A synthesis of macro and micro approaches to explaining migration: evidence from inter-state migration in the United States

The interrelationships between macro and micro factors in the analysis of interstate migration in the United States are explored. A synthesis between these factors is attempted "by combining objectively calibrated characteristics of states with their subjectively measured counterparts....First, the relationships between the objective variables and their subjective counterparts are analyzed. Second, both sets of variables are used to explain residential preferences and migration. Third, a series of path models are constructed to indicate how the subjective variables act as intervening variables between their objective counterparts and migration."     

Forced migration and legal-spatial violence in the United States and Germany

Asylum laws cannot function without spatial technologies and practices. Refugee camps, detention centers and accommodation facilities, in addition to dispersal and residential obligations, highlight the spatiality of asylum laws and policies. They are not only designed to regulate forced migrants' movement and place them in alternative legal and spatial regimes, but they are also spaces where migrants’ legal rights are violated and access to integrating institutions are restricted. Based on findings from Germany and the United States, this paper argues that current asylum regimes are characterized by a system of legal-spatial violence; a process in which a form of violence is embedded in law, implemented through policies and formal processes, and realized and reproduced spatially. This entanglement between the law, space, and violence involves complex and paradoxical processes: immobility and internal bordering practices (where forced migrants are confined and their movement is limited), as well as forced mobility and situations of unbordering (where movement is forced, and where spatial restrictions are either repealed or replaced). These processes fragment and prolong the trajectories of forced migration. Compulsion, displacement, and the dispossession of rights—which constitute the process of forced migration—do not cease on entering Germany or the United States, but can continue. The rationale for legal-spatial violence goes beyond the securitization of forced migration and the control and deterrence of forced migrants, and also includes economic logic and profit making.     

Environmental influences on skilled worker migration from Bangladesh to Canada

We conducted focus groups in Toronto with 44 recent skilled worker immigrants from Bangladesh to explore whether their decisions to migrate to Canada may have been influenced by environmental problems. Previous research has documented how floods, cyclones, droughts, and seasonal precipitation variations affect rural‐urban migration patterns within Bangladesh, and to its neighbours. Most participants had not experienced such environmental hazards, having lived in Dhaka prior to migrating. However, Dhaka's ongoing problems with air and water pollution, sanitation, lack of green space, and food adulteration were cited by 70% as being relevant considerations for the decision to migrate. The degree of influence varied considerably among participants. Roughly 16% said pollution was their primary motivation for leaving, household members having suffered from illnesses traceable to air pollution or poor sanitation. Another 54% stated that Dhaka's environmental problems were part of a wider range of quality‐of‐life concerns that had some influence on their decision. The findings suggest that current migration to Canada is not connected with environmental migration that takes place within Bangladesh, but that urban environmental problems combined with other social, economic, and political factors can help drive migration.     

Scottish emigration in the 1980s: a migration channels approach to the study of skilled international migration

"British emigration is now dominated by skilled transient movements rather than traditional settler emigration movements. This switch requires new frameworks for migration analysis. A migration channels approach is advocated with attention focused on the roles of the internal labour markets of multi-national companies, international recruitment agencies and international skill transfers by small- and intermediate-sized companies in moulding contemporary skilled migration. The migration processes which have emerged in relation to the operation of these three channels can be differentiated in terms of migrant characteristics, the status of migration contracts and patterns of movement. The regional dimension is highlighted in this article by contrasting the experience of recent Scottish emigration with that of the South-East of England. Three data sources (the International Passenger Survey, the results of a survey questionnaire, and company case study material) are employed to illustrate the nature of Britain's main migration channels. It is argued that the three channels are responsible for a selective structuring of the British migration system."     

North Korea's diplomacy to engage the United States

For the past two decades relations between North Korea and the United States have become increasingly hostile. Pervasive and vociferous criticism of North Korea's dangerous and seemingly irrational behaviour has focused on Pyongyang's use of nuclear brinkmanship, violations of human rights and general disregard for the well-being of the North Korean people, as exemplified by its decision to develop a nuclear programme while the country suffered from widespread famine. However, an alternate view put forth by both American and South Korean experts on North Korea holds that Pyongyang's use of the nuclear wager primarily has been intended to demand Washington's attention in order to initiate bilateral talks and eventually normalise relations with the US. Certainly, Pyongyang's actions have been ham-fisted at times; however, its commitment to the goal of normalisation has been unwavering. The current controversy regarding North Korea's nuclear programme may serve as a necessary step to build trust between Washington and Pyongyang and might continue for sometime, given the short history of direct engagement. However, one thing is clear: neither Washington nor Pyongyang can afford to go back to the starting point.     

Between neoliberalism and cultural conservatism: spatial divisions and multiplications of hospice labor in the United States

This article offers a critical geographic understanding of hospice work in Seattle Washington, and the US generally. It highlights the spatial divisions of labor between home and institutions in hospice care, as well as divisions within the home (where the majority of hospice occurs). It further shows how these divisions produce multiplications of labor for women carers in the home. I interpret these divisions and multiplications of labor as manifestations of neoliberal welfare state restructuring. A certain cultural conservatism, however, is also potentially reproduced by these geographies. These interpretations situate hospice work in a social theoretical context, and look beyond neoliberalism as the singular rightward keel of social policy.     

