Tag Archives: transnationalism

Care a Commodity in Crisis

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Anonymous student post

Earlier this semester we talked about the migrant work that women were doing and how it has led to the care crisis we see today; these women have, although out of necessity, chosen to work as caregivers to other people’s children.

The first factor that plays a big role in this accepting shift toward the adoption of imported care is the modernization of the first worlds, in my opinion. We as a society are always looking for a more efficient or easier way to do the things we need to do, and it is only “natural” that this search leaks into our personal lives. When was the last time you wanted to get up from that chair you’re in and manually look up how to do something; It takes time to look-up the needed information in a book compared to using the fast and easy-to-use super computer that’s laying at your side everyday in your pocket; well not so long ago that was the standard way and the only way. This hunt for the efficient way in connection with the modern cost of living means either both parents have to work to sustain a family or a single mother or father might have to work over time to do the same. This shift in society structure leads to the need for a caregiver, someone that can be there all the time, simplify the workload, and decrease the stress of having two jobs, parent and employee.

The second and third factors that play a big role is the demand for these migrant workers is both the families looking for help, and by the workers themselves who want to earn a better wage. These women make far more working for other people’s families then if they were to work in the Philippines. These two factors of demand are the reasons why “some 34-50% of Filipino population is sustained by remittance from migrant workers” (RhacelParrenas).  As for the employers, parents either together or single, want and need the time to step back in this day and age, and it’s an easily possible thing to obtain with the help of a migrant caregiver who is willing to literally raise your child and help with everything; Not only that, but they work for a decently cheap wage in comparison to hiring a nanny or babysitter from the home country. That wage, although small, trickles down the economic system and completes a support chain that is crucial to the lives of everyone connected to it because of the mass adoption to this demand.  The parent who employees need the cheap family support, the migrant workers need the money to help their families back home, and in the grand scale of things, both the economy need both parties of the transaction working to contribute to there local workforce and economy.

Lastly, like in classes we talked about, we know this is a problem, but is it the lesser of two evils or should we try to find a way to shift these women’s work back towards their home countries somehow? There is no easy solution to adjusting a whole country’s economic dependence of a portion of the population that needs the money and no way to shift the current sociological wants of the societies from these supporting counties hiring these women. Can we sit back and watch the trend fade or will this out sourcing care in the exchange of the lost care of another’s continue.

Now, at any time did you think does that migrant worker have a family or a child? Yes, a lot of them do, does it make a difference if you only know one side of the story? Just like the lack of information on the other child, the other child lacks far more. He or she lacks a connection that I can’t make palpable in any amount of words. They see their mother on very rare occasions and live their lives with little to no knowledge of a mother’s care; whereas other child get the care of their birth mother and basically a second mom.  I know that in my heart that this changes everything, I feel the ache of thinking about my life without my mother. She was my heart, my haven, and the person I could always talk to. What can I do though in this great big world for someone so far away? Well I propose we don’t forget; that we remember the others and maybe a shift can happen in the future.

Reference

Parreñas, Rhacel. 2003. “The care crisis in the Philippines: children and transnational families in the new global economy.” Pp. 39-54 in Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Hochschild. New York: New York Metropolitan.  http://www.academia.edu/490445/The_care_crisis_in_the_Philippines_children_and_transnational_families_in_the_new_global_economy

Transnational migration of people and capital

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by Curran Cunningham

This first blog is intended to set the parameters for my forthcoming analysis of International Migration. As a keen reader on economic matters, my focus will be primarily on the impact of remittance flows on economic growth of both host and recipient countries.

My research kicks off with preliminary readings from Peggy Levitt and B. Nadya Jaworsky’s paper, ‘Transitional Migration Studies: Past Developments and Future Trends’. The paper’s focus is on three modes of transformation which migrants experience when they move to another country: socio-cultural, political and financial. I will concentrate on the financial aspect which looks into viewing transnational migration as a by-product and indeed victim of the later model of capitalism.

Transnationalism is the catalyst which is generating rapid globalisation. The increased interconnectivity between people and institutions has broken down the economic and social barriers that had once sheltered nation states. Multinational corporations are taking advantage of the opportunities of transnationalism to manufacture goods in a production line spanning the globe. Those processes oftentimes pass through a number of developing countries, with companies maintaining strict quality controls, minimising costs and thereby maximising profits. This can certainly have positive results for the countries concerned, helping generate employment and investment there.

