Anne-Meike Fechter, Katie Walsh (eds.), The New Expatriates: Postcolonial Approaches to Mobile Professionals(Routledge, June 2012)

While scholarship on migration has been thriving for decades, little attention has been paid to professionals from Europe and America who move temporarily to destinations beyond ‘the West’. Such migrants are marginalised and depoliticised by debates on immigration policy, and thus there is an urgent need to develop nuanced understanding of these more privileged movements. In many ways, these are the modern-day equivalents of colonial settlers and expatriates, yet the continuities in their migration practices have rarely been considered.

The New Expatriates advances our understanding of contemporary mobile professionals by engaging with postcolonial theories of race, culture and identity. The volume brings together authors and research from across a wide range of disciplines, seeking to evaluate the significance of the past in shaping contemporary expatriate mobilities and highlighting postcolonial continuities in relation to people, practices and imaginations. Acknowledging the resonances across a range of geographical sites in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, the chapters consider the particularity of postcolonial contexts, while enabling comparative perspectives. A focus on race and culture is often obscured by assumptions about class, occupation and skill, but this volume explicitly examines the way in which whiteness and imperial relationships continue to shape the migration experiences of Euro-American skilled migrants as they seek out new places to live and work.

This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

Tony Fielding,  Migration In Britain: Paradoxes of the Present, Prospects for the Future  (Edward Elgar Publishing, May 2012)

Those who need to migrate the most – perhaps due to low paid or insecure jobs – tend to actually migrate the least, while those who need to migrate the least – for example those who have secure, well-paid jobs – tend to actually migrate the most. This is one of the many paradoxes about internal migration in Britain that are explored in this topical and timely book by Tony Fielding.

Migration in Britain takes a fresh look at the patterns of migration at both the regional and local levels and develops new theoretical frameworks and novel methods to explain these patterns. It anticipates British society and its internal migration flows fifty years hence in the absence of climate change, and comes to judgments about how and in what ways these migration flows might be affected by climate change.

Developing new approaches to explain migration patterns, this book will appeal to academics, researchers, postgraduate and undergraduate students of population migration, as well as businesses concerned with housing and utilities. Anyone with a general interest in migration issues including the impacts of, and adaptation to, climate change, will find much to interest them in this insightful book.

Russell King and Julie Vullnetari, Remittances, Gender and Development: Albania's Society and Economy in Transition (I.B.Tauris, 2011).

Migration in the modern world, rather than being seen as a symptom or result of underdevelopment, is now understood more as a route towards development and a strategy for alleviating poverty. This study of Albania is particularly significant in this new debate on migration and development as, since the fall of communism, remittances have been a major supporter of the Albanian economy, sustaining many Albanian families, especially in rural areas. The authors thus focus on the socio-cultural context of remittances, and explore how gender emerges as a powerful facet in the processes of development. It will therefore be of interest to scholars and students in Migration Studies, Development Studies, Gender Studies, Geography and Anthropology, as well as offering vital analysis for policy-makers, donors and civil society activists engaged in development planning and migration management.

Linda Morrice Being a Refugee: Learning and Identity (Trentham Books, 2011).

Being a Refugee offers moving insights into the lives of refugees before and after they arrive in the UK. All those featured are professionals with high qualifications and, like all refugees, their personal stories are shaped by their unique biographical, cultural and social backgrounds. Yet each narrative is lived within the broad social template of what it means to be a refugee in contemporary Britain. And together they have significant implications for policy and practice.

Combining rich empirical data drawn from their life histories with theoretical insights into learning and identity processes, Linda morrice explores how and what the refugees learn, and the strategies they adopt in the process of building viable and respected identities for themselves in a new social and cultural space. Through life history and logitudinal study, she powerfully challenges the stereotyped images of refugees. On a theoretical, she questions and disrupts our understanding of learning and identity as continuous or constructive processes and argues instead for a conception of learning which acknowledges 'unlearning' and identity deconstruction.

The book provides an overview of policy in relation to asylum and immigration issues and reveals the often unintended and contradictory impact of policy on refugees’ lives. It is essential reading for policy makers, professionals and everyone concerned with refugee welfare, it is also invaluable for academic researchers with an interest in lifelong learning, higher education, life history, identity and migration studies.

Anne-Meike Fechter and Heather Hindman (eds) Inside the Everyday Lives of Development Workers: The Challenges and Futures of Aidland (Kumarian, 2011).

Much and warranted attention is paid to aid recipients, including their livelihoods, saving habits, or gender relations. It is held that a key to measuring the effectiveness of aid is contained in such details. Rarely, however, is the lens turned on the lives of aid workers themselves. Yet the seemingly impersonal network of agencies and donors that formulate and implement policy are composed of real people with complex motivations and experiences that might also provide important lessons about development’s failures and successes.  Anne-Meike Fechter and Heather Hindman break new ground by illuminating the social and cultural world of the aid agency, a world that is neglected in most discussions of aid policy. They examine how aid workers’ moral beliefs interlink and conflict with their initial motivations, how they relate to aid beneficiaries, their local NGO counterparts, and other aid workers, their views on race and sexuality, the effect of transient lifestyles and insider language, and the security and family issues that come with choosing such a career. Ultimately, they arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of development processes that acknowledges a rich web of relationships at all levels of the system.

