Gwendolyn Sasse awarded grant from John Fell OUP Research Fund
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Dr Gwendolyn Sasse has been awarded a grant from the John Fell OUP Research Fund Small Awards Scheme for the project `Migration and the Politics of Time: What is Temporary Migration? What are its Implications?`
Project abstract:
The international baseline definition of a migrant is a person who has been outside his/her country of birth or citizenship for a period of 12 months or longer. This widely used definition subsumes migrants who vary considerably in their motivations, backgrounds, time horizons and ways of dealing with their migration experience. Similarly, the estimate of a global annual total of about $300 billion, sent back by migrants as remittances to their home countries, tells us little about the migrants included, how temporary or permanent they are, or what their background, transnational ties and their degree of political and societal integration in their host countries and in their home countries might be.
Temporary migration is a growing and as yet badly understood phenomenon that forms an inherent part of the logic of globalisation. References to ‘temporary migration` abound in the public debate about migration. Schemes and legal provisions facilitating temporary migration allow governments to tap into the economic benefits of immigration, while limiting public or political fears about the long-term implications of immigration on employment, public services and societal cohesion. There is a track record of prominent migration waves that were labelled as ‘temporary` becoming permanent and leaving the host state unprepared for the challenges of integration.
This pilot project will compare a contemporary case of voluntary temporary migration (Poles in the UK) and a contemporary case of involuntary migration (Bosnians in Austria). Each case sub-divides into groups of continuously temporary and more permanent migrants. The key research questions for this first stage of the research are: 1) Under what conditions does temporary migration remain temporary? Under what conditions does temporary migration become more permanent? How can we best measure the temporal aspect?; 2) Does temporary migration breed weak or specific forms of political engagement and societal integration?
The project will run from January 2009 - December 2010.
Gwendolyn Sasse is a Professorial Fellow at Nuffield College and University Reader in the Department of Politics and International Relations and the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies.
