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Men are seldom a topic of concern in migration research as gendered subjects who experience the implications of social justice, for instance in aspects relating to lives in their families such as fairness of representation, consequences of material redistribution, and management of emotions. Economic migrants in particular, who are seen as matching the role of breadwinners and confirming the status of dominant patriarchal men, are a particularly underrated case. Using the experiences of Wolof men who emigrate from Senegal to become the main providers for their families, this chapter questions this assumption by drawing insights from a theorization on ‘transnational families’, ‘intersectionality’ and ‘masculinity’ as developed within migration and gender studies. The chapter discusses how male gender roles become interlocked with other categories, as asymmetries (be they real or perceived) intervene between the migrant and the stay-behind, and as geographic distance forces them to revisit the propriety of arrangements that enable them to enact their gendered responsibility within families. Caught between pressures deriving from their economic and moral obligations towards family and kin on the one hand, and personal aspirations of fitting the part of successful men on the other, the ethnographic research presented in this chapter shows that migrants engage in an emotional journey that may challenge, rather than confirm, their expectations of ‘hegemonic’ masculinity.

In this chapter the experiences of Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Qatar are examined in the framework of their structural vulnerability to health problems. The chapter shows how their poor state of (SRH) can be the outcome of a combination of forms of institutional discrimination that are interconnected and should be investigated in respect of: (a) the worth of their ‘identity’ (migrant, female, the work they do); (b) the distinct aspects of discourse on sexuality and normativity which specifically relate to their presence in the destination countries; and (c) ideational and material realities constraining their own agency in finding adequate care. The chapter shows how variations in the potential for access may be explained by the types and degree of their structural vulnerability regarding labour rights, their relationship with employers and migrants’ associations, and their personal SRH awareness–together with what emerges from cooperation between those government officials and civil society organizations who work with migrant domestic workers. Attentiveness to the particular combination of forms of institutional discrimination in a given cultural and institutional context, especially the ways in which the Sexual and Reproductive Health of Filipina domestic workers are linked to the ways in which labour migration are organized, should be helpful for effective SRH advocacy.

Studies of the role of the media in conflict situations have brought to the fore the significance of representations as an important part of the process of knowledge production about wars and the actors involved. The media can influence interpretations and framing of conflicts, moulding specific understandings of their causes and modalities of intervention. The Libyan war in 2011 is an interesting case to reflect on the (UN) principle of (RtoP), and how conflict affects those populations who occupy a subordinate position in multiple stratification systems (gender, race, and class), whether they are locked in conflict zones or are trying to join the flow of people fleeing across borders. In the context of humanitarian intervention, specific understandings of the migrants as social subjects become strongly correlated with corresponding support mechanisms. This chapter conducts an intersectional analysis to provide a perspective on the politics of the media representation of ‘migrants’ in Libya, discerning the key links between the constructions of their masculinities and the practices of protection for ‘people on the move’. We show how, being situated at the bottom of the social hierarchy in Libya, sub-Saharan black Africans were inappropriately presented in media coverage during the initial phase of the conflict as subjects of adequate protection. Their invisibilization and subordination by the media have been largely framed within international political and economic interests, which have also reinforced the idea of the international community as the legitimate protector of civilians. We argue that these representations reproduce migrants’ vulnerability and, by placing them in a situation of triple jeopardy (structural, political, and representational), undermine the possibility of conceiving and understanding security beyond their ‘naturalized’ victimization and subordination.

This chapter provides a perspective on the migration of communities of blind beggars from Mali to Dakar, Senegal. Migration for begging across borders as a way of making a living adopted by persons affected by river blindness involves being guided by non-blind guides – usually a girl or young woman who can be a relative or acquaintance. The patterns of movement are generally seasonal and circular and are based on a variety of social arrangements for guiding, including a modification of ‘child fostering’ as a tradition, biological kinship and marriage, and employment. Each type of arrangement delineates specific obligations and entitlements between the guides and the beggar according to the relationship involved: parent, guardian, spouse, or employer. The last arrangement applies especially to girls and women who migrate on their own account in search of other types of work but end up as guides. Social justice strategies that address the individual rights of young migrants from Mali to Senegal have yet to recognize the existence of this group of female guides. Understanding the experiences of the migrant blind beggars from the perspective of multiple conditions of ‘disability’ may help towards an appreciation of how mutual dependency based on gender and age can be interwoven into layers of culturally defined inter-generational obligations, for which social justice strategies built only on the idea of the individual rights of women or children may not necessarily be appropriate.

In this chapter we address the structural and institutional constraints faced by (NGOs) assisting Peruvian migrants in Chile to advocate for migrants’ rights. We argue that these constraints have provoked reactive rather than proactive strategic responses by NGOs in their promotion of migrants’ rights. In addition, the unchallenged acceptance of a traditional notion of citizenship has placed Chilean NGOs as short-term service providers rather than as long-term advocates. We propose that a conscious recognition of the possibilities opened up by international legal regimes to confront nation-states’ regulation of migrants’ rights offers a pragmatic approach to navigating such limits.

