| Post: | Professorial Fellow in Geography |
| Other posts: | Professorial Fellow of Geography (Development Studies - CDE) |
| Professorial Fellow in Geograpy (Migration) | |
| Location: | Arts C C247 |
| Email: | R.Skeldon@sussex.ac.uk |
| Telephone numbers | |
| Internal: | 2277 or 7238 |
| UK: | (01273) 606755 ext. 2277 or (01273) 877238 |
| International: | +44 1273 606755 ext. 2277 or +44 1273 877238 |
Biography
Ronald Skeldon is a Professorial Fellow in the Department of Geography in the School of Global Studies. From 1 June 2009, he is seconded 40 per cent time to the Department for International Development (DfID) as a Senior Research Fellow. After taking a B.Sc. (Hons) in Geography at the University of Glasgow in 1967, he completed an M.A. and a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto, with a dissertation on Migration in a Peasant Society: the Example of Cuzco, Peru. He became a Research Fellow at the New Guinea Research Unit of the Australian National University, later the Papua New Guinea Institute for Applied Social and Economic Research, in Port Moresby, 1974-77. He then joined the United Nations, initially as a census adviser in Papua New Guinea, 1977-79, and later as a population expert based in Bangkok, 1979-82. In 1982, he joined the faculty of the University of Hong Kong, where he remained until 1996, leaving as a Professor of Geography. After four years as an independent consultant based in Bangkok working mainly for United Nations organizations, he joined the University of Sussex in October 2000.
He has continued to work as a consultant to international organizations, including the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Population Division, and to UK government departments such as the Home Office and the Department for International Development (DFID).
Research
His research is based around issues of population, migration and development, primarily in East and Southeast Asia although, in 2008, he returned to Peru to begin to re-examine changes that had occurred since his research in the early 1970s. His work has focused on migration and development, migration and poverty, the migrations of the Chinese peoples, particularly from Hong Kong, and on irregular movements of migrants in and through Southeast Asia. Other research has concentrated on population mobility and HIV/AIDS in Southeast Asia and on questions of child labour in Asia. At the University of Sussex, he has been part of the core team in the DFID-funded Development Research Centre (DRC) on Migration, Globalization and Poverty with the particular responsibility for the co-ordination of research on skilled migration. See:
Globalization, skilled migration and poverty alleviation: brain drains in context, at:
www.migrationdrc.org/publications/working_papers/WP-T15
with C. R. Parsons, T. L. Walmsley and L. A. Winters, Quantifying the bilateral movements of migrants, at: www.migrationdrc.org/publications/working_papers/WP-T13
In 2007, for DfID, he drafted the background paper on skilled migration for the Global Forum on Migration and Development in Brussels in July 2007. See: Highly skilled migration: balancing interests and responsibilities" at: www.gfmd-fmmd.org/en/document-library-en/43
He drafted the paper on migration policies and the millennium development goals for the Progressive Governance conference in London in 2008, at: www.policy-network.net
He is also collaborating with the Social Science Research Council, New York, on a programme of research studies on Migration and Development in South Korea. See: http://programs.ssrc.org/intmigration/fellowships/koreanprf/index.html
Teaching
At the University of Sussex, he is responsible for the core course Theories of Development and Underdevelopment in the M.A. streams Social Development, and Environment, Development and Policy in the Culture, Development and Environment (CDE) programme. He teaches about half of the final-year undergraduate course, Population and Development and is one of the co-conveners of the annual field trip to Vietnam.
Publications
(since 2000)
- Skilled migration: boon or bane? The role of policy intervention, Copenhagen, Danish Institute for International Studies, Working Paper 2009:23.
- With R. Black, Strengthening data and research tools on migration and development, International Migration, vol. 47 (5), 2009: 3-22.
- Of skilled migrations, brain drains and policy responses, International Migration, vol. 47(4), 2009: 3-29.
- The race to attract mobile talent, Current History, 108, No. 717, 2009: 154-159.
- Migration and development: contested consequences, in Doing Good or Doing Better: Development Policies in a Globalising World. eds. M. Kremer, P. van Lieshout and R. Went, Scientific Council for Government Policy, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009, pp. 321-339.
- International migration as a tool in development policy: a passing phase?" Population and Development Review, vol. 34(1), 2008: 1-18.
- Migration and the policy process, in Migration, Development and Environment, eds. R. Stojanov and J. Novosák, Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008, pp. 154-172.
- Immigration futures, Canadian Diversity, vol. 6(3), 2008, 12-17.
- International migration as a tool in development policy: a passing phase?, Population and Development Review, vol. 34(1), 2008: 1-18.
- Demographic and urban transitions in a global system and policy responses, in The New Global Frontier: Urbanization, Poverty and Environment, edited by G. Martine, G. McGranahan, M. Montgomery and R. Fernandez-Castilla, London, Earthscan, 2008, pp. 55-71.
