4349 - Migratory Aspirations: How Aspiring Migrants and Refugees Decide to Leave

Session Submission Type: Paper Session 100min

Description

Labor migrants’ and refugees’ treacherous routes and dire living and working conditions have long been known, resulting in a large literature probing their motivations for emigrating despite the risks they face. Less attention has been paid to how aspiring migrants and refugees decide to leave. That is, what are the contextual effects and social dynamics that shape the process of emigrating? This shift in focus foregrounds the complexity of migration actors and processes—employers and brokers; industries and markets; formality and informality; familiarity and the unknown. It also raises questions about how contemporary technologies make it so some migrants and refugees do not fully “leave” their home communities. This session highlights the formation of migratory aspirations, plans, and pathways. It especially welcomes papers that address the fluidity of would-be migrants’ hopes, expectations, and social networks before arriving in a destination country.

Sub Unit

• Section on International Migration / Migratory Aspirations: How Aspiring Migrants and Refugees Decide to Leave

Session Organizers

• Daniel Karell, New York University Abu Dhabi

• Phi Hong Su, New York University Abu Dhabi

Presider

• Phi Hong Su, New York University Abu Dhabi

Individual Presentations

• Mexicans’ Migration Intentions in an Era of Heightened U.S. Enforcement - Joshua Thomas Wassink, Princeton University

• Religion as a migratory aspiration: The case of the migration of Filipina Muslim domestic workers - Julien Debonneville, University of Geneva

• Why Ethiopian women migrate to the Middle East - Kerilyn Schewel, University of Amsterdam; Tilah Alemayehu, Sher Ethiopia PLC

• “What would my future be?”: Conceptualization of the “future” among Syrian newcomer mothers in Canada - Laila Omar, University of Toronto

Discussant

• Silvia Pedraza, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor