Migration

A pdf is available by request to jmheyman@utep.edu .  On the basis of participant-observation in an immigrant human rights coalition, this contribution offers reflections on the opportunities and challenges of being an academic in a politically active coalition. It first examines the ways in which university scholars can encounter rich fields for social scientific learning by engagement with coalitions in the communities that surround them, offering an alternative to the ivory tower model of anthropology done in distant fields. It then explores the challenges of coalition involvement through the theme of role expectations and conflicts. Among the topics examined through participant-observation are role expectations conflicts, time or schedule conflicts, resource tensions, legal and bureaucratic limits, social status inequalities, reduction of name visibility and ego gratification, and complex negotiations and compromises. It finishes with observations on commitment and objectivity, and proposes that coalitions shape particular forms of knowledge creating and communicating processes. These are real issues, but not insurmountable ones, and an honest accounting of them will result in more effective and rewarding coalitions between activists and academics.

A pdf of this item is available by request to jmheyman@utep.edu .  Chapter is in Spanish.  This chapter examines the entirety of differentiated and unequal mobility surrounding the U.S.-Mexico border.  It starts by challenging the common-sense distinction between migration and mobility.  The chapter includes the unequal mobility of capital and labor seen in NAFTA, as well as unequally treated commodities (e.g,, smuggling).  It looks at inequality of mobility by nationality (unequal treatment of visas between Mexicans and United Statesians) but also privileged mobility of cross-national elites and near elites (wealthy, management, professionals, academics, etc., that spans both countries).  It puts particular emphasis on the concept of privileged and disprivileged mobility and how the latter affects life chances (and death chances), as seen with unauthorized migration.  But it also notes the complexity of the topic, such as the considerable kin-based migration and mobility of legal residents between the two countries that facilitates movement of some transnational peasant-workers.

A pdf is available by request from jmheyman@utep.edu . A synthetic overview of the border region.  Political economy is the study of power in human affairs, including politics, economics, and ideology. Three border processes are examined in terms of these three elements. They are border crossing processes, border-reinforcing ones, and, a third category crucial to borders, uneven and combined relations. The latter involve both connections and also the maintenance or reinforcement of differentiation. The border is a subordinate region in the political economy of North America, though also a crucial point of production and exchange due to combined and uneven relations. This is explored through application of the concept of dependency to politics, economics, and ideas. Examples are taken from the domains of migration, smuggling, and industrialization, and the topic of regulated, unequal mobility is explored. Finally, the challenge and possibilities for social justice struggles of this highly unequal scenario of political economy are explored.

""Link: http://periodicos.uniso.br/ojs/index.php?journal=reu&page=article&op=download&path%5B%5D=805&path%5B%5D=819
The U.S.-Mexico border is a site of extensive militarization in both countries, although the direct intervention of the military and military-like police agencies is greater in Mexico than in the United States.  The widespread, sloppy use of militarization concerning this region requires initial careful definitional comments.  Then, militarization on the Mexican side of the border is examined, in particular the extreme intervention of the military since the 2006 Calderón presidency.  The human rights consequences of this intervention are reviewed, as well as the involvement of the United States in Plan Mérida.  U.S. militarization of the border is also considered, especially intensive surveillance and intelligence analysis in the framework of national security.  The article closes by asking whether militarization serves social control, and if so, how coherent and cohesive it is.  The key argument is that militarization is not an omniscient, omnipotent control strategy, but rather a repetitive and somewhat clumsy template used by U.S. political elites (and relatedly, Mexican elites) to address dynamic and disruptive challenges in Latin America and related regions of the United States.""

A pdf is available by request from jmheyman@utep.edu .  Argues for a historical, social struggle based approach to Marxist analysis of borders and migration (in the case of the U.S.-Mexico border) rather than a capitalist-functionalist kind of Marxist analysis.  Covers three topics: differential and unequal mobility through borders in unequal class-nationality settings (addressing in this section the concept of global apartheid); border enforcement as a mechanism of labor disciplining and control; and militarization of the border as a means of social control.  In each case, it argues for an emergent and complex rather than abstract systems logic analysis of these topics.  It concludes by pointing out that the relation between capitalism and the state remains incompletely understood.

A pdf is available by request from jmheyman@utep.edu .  Chapter is in Spanish.  Argues for a historical, social struggle based approach to Marxist analysis of borders and migration (in the case of the U.S.-Mexico border) rather than a capitalist-functionalist kind of Marxist analysis.  Covers three topics: differential and unequal mobility through borders in unequal class-nationality settings (addressing in this section the concept of global apartheid); border enforcement as a mechanism of labor disciplining and control; and militarization of the border as a means of social control.  In each case, it argues for an emergent and complex rather than abstract systems logic analysis of these topics.  It concludes by pointing out that the relation between capitalism and the state remains incompletely understood.

"Link: http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/docs/ipc/Border%20-%20Abuses%20FINAL.pdf
This report focuses on the mistreatment of unauthorized migrants while in U.S. custody. Overall, we find that the physical and verbal mistreatment of migrants is not a random, sporadic occurrence but, rather, a systematic practice. One indication of this is that 11% of deportees report some form of physical abuse and 23% report verbal mistreatment while in U.S. custody—a finding that is supported by other academic studies and reports from nongovernmental organizations. Another highly disturbing finding is that migrants often note they are the targets for nationalistic and racist remarks—something that in no way is integral to U.S. officials’ ability to function in an effective capacity on a day-to-day basis.

