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Transitions: Journal of Transient Migration - Online First
Online First articles will be assigned issues in due course.
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The end of Mexico–US migration as we knew it – or back to the future?
Authors: Rubén Hernández-León and Efrén SandovalAvailable online: 20 March 2024More LessOver the last decade, scholars have declared the collapse of the Mexico–US system of undocumented migration. The H2 visa programme, a regime of managed sojourning is replacing the system of unauthorized cross-border mobility. In fiscal year 2023, the US government issued nearly 370,000 H2 temporary work visas to Mexicans. This temporary migrant labour programme is also bringing back circulation, temporary legal stays, and mostly male cross-border mobility – features that are akin to the old Bracero Program (1942–64). We contend that the restoration of these legal and sociodemographic dynamics undermines critical pillars of the system of undocumented labour mobility, limiting and reorienting the role of social networks, and potentially ending the way Mexico–United States has functioned for the past half century. We use ethnographic, interview and survey data to analyse the expansion of this new regime of highly mediated cross-border mobility, the ascent of the brokerage apparatus, and its effect transforming the social infrastructure of migration. We ask, specifically, how does the H2 temporary migrant labour programme constrain and diminish kin and hometown-based social networks, previously seen as ‘the engine of migration’? How does the shift from migrant networks to a brokerage apparatus impact trust, reciprocity and the development of migratory social capital? How is the new regime changing the experience of migration – substituting risk and adventure for certainty and routinized movement? How does the H2 temporary migrant labour programme revert the locus of social reproduction of the labour force back to sending communities, preempting integration at the destination? We frame the answers to these questions in the emerging migration industry and infrastructures paradigm, which examines to the role of migrant and non-migrant actors in the facilitation, control and overall mediation and structuring of cross-border mobility.
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‘It is normal, that is, difficult’: Care obligation and solidarity in Balkan-Swiss families during the COVID-19 pandemic
Authors: Barbara Waldis and Stefanie KurtAvailable online: 04 March 2024More LessThis article explores the dynamics of care obligations and family solidarity within Balkan-Swiss families, specifically concerning ageing parents, against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through interviews with adult children residing in Switzerland whose ageing parents reside in Kosovo, North Macedonia and Serbia, we uncover the challenges exacerbated by the pandemic’s global border closures and lockdowns. Our conceptual framework places a spotlight on family solidarity, central during our interviews in contrast to major discussions in social science literature on ageing in cross-border families revolving around moral obligation. We explore how family solidarity plays a pivotal role in the support systems for ageing parents in the interviewed families. We contextualize by the history of migration between the Balkans and Switzerland and the relevant migration laws before we shed light on the conditions of parents in the Balkans both before and during the pandemic. We analyse the impact of international border closures on family relationships, support structures and international travel patterns. We highlight a pattern of cooperation and unity, a solidarity as it manifests in specific relationships within families. Yet, the notion of solidarity encompasses the broader ‘public’ sphere and social movements. Solidary connections transcend one’s immediate (family) circle, encompassing also a global dimension of solidarity. We argue that the intricate dynamics of cross-border family caregiving for ageing parents during the COVID-19 pandemic represent a contemporary social issue suitable for discussion in the context of the solidarity concept. This discussion, we believe, offers a valuable contribution to the discourses on solidarity.
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