Migrant networks and migrant intentions to return

Social ties are potentially an important determinant of migrants’ intention to return to their home country, and yet this topic has not been addressed in the existing economics literature on international migration. This study examines the absolute and relative importance of migrant social networks both at destination and at origin. We base our research on experimental data from Batista and Narciso (2013)1. By defining networks according to different characteristics of their members and migrant return intentions with respect to three different time horizons, we are able to dissect the network effect into its components. After controlling for unobserved heterogeneity and reverse causality biases we find that network at home seems to be the most important determinant of the migrant’s intention to return home within five and ten years.

Diaspora, return and migrant architectures

Nearly all discourses on migration (to my knowledge) emphasise that the migrant is not so much a traveller, but a figure oriented towards settlement and a particular destination. Discourses on migration have attended more to the process and site of ‘arrival’, and few studies have focused on the process and site of ‘departure’. However, central to the thesis of this paper would be the testimony of two migrant houses – one in the city of  immigration (Melbourne, Australia), and the other in the village of emigration (Zavoj in Macedonia). The focus will be on the Zavoj house as a significant house, a house that points to a thesis about how architecture makes explicit other processes of migration, namely that of ‘return’. Here there are several intertwined communities and nations, and also different notions of community and nation. It has been noted that ‘diaspora’ is constituted through longer distances, severe separation, and a taboo on return. And yet implicit in many more ‘autobiographical’ accounts is that one only leaves with a promise to return. The conflict and question of ‘return’ is at the centre of the migrant’s imaginary. A study of the two houses of migration implicates a set of networks, forces, relations, circumscribing a much larger global geopolitical and cultural field that questions our understandings of diaspora, the currency of transnationalism, the binary structure of dwelling/travelling, and the fabric and fabrication of community. But the study goes inwards and underneath as well through the figure of the migrant, the figure through which the two migrant houses are deeply associated. The paper will explore the subjective nature of the thesis, the idea of a ‘migrant house’ as an imaginary architecture, a psychic geography, an imaginary community and sense of nationhood.

Migrant housing in the city and the village : from Melbourne to Zavoj

This paper will discuss the kinds of communities that evolve through historical practices of migration. The migrant house is associated with a new architecture that hod appeared in the cities of immigration of the new worlds (Melbourne, Toronto, Chicago). It is perceived as a stereotypical symbolisation of immigrants from Southern European origins that had arrived in the decades following the Second World War. The appearance of houses built by returning migrants in sites of origin suggests other traiectories, other modes of travel, and other forms of community. Central to the thesis of this paper is the testimony of two types of migrant houses. The study draws on theories of migration that address the site of departure, the site of arrival, and the question and conflict of return which is at the centre of the migrant's imaginary. This study will examine the migrant houses in the village of emigration (Zavoj in Macedonia), migrant houses built by returning emigrants. A study of the two houses of migration implicates a set of networks, forces, relations, circumscribing a large global geopolitical and cultural field that questions our understandings of diaspora, the binary structure of dwelling/travelling, and the fabric and fabrication of community. In addition, the paper will explore the notion of house as an imaginary landscape, a psychic geography narrated through migratory travels.

Both black and symbolically white: The 'Bajan-Brit' return migrant as post-colonial hybrid

The research presented in this article centres on an under-researched demographic group of young return migrants, namely, second-generation Barbadians, or 'Bajan-Brits', who have decided to 'return' to the birthplace of their parents. Based on 51 in-depth interviews, the essay examines the experiences of second-generation return migrants from an interpretative perspective framed within post-colonial discourse. The article first considers the Bajan-Brits and issues of race in the UK before their decision to migrate. It is then demonstrated that on 'return', in certain respects, these young, black English migrants occupy a liminal position of cultural, racial and economic privilege, based on their 'symbolic' or 'token' whiteness within the post-colonial context of Barbados. But this very hybridity and inbetweeness means that they also face difficulties and associated feelings of social alienation and discrimination. The ambivalent status of this transnational group of migrants serves to challenge traditional notions of Barbadian racial identity.