We find that, when they occur, physical and verbal abuses are usually perpetrated during the apprehension process. When taken in the context of prior studies, it appears that the abuse of migrants while in U.S. custody is a systemic problem and points to an organizational subculture stemming from a lack of transparency and accountability in U.S. Customs and Border Protection. These patterns of abuse have brought scrutiny to the Border Patrol’s use-of-force policies and created tension in border communities. Future research should examine the longer term social and psychological consequences of these types of abuse for migrants and their loved ones.

This is the first in a series of three reports we will be releasing that highlight findings from the second wave of the Migrant Border Crossing Study (MBCS). Wave II of the MBCS, currently housed in the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona and the Department of Sociology at George Washington University, is a binational, multiinstitution study of 1,110 randomly selected, recently repatriated migrants surveyed in six Mexican cities between 2009 and 2012 (see las.arizona.edu/mbcs for the full report and methodology)."

A pdf of this item is available by request from jmheyman@utep.edu .  This chapter examines diverse moral perspectives and actions on borders.  It begins by reviewing how moral philosophy treats borders.  It argues that anthropology can add understandings of moralization of borders in practice.  It first looks at the moral view of borders from national interiors; in such places, borders are often treated as single dimensional moral demands and solutions, either threats to national essence or to unbounded humanity.  It looks at moral thought in action, as people to come to borders to enact such visions.  It then turns to borderlanders themselves, who are diverse but often experience a life of moral ambiguity and complexity because of the everyday crossing processes of life.  Borderlanders offer the possibility of a more nuanced pattern of moral thinking.  It concludes by arguing for a normative philosophical generalization of this lesson,in which the dense, multi-stranded, rich interactions of immigrants and hosts in borderlands points to a pro-immigrant stance based on accumulated interactions and emergent bonds.

A pdf of this item is available by request from jmheyman@utep.edu .  This synthetic chapter addresses the causes of the massive escalation of border immigration enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico boundary since 1994 (and in some ways, since the early 20th century).  It argues that hierarchical citizenship in which Mexican origin people are slotted as commodity-migrant laborers (though resisted as such) now is interacting with a national and global political economy in which there are increasing sources of conflict and anxiety (economic and social inequality worsening, capitalist driven insecurity and globalization, continual failures of the United States as a militaristic global hegemon) to result in scapegoating of feared subordinate servant populations: immigrants.  It looks at the specific symbolic role of borders (as a boundary between purity and danger) in this cultural-political economy.  It argues that the current immigration and border policy conjucture is emerging from a three sided struggle between capitalist managerial elites (favoring managed subordinate labor flows), xenophobic populist right wing sectors (as analyzed above), and human/labor rights coalitions battling under difficult circumstances.

"African Immigrant Innovations in 21st Century American Giving is an in-depth analysis of the giving of today’s African immigrants, especially the majority of Africans who are from indigenous sub-Saharan ethnic groups identified as black in a United States (US)
context. This is the third study in the US African Diaspora Giving Project (U-DAP) designed to advance understanding of the giving traditions of US African-descent ethnic groups. Our hope is to deepen knowledge of the diversity of America’s rich civic
leadership and contributions.
U-DAP originated from the advocacy of the Pan-African Women’s Philanthropy Network (PAWPNet), a national coalition of diverse African-descent women and their allies devoted to advancing all forms of giving in the African diaspora (Copeland-Carson 2012). With critical support from PAWPNet, and funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the African Women’s Development Fund USA (AWDF USA), a public foundation committed to supporting African women’s development, published a monograph overviewing US African immigrant philanthropy’s cultural values, history and practices (Copeland-Carson and Okome 2013).
U-DAP has also included public outreach to raise awareness of African diaspora giving throughout the US, including a public campaign to promote Black Philanthropy Month (BPM). Recognized by the United Nations, BPM is an annual celebration of black giving created by PAWPNet in 2011. A successful BPM 2013 campaign co-led by The Giving Back Project, Black Gives
Back, the Community Investment Network with AWDF USA brought U-DAP’s research to millions, increasing awareness of the diversity and global dimensions of black giving.
This current study is the collaboration of the three scholars, Drs. Copeland-Carson, Okome and Osili, who have written most of the research in the emergent African diaspora philanthropy field over the past 15 years.
There is a well-established movement and field of black
philanthropy in the US that primarily focuses on the giving traditions of the “historical” diaspora, that is, the voluntary sector traditions of black Americans who are the descendants of US African slaves from the 17th through 19th century. Despite the 3.7
million foreign-born African-descent people who make up the country’s black population today, less is known about the giving traditions of foreign-born blacks such as African, African-Caribbean, Afro-Latin, Afro-European and Afro-Asian groups that also comprise today’s black American community.
Although there have been notable efforts to examine and promote giving of Latino and Asian diasporas, there is comparatively little effort to study the philanthropy of America’s African diaspora. The first two U-DAP studies established the broader context of African immigrant giving in the development of US black and American philanthropy more generally, as well as a related, emergent Pan-African movement (see Copeland-Carson and Okome 2013 and Copeland-Carson 2012).
African Immigrant Giving in 21st Century America builds on our prior identification of ten key African immigrant giving social structures and delves more deeply into the amount and dynamics of this understudied but critical component of American giving. We use a cross-cultural model of giving recognizing that private finance for the public good has different values, forms and dynamics worldwide that also influence the giving practices
of US immigrants.
This study moves beyond standard notions of community and giving to include diaspora approaches that may not more explicitly be seen as “philanthropic” from a conventional or strictly mainstream Western point-of-view. We recognize that Africans—like everyone else in our increasingly global world--are creating novel practices including giving that mixes and matches traditions from the new and old worlds."