A spin-off of this globalisation is the growth of migrants working abroad in industrialised and emerging markets, providing services locally at minimum wage costs, such as in the construction industry in Dubai or housekeepers in Europe and the United States. They are joined by a growing number of more educated personnel who are migrating, sometimes only temporarily, to enjoy better wages and living standards for their professions in the developed world, including doctors and nurses.

The paper, published in 2007, shows how a doubling in remittances worldwide in the last decade is leading to growing interdependency between the developed and developing world. The concern is that large industrialised countries are becoming over-dependent on cheap foreign labour while non-industrialised countries survive on remittances that their workers abroad send home rather than creating jobs and growth in their own economies.

The costs and benefits of this can be exploitative at times for less-developed and competitively inadequate countries compared to economically top notch developed nations or economic blocs. Critics have argued that globalisation has led to transnational capitalism increasingly monopolise and centralise capital by leading dominant corporations in the global economy. Scholars critical of global capitalism have argued instead in favour of a grassroots’ transnationalism by workers and co-operatives as well as through popular social and political movements.

William I. Robinson reveals his concerns about growing remittance interdependence in his 2010 paper ‘Global Capitalism Theory and the Emergency of Transnational Elites’. He objectifies capitalist transnationalism as the pursuit of facilitating the flow of people, ideas, and goods between different regions of the world in the belief that it has increasing relevance for the rapid growth of capitalist globalisation. Pro-capitalism critics argue that it does not make sense to restrict migratory workforces, globalised corporations, global money flow, global information flow, and global scientific cooperation. However, Robinson believes this is the very reason why there is a widening gap between the rich and the poor and has led to a corresponding rise in exploitation to the detriment of ‘true’ sustainable development at an international level.

Countries such as Cuba have been used by researchers as an example of worsening economic conditions and increased inequality due to remittance flows. At the extreme cases, some non-industrialised countries have had such a reliance on remittances as a source of economic revenue that without them, their economies would crash. These countries are said to be at the mercy of “foreign migration policy makers”. This trend may be also bad for the host country, as their dependency on migrants leads them to plan development policies based on migrants’ future contributions, seeing them as the answer to solve their state problems while otherwise being unable to solve it themselves (Levitt & Jaworsky, 2007).

On the flip side, Min Zhou, in her 2004 paper “Revisiting ethnic entrepreneurship: convergences, controversies, and conceptual advancements,” looks at the positive elements of international migration in breaking down social barriers and allowing further integration even while under the veil of discrimination.

Zhou brings into light the benefits of ethnic entrepreneurship. In accordance with McEwan Pollard, Henry argument, Zhou also believes that ethnic minority economic activity has a positive effect on a nation’s future economic development in increasing the range and diversity of both actual goods and foreign business know-how, whether it be ethnic food manufacturing or Chinese business networks (2005).

Transnationalism in itself – and cross-border ties in general – allows ‘valuable social capital’ to be instilled in ethnic communities to help them in their horizontal and vertical integration with the aim of breaking the inequality trend. This ‘social capital’ can help also the second generation to integrate better and start climbing the social ladder (Ruble, 2005).

Guarnizo brings to the table the notion that predicting remittance revenues are a measure of credit worthiness and secure loans for a state (2003). With these arguments, many governmental and non-governmental bodies have jumped on the “remittances-as-development-panacea” bandwagon (Kapur, 2005).

Having looked at the cost and benefits of remittances to economic growth, my next blog post will assess under what circumstances education does or does not succeed in socially integrating migrants.

References

Guarnizo, L. E. (2003). “The economics of transnational living.” International Migration Review 37:666-699.

Kapur, D. (2005). Remittances: The new development mantra? New York: United Nations.

Levitt, P., & Jaworsky, B. N. (2007). Transnational Migration Studies: Past Developments and Future Trends. Retrieved June 9, 2014, from http://policydialogue.org/files/events/Levitt_Jaworsky_Transnational_Migration_Studies.pdf

McEwan, C., Pollard, J., Henry, N (2005). The ‘global’ in the city economy: multicultural economic development in Birmingham. Blackwell.

