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Migration, displacement and social integration
Van Hear, Nicholas
Van Hear, Nicholas
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OPWSSD9.pdf
Adobe PDF, 296.18 KB
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Abstract
"Migration within and between countries has long been a manifestation of wide disparities in socio-economic circumstances and perceived lifechances, but in the post-Cold War period it appears to be taking on new dimensions and a new character. Three novel features of the current era are adding to pressures generating migration, shaping patterns of movement and increasing anxiety about the issue. First, technological change has generated a revolution in global communications. One consequence of this is that images of life in the developed world — often heavily distorted ones — have spread wider and wider through electronic media, so that information or misinformation about new opportunities (real or imagined) has become much more accessible to a significant proportion of the world’s population. Another consequence of the technological revolution is that long-distance travel has become easier and cheaper; these changes seem to have had a particularly significant impact on migration from the South. Second, looser exit procedures in the countries of the former Eastern bloc mean that a huge population — around 450 million people — has been brought into the pool of potential migrants; this pool is set to enlarge even further if and when the People’s Republic of China relaxes its emigration controls. This development is shaping new patterns of East-West migration. Third, the resurgence of ethnic, religious and nationalist aspirations and tensions, in part a consequence of the collapse of the communist bloc, has generated considerable instability within many nation states, resulting in the disintegration and reconstitution of a large number of them, thereby fuelling further forced migration. These new forces facilitating or generating migration are combining with longer established ones to alter global patterns of migration. But, while the cumulative effect of these forces is substantial, there are also countervailing pressures constraining migration, particularly as many of the countries and regions that have accommodated migrants in the past are now proving unable or unwilling to admit more newcomers. Because of technological change, many of these economies have become less absorptive of labour. More significantly though, perceptions of the negative political, social and security impacts of immigration increasingly hold sway."(pg 2)
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1994-11
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With permission of the license/copyright holder