Migration und translokale Resilienz

Autor(en)

Simon Alexander Bunchuay-Peth

Abstrakt

This dissertation analyses the role of transnational migration for social resilience. It is assumed that the translocal embeddedness and translocal social practices are central to the emergence and maintenance of social resilience. The current debate in migration research has pointed out the central importance of economic and social remittances; moreover, in the last decade an increasing remittance euphoria can be observed. This dissertation scrutinizes this debate and argues that it is important not only to examine remittances more specifically but also the translocal context in which they are acquired and transferred. Moreover, the positive impact of translocal relations on social resilience is not an automatism but depends on several factors.
Migration is a complex process of leaving, returning and leaving again and must always be examined in the context of society as a whole, and understood in the frame of social theory. This dissertation draws on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice, which is well suited to understand social practices of migrants and non-migrants and their influence on social resilience. The nexus between migration and social resilience has so far been investigated mainly through in-situ research and rarely through empirical studies at the micro level. This dissertation aims to contribute to closing this research gap, following a comparative approach. In order to better understand the role of migration and translocal embeddedness – but also other factors such as gender, migration regimes and duration of migration – on social resilience, this dissertation looks at two case studies: (a) the labour migration between Thailand and Singapore and (b) the transnational (marriage) migration between Thailand and Germany. The two case studies lend themselves very well to a comparison. On the one hand, labor migration to Singapore is dominated by men, who are socially segregated due to the migration policy of the island state. On the other hand, the migration to Germany is dominated by women who are much more integrated into the society of the destination country through marriage. The first article (chapter 7) of this cumulative dissertation focuses on the mobilities and moorings of Thai contract workers in Singapore. The article argues that a conceptual merging of the new mobilities paradigm with the translocal perspective offers a fruitful avenue to understand the emergence and persistence of translocal spaces. The article takes an empirical look
at the quotidian practices, mobilities and social embedding of Thai workers in Singapore and raises the question of how translocal relations change in the wake of declining migration flows.The second article (chapter 8) takes up the current debate on the new enthusiasm about the role of remittances in development and draws attention to the danger of overestimating this role. The aim of the article is to take a closer look at the process of remittance transfer and to examine its specific effects. Empirically, this paper examines the situation of various return migrants, especially from Singapore. The article concludes that the transfer of social remittances faces many socio-structural obstacles and that the (trans-)local context is particularly
important to understand the influence of migration on social resilience. The third article (chapter 9) focuses on transnational (marriage) migration between Thailand
and Germany and examines its influence on social resilience. The article compares the different intensity of translocal relations of several family networks and concludes that for reactive social resilience (coping and reorganization) translocality is less important than social roles and the actors’ positionality. For the proactive social resilience (adaptation, anticipation), on the other hand, translocal connectedness plays an even greater role.
Overall, this comparative and multi-sited dissertation provides a theoretically guided and empirically profound contribution to the research field on social resilience and proposes the concept of translocal resilience as an important conceptual extension to this field.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Geographie und Regionalforschung

Anzahl der Seiten

208

Publikationsdatum

2020

ÖFOS 2012

507002 Bevölkerungsgeographie

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/migration-und-translokale-resilienz(1d13c392-fdf2-4334-8bd6-159824011723).html