Khalid Koser

The geography of highly skilled international migration

The present paper provides a research review of recent literature on international migration by the highly skilled. Its principal aim is to identify the themes which are being discussed, and suggest where research into the subject might best proceed.... [The authors outline] the two most important perspectives in extant research, economic and socio-cultural, [and review] what is known about the geography of migration by the highly skilled.... The paper proposes...a reconceptualisation of migration by the highly skilled as one element in the international movement of expertise.

The limits to 'transnationalism': Bosnian and Eritrean refugees in Europe as emerging transnational communities

This article explores limitations on the concept of transnationalism, through examination of two empirical case studies of communities characterized by emerging transnational practices. Mirroring recent shifts of attention in studies of transnational migration away from US-based examples of established migrant workers, the article focuses on Bosnian refugees in the UK and The Netherlands, and Eritrean refugees in the UK and Germany. It stresses the importance of historical context, and the interconnection of social, political and institutional factors in producing highly uneven patterns of transnational activities both within and between these two groups.

Refugees and transnationalism: The experience of Bosnians and Eritreans in Europe

The study of transnationalism has largely bypassed refugees, or in rare cases has focused specifically on their political activities. Proceeding from recent perspectives in international migration studies which suggest that there may be at best only a blurred conceptual distinction between refugees and other migrants, this article subjects two refugee groups - Eritreans and Bosnians in various European countries - to the type of transnational analysis more commonly found among labour migrants. It extends the focus from political activities to show how refugees can become involved in a range of economic, social and cultural transnational activities. At the same time, the paper identifies a range of obstacles which differentially influence the desire and capacity of the study populations to participate in these activities. On the basis of this empirical evidence, we make the case for a fuller incorporation of refugees in the contemporary study of transnationalism. At a more conceptual level, the paper charts the evolution of transnational characteristics among the study populations. The implication, which extends beyond the refugee context alone, is that transnationalism is not a state of being, as is sometimes implied by the existing literature, but rather that transnationalism is a dynamic process.

New African diasporas

Donald Carter Preface 1. Khalid Koser New African Diasporas 2. David Styan La Nouvelle Vague? Recent Francophone African Settlement in London 3. Marc-Antoine Perouse de Montclos A Refugee Diaspora: When the Somali Go West 4. Jayne Ifekwunigwe Scattered Belongings: Reconfiguring the African in the English-African Diapsora 5. Paul Stoller Marketing Afrocentricity: West African Trade Networks in North America 6. Bruno Riccio More Than a Trade Diaspora: Senegalese Transnational Experiences in Emilia-Romagna (Italy) 7. Khalid Koser Mobilizing New African Diasporas: An Eritrean Case Study 8. Desire Kazadi Wa Kabwe and Aurelia Segatti Paradoxical Expressions of a Return to the Homeland: Music and Literature among the Congolese (Zairean) Diaspora 9. Takyiwaa Manuh Efie or the Meanings of Home among Female and Male Ghanaian Migrants in Toronto, Canada and Returned Migrants to Ghana

Social networks and the asylum cycle : The case of Iranians in the Netherlands

This paper examines the traditional distinction between the migration of refugees and labor migrants in the context of Iranian asylum seekers in the Netherlands. The empirical strategy adopted is to apply a framework designed specifically to explain labor migration to the case of asylum migration, and the social networks approach is identified as the most appropriate. This paper examines the role of social networks through the asylum cycle, focusing on the decision to migrate, the choice of destination, and adaptation in the host society. The key conclusion is that the validity of the distinction between refugee and labor migration varies through the asylum cycle even for the same individual.

Asylum Policies, Trafficking and Vulnerability

This article is located at the intersection of three recent debates on asylum in Europe: the efficacy of asylum policies; the trafficking of asylum seekers, and their growing vulnerability. Most commentators agree that there are relationships between these three debates, but the nature of those relationships remain unclear. Yet the need properly to understand the nature of these links has become especially pressing in the context of a raft of new policy initiatives on both asylum and trafficking, and concerns for their consequences for asylum seekers. At least part of the reason for this lack of clear understanding is significant gaps in empirical research. This article begins to fill some of these gaps, and in so doing to unpick some of the relationships between asylum policies, trafficking and vulnerability. It focuses on the experiences of asylum seekers in Europe, thus presenting a “bottom up perspective on trafficking and asylum policies. The findings are derived from research among Iranian asylum seekers in the Netherlands, conducted between 1994 and 1996. The article discusses some of the reservations that surround this approach, including methodological issues such as trust, and the difficulties of applying more widely a narrow case study. Within the context of these reservations, it draws three main conclusions. First, empirical evidence to support the view that increasing proportions of asylum seekers are being forced to turn to traffickers in order to negotiate restrictive asylum policies. Second, the ways in which trafficking is exposing asylum seekers – including at least some “genuine refugees – to new forms of vulnerability. Third, that direct links exist between asylum policies, trafficking and vulnerability, and that the blame for growing vulnerability lies more with asylum policies than with traffickers or with asylum seekers themselves. Finally, these empirical conclusions are targeted on a series of policy implications.

Coming to the UK: What do asylum-seekers know about the UK before arrival?

Received wisdom suggests that asylum-seekers come to the UK because of the generosity of the welfare state and the ease of finding work in the growing informal labour market, because the UK has no identity cards, and because of a fairly poor record on sending home unsuccessful asylum applicants. Based on interviews with 87 asylum-seekers from Afghanistan, Colombia, Kosovo and Somalia, this paper suggests that the realities of asylum-seeking are quite different. Few of the respondents arrived with much knowledge of the UK, and their knowledge was limited to general impressions of the country; they knew little about asylum policy and practice. There are five main reasons why they knew so little: many had not chosen their own destination; surprisingly few had family or friends already in the UK; in some cases they had been provided with false or misleading information; many had departed their country of origin in a rush; and most were relatively poorly educated. Why they ended up in the UK was often linked to the role of smugglers, who often chose the final destination. In light of these findings, we question both the efficacy and the fairness of current UK asylum policy.

Asylum Migration and Implications for Countries of Origin

There is a substantial literature on the implications for countries of origin of voluntary migration. In broad terms, there are three main approaches. One considers the effects of the absence of migrants, with a particular focus on the concept of ‘brain drain’, whereby the educated and skilled dominate outmigration (for example, Adepoju, 1991). Another considers the ways that migrants continue to interact with their country of origin from abroad, with a focus on economic remittances (for example, Lim, 1992). The third approach considers the potential benefits of return migration for countries of origin (for example, Diatta and Mbow, 1999).

New Approaches to Asylum

Since its inception 50 years ago the international asylum regime has shifted through a series of discernibly different approaches. The most recent approach has been characterized by restrictions on asylum-seekers manifested initially through a reluctance to grant asylum and today through a reluctance even to admit asylum-seekers. There is now a growing consensus that this approach is unsustainable. States are recognizing that restrictions have not fulfilled their original aims of reducing the number of asylum-seekers and furthermore have had unintended consequences that include the growth of human smuggling and trafficking. UN High Commission for Refugees is concerned about the erosion of the entire concept of asylum. Asylum advocates nongovernmental organizations and human rights activists argue that restrictions have impacted as heavily on those who need international protection as on those who do not. As a result a wide range of new initiatives are being proposed which may pave the way for the evolution of a new approach to asylum. This article analyzes the evolution of restrictions in the asylum regime explains the failing of this approach and finally reviews possible ways forward. (authors)

Limits to harmonization: The temporary protection of refugees in the European Union

This article examines the limits to harmonization at the level of the European Union through a case study of policy towards people who fled the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early 1990s. Specific attention is paid to the development of the policy of granting temporary protection instead of full refugee status to Bosnian asylum-seekers, which stretched across all fifteen member states. It is argued that temporary protection emerged as a set of specific responses to the outbreak of war in the former Yugoslavia, involving compromises between states desires to restrict asylum on the one hand, but meet demand from public opinion and international organizations to offer protection to refugees on the other. Subsequent analyses have suggested that these compromises might provide an effective way forward for harmonization of policy at a European level, and even a reformulated international system of refugee protection. However, the authors question this view: they analyse the extent to which temporary protection for Bosnians was coordinated, and whether it actually provided the states and individuals with the benefits that have been suggested.