Productivity gains from migration: An analysis of Cape Verdean return migrants

Are return migrants more productive than non-migrants? If so, is it a causal effect or simply self-selection? Existing literature has not reached a consensus on the role of return migration for origin countries. To answer these research questions, an empirical analysis was performed based on household data collected in Cape Verde. One of the most common identification problems in the migration literature is the presence of migrant self-selection. In order to disentangle potential selection bias, we use instrumental variable estimation using variation provided by unemployment rates in migrant destination countries, which is compared with OLS and Nearest Neighbor Matching (NNM) methods. The results using the instrumental variable approach provide evidence of labour income gains due to return migration, while OLS underestimates the coefficient of interest. This bias points towards negative self-selection of return migrants on unobserved characteristics, although the different estimates cannot be distinguished statistically. Interestingly, migration duration and occupational changes after migration do not seem to influence post-migration income. There is weak evidence that return migrants from the United States have higher income gains caused by migration than the ones who returned from Portugal.

Pappadums in paradise? : journeys of Indian migrant women to Australia

The blue glass is always the hardest to find. On the beach you catch the waves bringing back the glass from forgotten tossed bottles, frosted green, clear, or mottled pale brown. But the blue glass - that's the real thing. I search for days without finding any. Sometimes there are slivers; other days, small chunks. Like a beachcomber, I comb the sands for it. I take the glass home and make some into jewellery and touchstones for people to hang on to; pour essential oils on others so the scents waft heavenward and meld together with the glass to form a bond. Words are like that. They can fuse with each other and ignite, or just quietly combine, On sunny days, I take my books with me to the beach. I toss words back and forth in my mind, like churning waves. I cobble them together, A phrase here. A sentence there. The water. The sun. The sand. The glass. The words. The paper. The Connection. I find myself enveloped in it all. The glass is from bottles tossed into the surf by unthinking people - picnickers, vacationers, those who don't have to return here and live with the remnants of their actions. Over time, the broken glass is ground and moulded by the action of the waves; the sharp edges are softened and etched by the sand and water, The sea glass is washed up on shore and picked up by beachcombers. Some recycle it for other uses like me; others just keep it as a reminder of a day at the beach. The words I sift through as I sit on the sand are measured in the sea glass. I pick each word up and look through it to see how much light shines through. What use do 1 have for it? A poem? An essay? A fragment of a sentence, for something to be said in the future? I watch the sun rest uneasily on its bed of water and slide slowly, farther down. I know the hot summer is coming to a close and I am loath to let go of the closeness I feel with nature. I live to find the blue glass, and sometimes it just happens. My search for Indian migrant women was like my quest for the blue glass. It was not an easy task. It became a process of rummaging through other people's lives, searching for fragments and relics. Eventually I was able to fit pieces together to form a mosaic of their lives in that other time, that other place. And also in this present time, in this place they now call home, Australia.

Return Migration in the Ecuadorian and Bolivian population: motivations, strategies and discourses

This article analyses the motivations for return migration among the Ecuadorians and Bolivians who, after living in Spain, returned to their countries of origin during the economic crisis that started in 2008. From the analysis of 22 interviews in-depth which took place in Ecuador and 38 in Bolivia to women, men and young people from migrant families, this decision-making process is shown to be embedded into a gendered dynamics of relationships. Particular detail is given to affective and economic elements that had an influence on the decision to return, as well as to the strategies deployed to project their readjustment back in origin. Males and females occupy differential positions within the family, work and social circle, their expectations being built in a gendered manner. Despite the fact migration has brought women greater economic power within the family group, their reintegration upon return redefines their role as main managers in the household and the dynamics that allow their social reproduction. Men, for their part, aspire to refresh their role as providers in spite of their frail labour position upon return. Social mobility for females is passed on through generations by a strong investment on education for their daughters and sons, while for males this mobility revolves around setting up family businesses and around their demonstrative abilities.