Robinson, W. I. (2010). Global Capitalism Theory and the Emergency of Transnational Elites. UNU-WIDER.

Ruble, B. A. (2005). Creating diversity capital: Transnational migrants in Montreal, Washington, and Kyiv. Washington, D.C: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.

Transnationalism – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (n.d.). Retrieved June 13, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnationalism

Zhou, M. (2004). “Revisiting ethnic entrepreneurship: convergences, controversies, and conceptual advancements.” International Migration Review 38:1040-1074.

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Transnationalism: the case of Zainichi Koreans, support and problems

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by Yuriko Otsuka

In Japanese society, there are a lot of Zainichi Koreans, Chinese, Brazilians and other ethnic minorities who have been staying in Japan for more than half a century. In the case of Zainichi Koreans, Chapman (2008) wrote that from 1910, Koreans started to come in to Japan due to  Japanese colonization in the imperial period (as cited in Shipper 2010, p.58). Inokuchi (2000) said that many Koreans left Japan after losing World War 2, however about 620,000 Koreans remained in Japan (ibid). In 2010, the Ministry of Justice estimated that 600,000 Zainichi Koreans were living in Japan (as cited in Sooim, 2012).

Peggy Levitt (2001) says that there are 3 institutional actors that help immigrants connect to their home country: states, political parties, and hometown organizations. In the case of the Zainichi Koreans, I think the states and especially the hometown organizations are playing a big role in Japanese society to help maintain its Korean identity.

The establishment and prevalence of Korean schools is one example of hometown organizations and government involvement. According to the Chosen Soren (as cited in Shipper 2010, p.61), Chongryun (an organization for Zainichi North Koreans) promoted the ties between North Korea and Zainichi by building a lot of Korean schools, also agitating Zainichi Korean parents to enroll their kids in the schools they built (ibid). Chongryun’s Central Education Institute is said to be working closely with the North Korean government through the encouragement of not only teaching Korean and history, but also “loyalty education subjects”, which the government promoted strongly under the periods of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.

I also had an opportunity once to go to a Korean school in Osaka. One of the classrooms that I passed had both Japanese and Korean writings on the walls, which I thought is teaching the second and further generations of Zainichi to not forget about their homeland culture and language, and also nurturing their identities as not Japanese but Koreans. In addition, the government of South Korea started to enable Zainichi and other Koreans who live outside South Korea to vote in elections from April 2012 (Choson Ilbo, 2009). I think this is another way for Zainichi and other Koreans outside of Korea to have a sense of belonging towards their home country, and also to build an identity as Koreans by participating in the elections of their country. The examples that I wrote above are only a few of the supports that are done by the government and also the hometown organizations to give Zainichi Koreans to maintain their identity.

The problem that I thought is occurring towards not only Zainichi Koreans but also other ethnic minorities is related to ethnic plurality in Japanese society. As I wrote above, Zainichi Koreans have been staying in Japan for a long time, getting into the Japanese society so well that most people could not even tell the differences between Japanese and Zainichi Koreans. However, I think there is still discrimination against ethnic minorities such as Zainichi Koreans in Japan, which I thought that Japanese should overcome due to having lived with other ethnicities for such a long period. It might be hard for the society to change soon, but at least we have to try more to change our minds to accept people who are trying to live in a difficult society: Japan.

References

Choson Ilbo. (2009). Zaigaigaikokujinnimo senkyoken 2012 sousenkyokara (Koreans in overseas’ general election voting rights starting from 2012). Retrieved from http://japanese.joins.com/article/451/110451.html

Lee, Soo im. (2012). Diversity of zainichi Koreans and their ties to Japan and Korea. Shiga: Japan.

Levitt, Peggy. (2001). Transnational migration: Taking stock and future directions. Global networks, 1(3), 195-216.

Shipper, Apichai W. (2010). Nationalisms of and against Zainichi Koreans in Japan. Asian politics & policy, 2(1). Retrieved from http://csii.usc.edu/documents/Nationalisms_of_and_against_Zainichi.pdf.