Going South:

• In Event: 3251 - Section on International Migration Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 12. Global and Transnational Perspectives

Abstract

People moving from the Global North to the Global South are driven by complementary but different motivations than migration from the South to North. By using a case of development workers moving from North to South, I offer hypotheses and preliminary evidence that North to South workers move to fulfill expectations of meaningful, service-oriented work and capitalize on potential for relative status elevation through relocation. Privileged mobility, rescue narratives and riskiness are factors that can influence decisions to migrate from North to South. This discussion provides a hypothesis and discussion that mobility acts as a path to status elevation by leveraging the human capital allotted by race and nationality status across borders. This minority flow of migrants complicates discussions on who migrates and why.

Author

• Erin Heinz, University of Arizona