Atlas of the United States

In an attempt to distinguish between regional physical geography and the Soviet school of landscape science, the author defines the study objects of the two disciplines and provides a useful review of the present state of landscape science in the Soviet Union. Physical geography is said to be concerned with study of the entire geographical shell of the earth, ranging from the troposphere to the bottom of the layer of sedimentary rocks in the earth's crust. Landscape science focuses on the so-called landscape sphere, which is defined as the portion of the geographical shell that lies at or near the surface of the earth and is imbued with present-day life. Although some Soviet geographers treat the term “landscape” as a broad conceptual term (similar to climate), most investigators tend to give the term a classificatory or typological connotation, regarding landscape as the basic unit in a classification of natural geocomplexes. One landscape school focuses on the morphological structure of landscape, the other on model-building of the landscape mechanism.     

鲁宾逊对美国历史教育的贡献

美国新史学家鲁宾逊提出了实用主义的历史教育论 ,设计了新的课程体系 ,编写了一系列历史教科书 ,对二十世纪美国的历史教育做出了重要贡献     

Africa and the United States

Peter J. Schraeder. United States Foreign Policy toward Africa: Incrementalism, Crisis, and Change . New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.     

墨面哥人移民美国的历程

墨西哥移民在美国移民史上占有重要的地位,是"-3今美国最大的移民群体.作为一种历史现象,墨西哥人向美国较大规模的移民开始于20世纪初前后,概而观之,除20世纪30年代因大萧条而短暂中断外,墨西哥移民一直呈现出持续的高水平特征.墨西哥人移民美国的历程大致可以划分为四个阶段,与之对应的是四次移民浪潮:第一次浪潮从19世纪末20世纪初到1929年美国经济大萧条;第二次移民浪潮从1942年美墨双方签署<布拉塞洛计划>到1964年该计划终结;第三次浪潮从1965年移民法颁布到20世纪80年代中期,此间大量墨西哥无证件移民流入美国;第四次浪潮从<1986年移民改革与控制法>颁布至今.墨西哥人移民美国源于一系列历史、地理、经济和社会因素,根植于关墨两国总体社会经济背景之下.     

墨西哥人移民美国的历程

墨西哥移民在美国移民史上占有重要的地位,是当今美国最大的移民群体。作为一种历史现象,墨西哥人向美国较大规模的移民开始于20世纪初前后,概而观之,除20世纪30年代因大萧条而短暂中断外,墨西哥移民一直呈现出持续的高水平特征。墨西哥人移民美国的历程大致可以划分为四个阶段,与之对应的是四次移民浪潮：第一次浪潮从19世纪末20世纪初到1929年美国经济大萧条;第二次移民浪潮从1942年美墨双方签署《布拉塞洛计划55301964年该计划终结;第三次浪潮从1965年移民法颁布到20世纪80年代中期,此间大量墨西哥无证件移民流入美国;第四次浪潮从《1986年移民改革与控制法》颁布至今。墨西哥人移民美国源于一系列历史、地理、经济和社会因素,根植于美墨两国总体社会经济背景之下。     

Regional labor markets and the household migration decision

"The current work extends the modeling of the household migration decision to take into account location-specific influences and relates these to regional wage differentials. This allows for more complete analysis of real wage gains or losses associated with migration and inferences regarding the nature of equilibrium or disequilibrium wage differentials between regions." Data are from the Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics for the period 1976-1978. "The results indicate systematic and often substantial influences of household location on the nominal wage and on both job and residence mobility. Based on these findings, comparisons of wage growth patterns are made for those changing jobs and region of residence status. Although compared to other households the wage growth of these migrants is on average lower before migration and higher after migration, the analysis provides no support for arguments that nominal regional wage differentials reflect systematic ordering of real wage differentials. This finding suggests that real wage gains are closely tied to the interregional migration decision but are not related to regional nominal wage differentials in a simple fashion."     

The determinants of labor migration in Egypt

The factors which affect individual decisions with regard to geographic movement in Egypt are examined and the magnitude in which each factor exerts its influence on aggregate geographic labor supply adjustments is estimated. The spatial unit used in the study is the administrative region, of which there are 25. No effort is made to esimate the impact which migration has had on the origin or destination region. The migrant will presumably choose that destination which, given his information, the migrant thinks will be best. The model which is employed attempts to explain gross interregional migration without the explicit introduction of an individual decision function. Rather, migration is related to certain aggregate proxy variables. Among the independent variables employed in the analysis are (origin and destination) income, education, urbanization, and population. The other explanatory variable used is the distance between region i and region j. The migration measure employed refers to cumulative male migration which occurred prior to 1960; the independent variables are defined for a given point in time (1960). The independent variables explain a reasonably large percentage of the variance in migration between regions in Egypt. All variables were significant at the 5% level or better. The findings indicate that distance acts as an important impediment to migration. Migration is away from low wage and toward high wage regions, which may have contributed to a narrowing of regional wage differentials. Migrants are attracted to regions which have large populations and to regions which have a large percentage of urban to total population. A tendency exists for migrants to come from regions with large populations. There is also some tendency for migrants to come from regions which have a relatively large urban population. Migrants do not appear to come from regions with high educational levels.