Russell King, Richard Black, Michael Collyer, Anthony Fielding and Ronald Skeldon, The Atlas of Human Migration: Global Patterns of People on the Move  (Routledge, July 2010).

Migration has provided millions with an escape route from poverty or oppression, ensuring the survival, even prosperity, of individuals and their families. New currents of human migration, triggered by ethnic cleansing or climate change or economic need, are appearing all the time and immigration has become one of today's most contested issues.

This compelling new atlas maps contemporary migration against its crucial economic, social, cultural and demographic contexts. Drawing on data from one of the largest concentrations of migration research, the atlas traces the story of migration from its historical roots through the economic and conflict imperatives of the last 50 years to the causes and effects of flight today.  Issues covered include: Refugees and asylum seekers; Diasporas; Remittances; The 'brain drain'; Trafficking; Student, retirement and return migration.

Richard Black, Godfried Engbersen, Marek Oklski, Cristina Pantru (eds), A Continent Moving West? (Amsterdam University Press, 2010).

A Continent Moving West? explores the expansion of migration from countries in Eastern Europe following their accession to the European Union. Fifteen expertly authored chapters address head-on what the consequences of large-scale migration have been since 2007. The analysis is conducted for both origin countries, notably Poland, Romania and Bulgaria, and destination countries, including the UK, the Netherlands and Norway. Particular attention is given to labour market impacts, while also discussing migration policies emerging throughout the continent. Overall, this book testifies to how many of the migration patterns so far generated are temporary, circular or seasonal, thus warranting the label 'incomplete' or 'liquid'. Yet, the fluid nature of such movements is expected to continue, making forecasts for future migration - and its repercussions - highly unreliable. One thing is clear. Conventional notions of migration as a one-way, permanent or long-term process are increasingly becoming wide of the mark. Authors Marta Anacka, Richard Black, Venelin Boshnakov, Krisztina Csedo, Jan de Boom, Stephen Drinkwater, John Eade, Godfried Engbersen, Jon Horgen Friberg, Michal Garapich, Izabela Grabowska-Lusinska, Pawel Kaczmarczyk, Eugenia Markova, Vesselin Mintchev, Joanna Napierala, Krzysztof Nowaczek, Wolfgang Ochel, Marek Oklski, Cristina Pantru, Swanie Potot, Dumitru Sandu, Erik Snel, Paulina Trevena.

This book is available to read and download, free of charge, as an electronic version

Russell King and Nicola Mai, Out of Albania (Berghahn Books, 2008).

Analysing the dynamics of the post-1990 Albanian migration to Italy, this book is the first major study of one of Europe’s newest, most dramatic yet least understood migrations. It takes a close look at migrants’ employment, housing and social exclusion in Italy, as well as the process of return migration to Albania. The research described in the book challenges the pervasive stereotype of the “bad Albanian” and, through in-depth fieldwork on Albanian communities in Italy and back in Albania, provides rich insights into the Albanian experience of migration, settlement and return in both their positive and their negative aspects.

Russell King is Professor of Geography at the University of Sussex and Director of the Sussex Centre for Migration Research.

Nicola Mai is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of European Transformations, London Metropolitan University. Both together and individually, they have published widely in the field of migration studies, specialising in Italy, Albania and other Southern European and Balkan countries.

Melanie Friend, Border Country (Belfast Exposed Photography and The Winchester Gallery, 2007).

Belfast Exposed Photography is privileged to present Border Country by Melanie Friend, an exhibition of medium-format photographs, with a sound installation of voiced testimonies of asylum seekers and migrants in detention in the UK. A publication of the work, with essays by Mark Durden, Alex Hall and Melanie Friend will also be launched at the opening event.

Melanie Friend began work on Border Country in 2003. Since then, more than 25,000 individuals per year have been held for some period in immigration detention in the UK. Immigration detainees in Northern Ireland had, until last year been held in Maghaberry and Hydebank Wood prisons. They are now automatically transferred to detention centres in Scotland and England.

Melanie Friend has photographed the visits rooms in eight Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs): Dover, Colnbrook and Harmondsworth (near Heathrow), Lindholme (near Doncaster), Tinsley House (near Gatwick), Campsfield House (near Oxford), Yarl’s Wood (near Bedford) and Haslar (near Portsmouth). She also obtained permission to photograph some landscapes. As a visitor she met asylum seekers and migrants in several IRCs, and was given special access to record interviews with male detainees in Dover, and female detainees in Yarl’s Wood. The exhibition and publication include voice recordings that evoke complex identities and the physical and psychological experience of life in detention.

Anne Coles, Anne-Meike Fechter (eds), Gender and Family Among Transnational Professionals  (Routledge, 2007).

While interest in migration flows is ever-growing, this has mostly concentrated on disadvantaged migrants moving from developing to Western industrialised countries. In contrast, Euro-American mobile professionals are only now becoming an emergent research topic. Similarly, debates on the connections between gender and migration rarely consider these kind of migrants. This volume fills these gaps by investigating impact of relocation on gender and family relations among today’s transnational professionals.

