International migration and emerging Asia I

HUM-500 / 3 credits

Teacher: Lam Ngan Ting Katy

Language: English

Remark: Une seule inscription à un cours SHS+MGT autorisée. En cas d'inscriptions multiples elles seront toutes supprimées sans notification.

Summary

This course introduces concepts, debates and issues of international migration, and through diverse migration patterns in Asia, examines how migration and global development are related.

Content

Why do people migrate? How does migration affect and reflect our society? Migration is often part of a broader process of global change and development. Thus, as a product of social transformations, migration provides an interesting gateway to understand global development.

 

This course aims, firstly, to provide basic understanding on theories, patterns and key issues of international migration. Secondly, the course focuses especially on a variety of Asian migration pathways. "Asian Century", a term coined by some, emphasizes a growing dominant role of Asia in the world. A highly diverse human mobility has been emerging in Asia, alongside with its fast-growing economies, various demographics (youthful in some, ageing in some others), rising middle class, growing intra-regional inequalities, as well as competition of talent and economic opportunities. Examining the migration and development nexus in Asia, it will enrich understanding on changes, opportunities and challenges that Asian societies are facing, and their significance to the rest of the world.

 

More precisely, part one of the course a) introduces main theories and trends of international migration; b) highlights how migration and social-economic development are linked in both sending and receiving countries; and c) discusses some key issues on international migration, for instance integration / assimilation, ethnic relations and identity, citizenship and welfare, gender and family, health and well-being.

 

Through explaining various migration patterns emerging in Asia, part two of the course illustrates what, how and why social-economic transformations have been taking place in different parts of Asia.

 

The following themes (tentative) on emerging Asia migration patterns will be discussed:

1. Global Care Chain: Migrant domestic workers from the Philippines and Indonesia

2. "Next World's Factory" in Mekong region: Rural-urban migration, feminization of labour and renegotiation of gender and family roles

3. Rising Asian's middle class and quest for international higher education

4. Transnational elites in Asian cities: White Privileges, Language Capital and Cultural Ghettoisation

5. "Working from the beach": Digital nomad and a new boundary of work, home and citizenship

6. Lifestyle migration: Searching a better or an affordable life in Thailand

7. Pensioners on the move: International retirement migration in Malaysia

8. Ultra-rich Chinese investment migration: buying status, social class reproduction and implications to hosting societies

 

This section will be concluded by a discussion on rethinking the migration-development nexus in the post-COVID era.

 

 

Keywords

International Migration; Asian Development; Global Production Chain; Global Care Chain; Global Middle Class; Transnational Elites; International Higher Education; Lifestyle Migration; Retirement Migration

 

Learning Prerequisites

Required courses

No

Recommended courses

No

Important concepts to start the course

No

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, the student must be able to:

  • Identify main theories, approaches and key issues to the study of international migration.
  • Analyze various Asian migration patterns and their relationships with social transformations and global development.
  • Assess / Evaluate the issues of migration and development in a specific country.

Transversal skills

  • Set objectives and design an action plan to reach those objectives.
  • Access and evaluate appropriate sources of information.
  • Collect data.
  • Make an oral presentation.
  • Write a scientific or technical report.
  • Demonstrate the capacity for critical thinking

Teaching methods

Lectures, group discussion on developing a research project proposal that would be implemented in the second semester

Expected student activities

Pre-class readings, active class participation, individual essays and group proposal development

Assessment methods

  1. An individual critical review (2 pages) on a book chapter/ an article/ a film related to international migration (50%)
  2. A group project proposal (4-6 pages) on a research topic of migration and development (50%). (The project proposal will be implemented in Semester 2)

Supervision

Office hours Yes
Assistants No
Forum No

Resources

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)

No

Bibliography

Bender, D., Hollstein, T. & Schweppe, C. (2018). International Retirement Migration Revisited: From Amenity Seeking to Precarity migration?, Transnational Social Review, 8:1, 98-102

Caraway, T. (2007). Assembling Women: The Feminization of Global Manufacturing. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Chan, Y. W., & Lan, P.-C. (2022). Rethinking the Migration-Development Nexus in the Post-COVID-19 era. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 31(3), 324–335

Chan, Y. W., Haines, D., & Lee, J. (Eds.) (2014). The Age of Asian migration: Continuity, Diversity, and Susceptibility (vol. 1). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Constable, N. (2014). Born Out of Place: Migrant Mothers and the Politics of International Labor. Berkeley: University of California Press.

De Haas, H., Castles, S., & Miller, M. J. (2020). The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World (6th ed.). New York. The Guilford Press.

Green, P.  (2020). Disruptions of Self, Place and Mobility: Digital Nomads in Chiang Mai, Thailand€, Mobilities, 15:3, 431-445

Hoang, L. A., & Yeoh, B. S. A. (2011). €œBreadwinning Wives and Left-Behind€ Husbands: Men and Masculinities in the Vietnamese Transnational Family€. Gender & Society, 25(6), 717–739

King, R., Eralba C., & Fokkema, T. (2021). New frontiers in international retirement migration”. Ageing and Society 41 (6): 1205–1220.

Lan, P.-C. (2018). Raising Global Families: Parenting, Immigration, and Class in Taiwan and the US. Stanford University Press.

Liu-Farrer G., (2016). Migration as Class-based Consumption: The Emigration of the Rich in Contemporary China€, The China Quarterly, 226, pp. 499-518.

Massey, D. S., Arango, J., Hugo, G., Kouaouci, A., Pellegrino, A. & Taylor, J. E. (1993). €œTheories of International Migration: A Review and Appraisal”. Population and Development Review, 19, 431-466.

Ono, M. (2015). €œCommoditization of Lifestyle Migration: Japanese Retirees in Malaysia€, Mobilities, 10:4, 609-627

Vertovec, S. (2007). Superdiversity and its Implications”. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30(6), 1024-1054.

 

Academic Journal on Migration for references:

Asian and Pacific Migration Journal

Ethnic and Racial Studies

Global Networks

Mobilities

International Migration

International Migration Review

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

Migration Studies

Population, Space and place

Ressources en bibliothèque

In the programs

  • Semester: Fall
  • Number of places: 60
  • Exam form: During the semester (winter session)
  • Subject examined: International migration and emerging Asia I
  • Lecture: 2 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
  • Project: 1 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
  • Type: mandatory

Reference week

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