This article takes us back down to the local; it presents us what is referred to as a ‘slice of life’. I think these types of articles are important for at least two reasons. First, they usually (like this one) provide the reader with specific information on the sample of participants; and second, some type of insight into how this population goes about their lives. Having said that, the article concentrates on mobilities from Latin America to Europe, and specifically to the UK, but what I found a little lacking was a more precise view of how the people in London lived. For example, labor insertion is important, but just as important is where they reside, how they reside within the city itself; the article made it seem as if these people constantly lived outside their own local geographies. What I mean is that as much as remittances are important, many of us often forget that the people sending these remittances also have to live a daily life. We instead take them out of their daily successes, failures, and struggles, and only view them as cogs in the remittance machine, the faceless migrants sending money home without given them a second thought.
What I found interesting what the author’s focus on mobilities outside the traditional view of bi-national movements. Transnational mobility, in the Latin American context, once again is concentrated on Mexican and Cuban migrations, which have more often than not, followed a sender-receiving country model. This type of migration does hold up with a number of populations, but even those, no longer hold water. Mexicans and Cubans have also begun migrating to Canada and parts of Europe.
The article also brings to light, at least to some extent; smuggling and buying fake passports, and the things that usually brand people as criminals and/or illegals.
What do you guys think?
Die
Am 6. January 2017 um 10:35 Uhr
This article considers mobility as a constant negotiation and emphasises the dynamical aspect of migrating. Indeed the migrants interviewed do not only respect a binational perspective, there are constantly weighting the pros and cons of living in different countries (Italy, Spain, Germany ..). The negotiation also concerns the mobilisation of their capitals: the author refers to Bourdieu’s 3 capitals theory showing how forms of economic, social and cultural capitals are valued and exchanged before and after their settlement.
Even if the migrants can mobilise those capitals they do not have access to the same outcomes than the non-migrants. Indeed, as the author writes, “social capital was used in order to access perverse civic capital that facilitated access to the labour market and the accumulation of capital.” The case of Elisabet that, thanks to her father living in Madrid gets false Spanish papers that allow her to work in London is the perfect example of the mobilisation of the capital in a “perverse” way, the illegal way: the only way for those latin-american immigrants to make their capital effective in Europe.
Am 8. January 2017 um 10:46 Uhr
What I found interesting, is what the author describes at the end of the article: “The creation of social capital was underpinned by levels of trust that reflected a mixed picture with just half (53%) saying they trusted other Latin Americans” (p. 300). Some Latin American migrants stated that envy towards other Latin American migrants was one reason for (mutual) distrust. I think that by mentioning this type of “detail”, the reader is confronted with more than just facts and figures. You get an insight into how some migrants perceive other migrants.
Am 9. January 2017 um 19:44 Uhr
What I liked about the article was the focus not only on the direct migration but also on the onward migration process. This is a very important point because of the freedom of movement with a European passport within the member states of the European Union. A lot of migrants entered Europe via Spain, Portugal or Italy because of the shared or similar language and migrated onward to countries with better job opportunities like the UK. The personal experiences described in the article underlines the transnational social connections. The case of Ricardo from Ecuador, now living in the UK, who sends every month remittances to his wife in Spain and to his daughter in Latin America is a perfect example for these connections. But I absolutely agree with you that it is necessary to see the person behind the remittances and observe how they are living their daily life in the UK.
Am 11. January 2017 um 19:35 Uhr
In her article, McIlwaine attempts to highlight the particular strategies and tactics used by Latin Americans living in London in order to deal with, and circumvent (whenever possible), the constrains and barriers posed by European and British immigration policies. I think that Prof. Rubio’s appreciation about the lack of information about those immigrants’ daily lives is a bit unfair, not because it wouldn’t be interesting or relevant to know about the more-human side of this people’s quotidian struggles, but because such a matter is simply not among the aims of the researcher; in other words, the reader is asking to the author to tackle an issue that simply doesn’t fit into the author’s interests or research objectives. Personally, I found the notion of negotiation of Capitals quite interesting since it contributes to understand the complex nature of social phenomena -particularly of immigration- from a sociological perspective that takes into consideration the structural level of social issues, without neglecting the human-agency factor.
Am 17. January 2017 um 13:32 Uhr
I found the article to be a very good example and a perfect plea for the importance of the multi-dimensional characteristics of transnational social spaces. While I do also understand Felipe’s interest in the daily lifes of the migrants, I agree with Jesus that in this case it was simply not the focus of the author. In my oppinion, it would have been too much to also include detailed information on everyday lifes of Latin American immigrants in London, and would probably just have lead to a more superficial work on their transnational bonds.
The theoretical background of Bourdieu’s concepts of different forms of capital was not only a very useful tool in order to organize the findings, but also the facts made Bourdieu’s theory clearer to me. I thought the content both very informative through figures as well as illustrative through detailed examples. It was interesting to read about how migrants empower themselves against structure by negotiating economic, civic, cultural and social capital.
I couldn’t help but wonder how their situation may change or what measures they may need to take with the Brexit coming. And this will not only affect the migrants already in London, but might change the ways of future migrants even more. I guess that will be an interesting topic for research on transnational migration in the future.
Am 7. February 2017 um 22:52 Uhr
I personally appreciated the casting of migrants as active agents rather than merely passive objects of immigration policy. To some extent, I take issue with the category ‘perverse’ civic capital given that its connotation is one of unhealthy or pathological deviation from a norm, which seems a little distasteful to me considering the arbitrary nature of the advantages afforded individuals merely in virtue of the circumstances of their birth.
In my opinion, one of the most interesting outcomes of the research described was the fact that “those who had lived elsewhere were more likely to send money or education purposes (10% compared with 5%).” I wouldn’t contest that the difference is great enough to come to any grandiose conclusions but it does strike me that perhaps the value of education in offering greater opportunity is put into evidence by observing more than one national laboral landscape.
Am 16. February 2017 um 12:20 Uhr
I totally agree with you, that behind a migrant their is always a human being with his needs and a special daily life that requires a lot of strength and determination, but I also think that it was not the goal of this article, but to underline other aspects, like the different capitals (cultural, civic etc.) are involved in the migration process from Latin America to Europe.
Personally, I found interesting how inter-generational transfer of institutional cultural capital that can be transformed into economic capital, like in the article a mother who is happy that her sun is studying in English, in order to gave him a future better paid job.
Moreover, I didn’t know that that UK was only the last of several migration countries where Latinos emigrate to, like a part of a longer project: “it emerged that more than a third had lived elsewhere before arrival in London (36.5%)” (p.239).
The article made me think that one consequence of globalization and migration is to make other countries always look much better (working and studying speaking) than yours. It’s a common fact that always happen also in Europe, especially for people living in the southern countries like Italy, Spain or Greece. I am Italian and personally I’ve always looked at Germany and UK as paradise economically speaking. And it’s not. Just like people talking about UK in this article: once they’ve arrived they discovered that it was far away from their expectations and sometimes you have to face a bad paid job and a lot of competition. “But it’s not the paradise that people say. There’s no work there, most people work in agriculture, you have to harvest and you have to be really strong, also when it rains there’s no work” (p. 297).
Am 20. December 2023 um 10:47 Uhr
Considering the focus on Latin Americans in Europe, what aspects of their experiences, challenges, or contributions would you like to see explored in more detail in future research or articles? go check our Telkom University