Russell King (ed), The History of Human Migration (New Holland Publishers, 2007).

In "The History of Human Migration", an international team of historians tells the story of our migrations across the globe from prehistory of today's global population shifts. Using annotated maps, informative timelines and hundreds of photographs, paintings and artefacts, they bring our epic story to vivid life and show how migration is a major factor in the history of civilization. "The History of Human Migration" covers: the causes and effects of human migrations; prehistoric migrations; traditional migration routes; conquests and expansions of the Roman, Barbarian, Viking, Mongol and Arab populations; colonisation, convicts and slaves; industrialisation, famine, war, persecution and economic collapse; migration around the world, including Africa, Israel, the Eastern Bloc, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, and North America; and future mass-movements of humans.

Anne-Meike Fechter, Transnational Lives: Expatriates in Indonesia (Ashgate, 2007).

Privileged migrants, such as expatriates living abroad, are typically associated with lives of luxury in exotic locations. This fascinating and in-depth study reveals a more complex reality. By focusing on corporate expatriates the author provides one of the first book length studies on 'transnationalism from above'.

The book draws on the author's extended research among the expatriate community in Jakarta, Indonesia. The findings, which relate to expatriate communities worldwide, provide a nuanced analysis of current trends among a globally mobile workforce.

While acknowledging the potentially empowering impact of transnationalism, the author challenges current paradigms by arguing that the study of elite migration shows that transnational lives do not always entail fluid identities but the maintenance of boundaries - of body, race and gender.

The rich ethnographic data adds a critical dimension to studies of migration and transnationalism, filling a distinct gap in terms of theory and ethnography. Written in an engaging and accessible style the book will be of interest to academics and students, particularly in anthropology, migration studies and human geography.

Anastasia Christou, Narratives of Place, Culture and Identity: Second Generation Greek-Americans Return Home (Amsterdam University Press, 2006).

Christou explores the phenomenon of return migration in Greece through the settlement and identification processes of second-generation Greek-American returning migrants. She examines the meanings attached to the experience of return migration. The concepts of home and belonging figure prominently in the return migratory project which entails relocation and displacement as well as adjustment and alienation of bodies and selves.

Furthermore, Christou considers the multiple interactions (social, cultural, political) between the place of origin and the place of destination; network ties; historical and global forces in the shaping of return migrant behaviour; and expressions of identity. The human geography of return migration extends beyond geographic movement into a diasporic journey involving (re)constructions of homeness and belongingness in the ancestral homeland.

James Hampshire, Citizenship and Belonging - Immigration and the Politics of Demographic Governance in Postwar Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

In this timely book, James Hampshire explores the politics of immigration in post-war Britain and reveals how fears about welfare scrounging, public health and miscegenation influenced government policy. Locating immigration policy-making within a wider context of demographic governance - the state's management of population - Hampshire argues that radical ideas saturated post-war debates about immigration and its impact on British society. He shows how the British government appealed to an idea of 'belonging' in order to validate what was, at core, a racialized policy designed to obstruct colonial immigration. With immigration at the top of the current political agenda, Hampshire provides a much-needed background to contemporary debates. Drawing on a wealth of new archival material, his compelling analysis will change the way we think about this important subject. Citizenship and Belonging is required reading for anyone who wishes to understand how Britain became a multi-racial society despite the wishes of its politicians and a majority of its people.

Russell King, Tony Warnes, Allan Williams, Sunset Lives (Berg, 2000).

This book is the first to analyze the phenomenon of international retirement migration, to trace the story of the migrants from their old to their new homes, and to examine the conceptual and policy contexts of this relatively new form of transnational mobility.

The Costa del Sol, the Algarve, Tuscany and Malta attract increasing numbers of retirees each year, especially British and other Northern European citizens. This study provides new insights into the motivations of the mainly well-off and well-educated retirees who settle in Southern Europe and how they manage the transition. It demonstrates the roles of international tourism and of living abroad earlier in life in the formation of the ambition to retire abroad, and it describes the dominantly positive consequences of the moves. The challenges of providing health and welfare services for the ageing population are also explored. The book develops fascinating perspectives on new constructions of old age as a period for personal development and positive changes, and on the ways by which Northern European retirees resident in the South are forming a new pan-national European identity.

This book will have wide appeal to a range of readerships and its cross-disciplinary nature will make it relevant for courses on sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, tourism and leisure studies, migration studies, gerontology, social and health policy and area studies.

Ronald Skeldon, Migration and Development: A Global Perspective  (Longman, 1998).

The first text that specifically links both international and internal migration with development at a global level. Taking an innovative approach, the world is divided into a series of functionally integrated development zones which are identified, not simply on the basis of their level of development, but also through their spatial patterns and historical experience of migration. It goes on to stress the importance of migration in discussing regional, rather than simply country, differences. These variations in mobility are placed within the context of a global hierarchy, although regional, national and local cultural and social conditions are certainly not ignored in this wide-ranging work.