This chapter discusses the positions of domestic workers and their employers in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in relation to different conceptions of citizenship. Scholars studying domestic workers commonly use concepts of citizenship to situate the vulnerable position of domestic workers. This chapter elaborates on existing theory in specifying the connection between the concepts of access to justice, citizenship, and legal liminality. Specifically, this chapter shows how the theory of diminished citizenship, developed to analyse the position of domestic workers elsewhere, also applies to domestic workers in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. Interviews and fieldwork show that in the case of a conflict, these workers have no proper access to justice; this results in severely diminished civil citizenship and is related to the fact that domestic workers are both migrants and women. This chapter then examines to what extent the position of the can be conceptualized within the same citizenship framework. The results suggest that the position of the employers cannot be framed using the same conceptions of citizenship. A more detailed look at Saudi and Emirati societies reveals new concepts, but also shows there may be an interconnection between the various concepts of citizenship. The study finally opens the discussion on possible connections between civil citizenship, social citizenship, and the position of women. As such, this chapter is relevant not only for the more than two million domestic workers in these two countries but also for reaching a better understanding of the importance of full citizenship for women worldwide.

For decades, Thailand has experienced an influx of a large number of migrants from Myanmar who have come in search of better economic opportunities. This influx has led to a sizeable migrant population residing in Thailand, of which children make up a significant percentage. Providing education for large numbers of migrant children has become a matter of national concern, both because of Thailand’s international human rights obligations and as a matter of national security. Responding to these concerns, the government of Thailand has adopted a policy of providing free and compulsory education for every child within its territory, including migrant children. However, despite the efforts of the Thai government to provide education for all, many migrant children are still unable to benefit from this policy. In this chapter, the challenges of realizing the right to education for migrant children in Samut Sakhon, a coastal province in central Thailand, are studied. Schools are regarded as institutional duty bearers that are obliged, on behalf of the state, to fulfil their legal obligation in terms of Thai government policy. These obligations emanate from the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Thailand is a state party. In addition, the research analyses the precarious status of migrant children. The concept of ‘liminal legality’ is used to conceptualize the in-between status of migrant children and families, and to illustrate how this liminal status shapes the opportunity structure of migrant children in education by influencing household decision-making. In this chapter, it is argued that addressing the liminal status of migrants is essential in addressing not only the issue of migrant children’s education, but also that of their incorporation into Thai society in general.

Following the approach to social justice taken in this book, we would like to bring attention to issues of recognition, participation, and representation as these are linked to migrants’ legality and their rights in the chapters by Petchot (17), De Vlieger (16), and Mora and Handmaker (15). These three issues are closely intertwined. In this review chapter, we start by recognizing the implications of migrants’ liminal legality, of migrants’ rights as workers, and of their right to access goods and benefits in society as key to advancing projects of equality and justice more generally. As Fraser (2007) observes, misrecognition is fundamental to inequality, particularly gender inequality.

Recent policy debates on migration in the Greater Mekong Subregion have put increasing emphasis on migrant safety, which has taken the form of opening legal channels of migration. Whereas the discourse on migrant safety revolves around gendered emphases in vulnerability, foregrounding female migrants’ vulnerability and muting male migrants’ vulnerability, policy interventions to make migration safer are too often framed as gender- neutral. In this chapter I focus on Lao employment agencies as a key technique in the management of Lao- Thai cross-border migration. I argue that employment agencies are embedded in a masculine policy landscape and I contest them as gender-neutral techniques by demonstrating how these agencies and the policy architecture in which they are situated produce significant degrees of male privilege when it comes to accessing supposedly safe forms of migration. Yet male privilege is limited, as migrating through these supposedly safe channels of migration may in fact increase male migrants’ vulnerability. However, I argue that young men’s motivations for migrating through these expensive legal channels can only in part be understood by looking at their material effects on migrant vulnerability. Instead, this practice should rather be interpreted as a modern version of the cultural style of hegemonic masculinity through which young men deal with protection from danger in the risky exercise of migration.

Nicaraguan migration to Costa Rica is one of the most salient cases of South-South migration in Latin America. Despite Costa Rica’s self-representation as a peaceful and democratic society, Nicaraguan migrants in Costa Rica, the main foreign-born community in the country, are widely portrayed in derogatory terms, for example as violent and criminal and in general as “threatening Others” (Sandoval 2004). This chapter explores a set of examples of analyses of critical interventions – regarding immigration law, social imaginaries around which representations of Nicaraguans are framed, and participatory work carried out with impoverished communities – in order to reflect on the ways in which social sciences in Costa Rica attempt to intervene both in the everyday hostility of Costa Rican society and in the ways in which Nicaraguans contest that hostility. Responding to Michael Burawoy’s call for a “public sociology” (2005, 2007), the chapter reflects on how debates around public social sciences could enrich the political, institutional, and conceptual location of migration studies in Costa Rica.