical power, economic status and institutional capacity. While migration studies have largely focused on individual migrant outcomes, this paper shifts attention to diplomatic disparities that reinforce immobility for Global South nations and their citizens. Through comparative desk-based analysis of passport indices, visa policies, foreign ministry budgets and regional frameworks, the paper examines four intersecting dimensions of inequality: passport stratification, consular burden, resource asymmetry and perception bias. These disparities are not merely bureaucratic but constitute enduring architectures of exclusion within the migration-development nexus. Findings reveal that Global South missions are structurally constrained, underfunded, reactive and burdened by managing the fallout of restrictive regimes, while Global North missions advance strategic interests through expansive mobility diplomacy. Regional fragmentation and weak multilateral leverage further limit Global South agency in shaping mobility governance. The paper concludes that mobility bias is not a peripheral issue but a reproductive mechanism of global inequality. It calls for a multi-scalar reform agenda, including visa policy restructuring, diplomatic capacity-building and regional harmonisation, to advance a more just, inclusive and developmentally transformative mobility regime.

This article examines the migration trajectories and return experiences of Turkish nationals who sought entry to Europe via regular and irregular channels but ultimately returned to Türkiye. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the study analyses how migrants' actions are shaped by the recursive interplay between structural forces—legal regimes, socio-economic inequalities and border governance—and individual agency. Grounded in Giddens' Structuration Theory, the analysis conceptualises migration and return as socially embedded practices mediated by institutional constraints and transnational imaginaries. Aspirational narratives of Europe, informed by digital media and social networks, initially guided mobility decisions but often collided with restrictive legal frameworks and socio-economic exclusion, prompting return as a reflexive recalibration. Rather than a linear or emotive process, return is framed as a negotiated response to structurally embedded conditions. The article advances debates on irregular migration and reintegration by calling for policy approaches that account for both structural determinants and the adaptive agency of returnees.