Gendered Responses to Global Crisis: Circular Migration and Return among Ecuadorian Families in Spain and Ecuador

This paper analyzes the impact of Spain’s economic crisis on social reproduction strategies of Ecuadorian migrant families in Madrid and Quito. The paper analyzes circular migration experiences and more permanent returns to Ecuador. I argue that these strategies and migrants' greater or lesser capabilities to move between different migration destinations show significant gender differences. On the one hand, men and women make a differential use of their migratory status to deploy transnational strategies and expand their mobility. On the other hand, migrants’ degree of mobility and flexibility with regard to the labor market and transnational social reproduction are derivative of a specific gendered order and sexual division of labor.

A structured return to the 'Fourth Estate': interviews and inquiry that challenge entrenched authorities' 'knowledge'

Contemporary debates on the role of journalism in society are continuing the tradition of downplaying the role of proactive journalism - generally situated under the catchphrase of the Fourth Estate - in public policy making. This paper puts the case for the retention of a notion of a proactive form of journalism which can be broadly described as "investigative ", because it is important to the public policy process in modern democracies. It argues that critiques that downplay the potential of this form of journalism are flawed and overly deterministic. Finally. it seeks to illustrate how journalists can proactively inquire in ways that are relevant to the lives ofpeople in a range of settings, and that question elite sources in the interests ofthose people.

Trajectories of broadband : the coming, going and return of broadband

As the paper’s subtitle suggests broadband has had a remarkably checkered trajectory in Australia. It was synonymous with the early 1990s information superhighway and seemed to presage a moment in which “content is [to be] king”. It disappeared almost entirely as a public priority in the mid to late 1990s as intrastructure and content were disconnected in services frameworks focused on information and communication technologies. And it came back in the 2000s as a critical infrastructure for innovation and the knowledge economy. But this time content was not king but rather an intermediate input at the service of innovating industries and processes. Broadband was a critical infrastructure for the digitally-based creative industries. Today the quality of the broadband infrastructure in Australia—itself an outcome of these different policy frameworks—is identified as “fraudband” holding back business, creativity and consumer uptake. In this paper I use the checkered trajectory of broadband on Australian political and policy horizons as a stepping off point to reflect on the ideas governing these changing governmental and public settings. This history enables me to explore how content and infrastructure are simultaneously connected and disconnected in our thinking. And, finally, I want to make some remarks about the way communication, particularly media communication, has been marginally positioned after being, initially so apparently central.

The efficacy of the Sortino ratio and other benchmarked performance measures under skewed return distributions

This paper will investigate the suitability of existing performance measures under the assumption of a clearly defined benchmark. A range of measures are examined including the Sortino Ratio, the Sharpe Selection ratio (SSR), the Student’s t-test and a decay rate measure. A simulation study is used to assess the power and bias of these measures based on variations in sample size and mean performance of two simulated funds. The Sortino Ratio is found to be the superior performance measure exhibiting more power and less bias than the SSR when the distribution of excess returns are skewed.

The return of a forgotten polymer : Polycaprolactone in the 21st century

During the resorbable-polymer-boom of the 1970s and 1980s, polycaprolactone (PCL) was used in the biomaterials field and a number of drug-delivery devices. Its popularity was soon superseded by faster resorbable polymers which had fewer perceived disadvantages associated with long term degradation (up to 3-4 years) and intracellular resorption pathways; consequently, PCL was almost forgotten for most of two decades. Recently, a resurgence of interest has propelled PCL back into the biomaterials-arena. The superior rheological and viscoelastic properties over many of its aliphatic polyester counterparts renders PCL easy to manufacture and manipulate into a large range of implants and devices. Coupled with relatively inexpensive production routes and FDA approval, this provides a promising platform for the production of longer-term degradable implants which may be manipulated physically, chemically and biologically to possess tailorable degradation kinetics to suit a specific anatomical site. This review will discuss the application of PCL as a biomaterial over the last two decades focusing on the advantages which have propagated its return into the spotlight with a particular focus on medical devices, drug delivery and tissue engineering.