- Pohybem k cíli, Respekt (Prague), No. 29, March 2008, supplement on Legální migrace - otevrená šance, p. 5 (in Czech).
- Migration and labour markets in Asia and Europe, Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, vol. 16, 2007: 425-441.
- Commentary: of skilled migrations and brain drains, Asian Population Studies, vol. 3(2), 2007: 95-98.
- Social and economic dimensions of migration, in Migration and Development. International Migration of Population: Russia and the Contemporary World, vol. 20, Moscow, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 2007, pp. 204-217 (English version) and 232-246 (Russian version).
- With C. R. Parsons, T. L. Walmsley and L. A. Winters, Quantifying international migration: a database of bilateral migrant stocks, in International Migration, Economic Development and Policy, eds. Ç. Özden and M. Schiff, Washington, The World Bank, 2007, pp. 17-58.
- The Chinese overseas: the end of exceptionalism?, in Beyond Chinatown: New Chinese Migration and the Global Expansion of China, ed., M. Thunø, Copenhagen, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2007, pp. 35-48.
- The case for future immigration, Around the Globe (Monash Institute for the Study of Global Movement), vol. 3(3), 2007: 18-25.
- Flujos y efectos internacionales en Asia, Vanguardia Dossier (Barcelona), no. 22, 2007: 47-52, Inmigrantes: el continente móvil, special issue. (in Spanish only)
- Moving: migration, mobility, in Companion Encyclopedia of Geography: From Local to Global, ed. I. Douglas, R. Huggett and C. Perkins, London, Routledge, 2006, pp. 941-952.
- Globalization (pp. 58-60) and The case of Hong Kong (pp. 67-70), in The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas, ed. L. Pan, Singapore, Editions Didier Millet, second edition, 2006, revised and updated.
- Migration, International, in The Elgar Companion to Development Studies, ed. D. A. Clark, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, 2006, pp. 370-374.
- Recent trends in migration in East and Southeast Asia, Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, vol. 15, 2006: 277-293.
- Interlinkages between internal and international migration in the Asian region, Population, Space and Place, vol. 12, 2006:15-30.
- with R.Black, M. Collyer and C. Waddington, Routes to illegal residence: a case study of immigration detainees in the United Kingdom, Geoforum, vol. 37, 2006: 552-564.
- Migration and migration policy in Asia: a synthesis of selected cases, in Migration and Development: Pro-Poor Choices, ed., T. Siddiqui, Dhaka, The University Press Ltd, 2005, pp. 15-37.
- Viewpoint: Migration and mobility: the critical population issues of our time, Asia-Pacific Population Journal, vol. 20, 2005: 5-9.
- Migration and thinking about migration: introductory remarks towards a historiography of population movement, in Studies in Population Geography, ed. Y. Ishikawa, Tokyo, 2005, pp. 29-54. (in Japanese)
- Migration, the Asian financial crisis and its aftermath, in International Migration in the New Millennium, ed., D. Joly, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2004, pp. 57-74.
- The global challenge of HIV/AIDS, in Targeting Development: Critical Perspectives on the Millennium Development Goals, eds. R.Black and H.White, London, Routledge, 2004, pp. 256-272.
- The Chinese diaspora or the migration of Chinese peoples? in The Chinese Diaspora: Space, Place, Mobility, and Identity, eds. L.J.C.Ma and C.Cartier, Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield, 2003, pp.51-66.
- Migration and poverty, Asia-Pacific Population Journal, vol. 17(4): 67-82, 2002. Spanish and Russian versions of this paper have also been published.
- Migrations, in The Encyclopedia of Global Change: Environmental Change and Human Society, ed. A.S.Goudie, New York, Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 92-95.
- Migrations: the environmental challenge of population movements, in Encyclopedia of Global Environmental Change, ed. T.Munn, Chichester, Wiley, 2002, volume 3, pp. 465-471.
- The dangers of diaspora: orientalism, the nation state and the search for a new geopolitical order, in International Migration into the 21st Century: Essays in Honour of Reginald Appleyard, ed. M.A.B.Siddique, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, 2001, pp. 109-125.
- Ageing of rural populations in South-East and East Asia, in The World Ageing Situation: Exploring a Society for All Ages, New York, United Nations, 2001, pp. 38-54.
- Myths and Realities of Chinese Irregular Migration, Geneva, International Organization for Migration, Research Series No. 1, 2000, 44 pp.
- East Asia, in World Migration Report 2000, Geneva, International Organization for Migration, 2000, pp. 59-76.
- Trends in international migration in the Asian and Pacific region, International Journal of Social Science, 165: 369-382, 2000.
- Trafficking: a perspective from Asia, International Migration, 38(3): 7-30, 2000.