Circulations: A brief introduction

Authors: Marta Vilar Rosales And Heather Horst
Page Start: 3

Conceptualizing migration and mobility in anthropology: An historical analysis

Authors: Caroline B. Brettell
Page Start: 7

How have mobile humans (migrants) and the migration process been defined in the past and what role has the discipline of anthropology in particular played, not only in contributing to conceptual definitions and classifications regarding mobile populations, but also in challenging them? This is the central question of this article that lays a foundation for those that follow in this special issue focused on advances in the analysis of migration and mobility. The article investigates this question through five snapshots across the twentieth century, exploring how immigrant/migrant populations were defined and constructed by anthropologists and how these constructions were and are situated within broader historical contexts. The article also interrogates the role of human mobility in the production of anthropology as a discipline, including its own move from a lens focused on tradition and fixedness to one focused on fluidity and transformation.

Framing movement experiences: Migration, materiality and everyday life

Authors: Marta Vilar Rosales
Page Start: 27

This article aims to discuss contemporary migrations from the perspective of material culture. The discussion presented here assumes that material culture plays a significant part in all migration processes by establishing lines of continuity between present and past, confirming and reproducing identity and belonging, framing everyday life and displaying new positioning strategies. Beginning with two snapshots of recent ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Brazil and Canada, I hope to contribute to the discussion of contemporary migration through studying the lens of materiality and the role it plays in these processes. It will be argued that material culture is a productive tool, not only to address the grounds, motivations and resources people activate in order to utilize migration as an effective option, but also to discuss the relationships between movement, settling, cultural reproduction and innovation.

When children are not ‘the left behind’: Transnational practices of intra-regional mobility in the South Pacific

Authors: Andreea R. Torre And Alessio Cangiano
Page Start: 43

Much of the traditional literature on migration in the South Pacific describes Pacific Islands as countries of permanent out-migration directed towards the Rim countries. Yet over the past two decades there has been considerable diversification of the routes and patterns of South Pacific mobility. This article, by focusing on emerging mobility trajectories between Pacific Island Countries, ventures into the scarcely studied arena of intra-regional migration with a case study of Nauruan migrant families in Fiji. Conceptually, this research is positioned within the literature on transnationalism. Yet most studies on transnational family migration have focused on ‘South–North’ migration routes; emphasized the impacts of both economic and social remittances on local communities at origin; and identified migratory patterns characterized by family separation, with parents ‘on the move’ and children and older family members ‘left-behind’. This article, which relies on a mix-method approach integrating quantitative data and qualitative information, provides a complementary perspective highlighting the centrality of education as primary driver of the migration process, the pivotal role of children in the construction of transnational social fields and the intersections between institutional structures, self-initiated practices of movement and kinship relations in shaping the family migratory trajectories.

Mobility, inequality and choice: Circulation on the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic

Authors: Erin Taylor
Page Start: 65

The ‘mobility’ in ‘socio-economic mobility’ is no mere metaphor. Rather, it is indicative of the intrinsic connection between social status and the circulation of resources. However, it would be a mistake to suggest that mobility is an all-in-one solution to inequality. The question of who benefits from the movement of people, things and information depends on what choices are available to people, how they are able to combine them and whether those choices can be successfully deployed to meet the goals they have set. I show how the relationship between mobility and inequality affects the choices people make in their everyday lives. For Haitians and their relatives living in the border zone of Hispaniola, mobility is a necessary livelihood strategy, but it comes with problematic social and economic implications. First, I provide an overview of the relationship between mobility and inequality. Second, I introduce the field site, a poor cross-border region on the southern border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Third, I demonstrate how Haitians’ experiences of mobility and inequality affect their choices. I conclude by discussing how we can build a picture of mobility and inequality that responds more to the complexities of people’s lives.

Book Reviews

Authors: Wendy Wei Yang And George Wong
Page Start: 81

• Class Inequality in the Global City: Migrants, Workers and Cosmopolitanism in Singapore, Junjia Ye (2016)
  
• Migrant Dubai: Low Wage Workers and the Construction of a Global City, Laavanya Kathiravelu (2016)