Adriana Kemp

International Migration, Domestic Work, and Care Work Undocumented Latina Migrants in Israel

This article discusses three major dilemmas embedded in womens labor migration by focusing on undocumented Latina migrants in Israel. The first is that to break the cycle of blocked mobility in their homelands, migrant women must take jobs that they would have never taken in their countries of origin, despite uncertainty about possible economic outcomes. The second dilemma is that the search for economic betterment leads Latina migrants to risk living and working illegally in the host country, forcing them to remain on the margins of society. The third dilemma relates to the role of mothers who, to secure a better future for their children, are forced to leave them behind, thus subverting the traditional definition of motherhood. The absence of an egalitarian notion and the practice of citizenship for non-Jews leave undocumented labor migrants in Israel without prospects for incorporation into the society.

“Tel Aviv is Not Foreign to You”: Urban Incorporation Policy on Labor Migrants in Israel

This article addresses the growing disjuncture between urban and national policies regarding the incorporation of labor migrants in Israel. Drawing on fieldwork, in-depth interviews with Tel Aviv municipal officials, and archive analysis of Tel Aviv municipality minutes, we argue that urban migrant-directed policy elicits new understandings of membership and participation, other than those envisaged by national parameters, which bear important, even if unintended, consequences for the de facto incorporation of non-Jewish labor migrants. The crux of the Tel Aviv case is that its migrant-directed policy bears especially on undocumented labor migrants, who make up approximately 16 percent of the citys population and who are the most problematic category of resident from the states point of view. In demanding recognition for the rights of migrant workers in the name of a territorial category of “residence,” and by activating channels of participation for migrant communities, local authorities in Tel Aviv are introducing definitions of “urban membership” for noncitizens which conflict sharply with the hegemonic ethnonational policy. We suggest that the disjuncture between urban and national incorporation policies on labor migrants in Israel is part of a general process of political realignment between the urban and the national taking place within a globalized context of labor migration.

Labour migration and racialisation: labour market mechanisms and labour migration control policies in Israel

This article deals with the modes through which labour migration recruitment and control policies have enacted the racialisation of a new category of migrants previously unknown in Israeli society: that of non‐Jewish and non‐Palestinian labour migrants, adding a new stratum of disenfranchised people into an already complex and tension ridden society. Drawing on the work of Robert Miles, I see the racialisation of migrant workers in Israel as the result of political and social regulation forces conducted first and foremost by the state as a means of ‘crisis management’ in times of social and political unrest. Two regulatory sites have been central in the politics of racialisation of labour migrants in Israel: the binding system and deportation policy. My main argument is that while the labour market mechanism has drawn on the de‐politicisation of the role of the state in controlling labour migration through the privatisation of its regulatory functions into the hands of non‐state intermediaries and employers, the deportation policy has engaged in a continuous politicisation of the phenomenon premised on the representation of labour migrants as an offence to state sovereignty and law and as a threat to the demographic balance of the Jewish nation‐state. Both state mechanisms have operated in a complementary way and have not only aimed to maximise profits from and control over labour migrants, but have also served as a central means to actively prevent them from becoming rights‐bearing residents. Moreover, the apparent contradiction between state and market logics that underlies the labour migrant system combines a function of misrecognition that is crucial in reinforcing the legitimacy of state induced racialisation.

Managing Migration, Reprioritizing National Citizenship: Undocumented Migrant Workers' Children and Policy Reforms in Israel

The Article traces recent trends in the management and distribution of citizenship within the Israeli context of the 1990s, as they have evolved in the wake of new modes of migration that are neither Jewish nor Palestinian and that stem from liberalized market policies. The Article focuses on administrative and policy initiatives taken since September 2003 that deal with the naturalization of the children of undocumented labor migrants. The vulnerable situation of these migrants in lacking resident status and being eligible for deportation, as well as the predominant Jewish ethno-national character of the Israeli state, make these initiatives and policy measures particularly surprising. However, these measures also reveal the boundaries of liberalizing reforms, as they become part of general trends in the nation-state towards deeming membership manageable without upsetting its national politics of identity. Indeed, it will be argued that, though this liberalizing legal reform is part of a larger context of demystification of national citizenship taking place in Israel following the adoption of socioeconomic liberal policies, it is also indicative of the adaptability of the nation-state as it seeks to reprioritize ethno-national definitions of citizenship in the face of new challenges.

Bringing in State Regulations, Private Brokers, and Local Employers: A Meso-Level Analysis of Labor Trafficking in Israel

This article examines the intersection of state policies, private brokers and local employers that fuels trafficking practices and forced labor of legal labor migrants. Focusing on the Israeli case of labor migration, we offer a meso-level institutional analysis of the modes by which private brokerss actions combine with state regulations and policies in creating labor trafficking. More specifically, we stress the active role official labor migration schemes play in the growth of a private brokerage sector driven by profit considerations and in the privatization of state capacities regarding migration control and management. Our analysis demonstrates how systemic features – and not necessarily or solely criminal activities – catalyze trafficking practices taking place first and foremost within the realm of legal migration.

Struggling between Routine and Emergency: The Legalization of Migrants and Human Rights Activism in Israel

This article introduces the distinction between ‘routine’ and ‘emergency’ times in human rights struggles. Based on ethnography of Israeli non-governmental organizations (NGOs) advocating on migrant workers’ rights, we show how this emergent distinction manifests in the social dynamics of human rights struggles. Thus, whereas in their daily work, human rights NGOs follow the logic of the bureaucratic system in a slow, Sisyphean manner, in times of perceived ‘emergency’, opportunities open up for a faster pace of action and for breaking routine repertoires. In bringing socio-temporal configurations to bear on human rights struggles, we show how activists’ experiencing of events as ‘emergency’ was a catalyst for the transformation of social mobilization, positing that both NGOs and social movements, however distinct from each other, are in fact related to different ‘times’ of human rights struggles.