Age Of Migration Chapter 2 Reading Thoughts
Communication's Effect On Migration
Although the economic theory of migration doesn't explain every facet of the issue, it seems like it must be a large part of the whole. This makes me wonder how modern communication has affected labor migration. I assume in the past people had migrated for work and discovered there wasn't any in the place they had originally planned on staying. Without a good way to communicate this back to their homeland, more people would likely follow and find the same thing unless it became possible to send a flow of information back against the flow of people. When people are traveling in the same direction, because of famine or natural disaster or other factors, it likely becomes difficult to get information from those who have gone ahead, especially before modern, long-distance communication methods.
Historical Approach
The historical approach is really interesting to me just because of the number of different factors it potentially includes. Language and citizenship are obvious ones that might be shared between colonizer and colony, but there are so many more cultural things that I wonder about, especially in places that are geographically close, like France and West Africa. It would be interesting to talk with people who migrated to a historically linked country and people who did not and see some examples of what drives that choice.
Mixed Motivations
The concept that migrants may be forced out from one country into another which is also dangerous and unstable and then face difficulties in moving on from that country is a good example of why modern refugee policy is pretty bad. The policies might appear at first glance to be pretty generous, especially if you believe they isn't much responsibility for countries to take in refugees (which, obviously there is in a lot of cases), but refugee is a term defined so precisely that someone who flees to an intermediate country may no longer be consider a refugee even if that intermediate country is still unstable and has miserable economic conditions. It's hard not to see the cold war era influence in these policies.
Race
The line "race is thus a social construct produced by the process we refer to as racism" is about as succinctly and accurately as I've ever seen that put. Mostly just quoting it here so I can remember that in the future.
Transnational Citizenship
The fact that the EU is cited as the furthest anyone has been able to go towards full transnational citizenship really shows how far we have yet to go, considering the that the EU hardly contains more than """first-world""" countries whose occupants can now more easily vacation in neighboring countries.
That's definitely and oversimplification, but when you consider the potential of the idea of global citizenship, it's clear even a great achievement like the EU still has a long road ahead of it.
Although the economic theory of migration doesn't explain every facet of the issue, it seems like it must be a large part of the whole. This makes me wonder how modern communication has affected labor migration. I assume in the past people had migrated for work and discovered there wasn't any in the place they had originally planned on staying. Without a good way to communicate this back to their homeland, more people would likely follow and find the same thing unless it became possible to send a flow of information back against the flow of people. When people are traveling in the same direction, because of famine or natural disaster or other factors, it likely becomes difficult to get information from those who have gone ahead, especially before modern, long-distance communication methods.
Historical Approach
The historical approach is really interesting to me just because of the number of different factors it potentially includes. Language and citizenship are obvious ones that might be shared between colonizer and colony, but there are so many more cultural things that I wonder about, especially in places that are geographically close, like France and West Africa. It would be interesting to talk with people who migrated to a historically linked country and people who did not and see some examples of what drives that choice.
Mixed Motivations
The concept that migrants may be forced out from one country into another which is also dangerous and unstable and then face difficulties in moving on from that country is a good example of why modern refugee policy is pretty bad. The policies might appear at first glance to be pretty generous, especially if you believe they isn't much responsibility for countries to take in refugees (which, obviously there is in a lot of cases), but refugee is a term defined so precisely that someone who flees to an intermediate country may no longer be consider a refugee even if that intermediate country is still unstable and has miserable economic conditions. It's hard not to see the cold war era influence in these policies.
Race
The line "race is thus a social construct produced by the process we refer to as racism" is about as succinctly and accurately as I've ever seen that put. Mostly just quoting it here so I can remember that in the future.
Transnational Citizenship
The fact that the EU is cited as the furthest anyone has been able to go towards full transnational citizenship really shows how far we have yet to go, considering the that the EU hardly contains more than """first-world""" countries whose occupants can now more easily vacation in neighboring countries.
That's definitely and oversimplification, but when you consider the potential of the idea of global citizenship, it's clear even a great achievement like the EU still has a long road ahead of it.
Comments
Post a Comment