Western benevolence in the Trafficking in People reports Critical feminists have analysed the discourse of anti-trafficking as working in traditional (Western) gendered and neo-imperialist terms, in political and NGO discourse, as well […]
Working Paper: Western Orientalism and Chinese counter-narratives in anti-trafficking fictions
Welcome to Trans-national Im/mobility 301
Welcome. This blog site is dedicated to the politico-historical sociology of the mobility and immobility of people in the globalized period. The blogs introduce key issues in the sociological study of migration, […]
Lecture 1 (spring semester). Globalization theory: a sceptical introduction
Welcome. I’m Dr. Matt Merefield, a historico-political sociologist working on trans-national migration and im/mobility, drawing on historical materialist and intersectional approaches. I’d like to start by sharing a brief transnational autobiography with […]
Lecture 2 (spring semester). Trans/national political economy: viewing inequality through an intersectional lens
Intersectionality How does trans/national inequality work through combinations of different categories? Matrix of domination (Professor Hill Collins) Transnational garment industry, intersectional exploitation, forms of intersectional resistance Some key categories of intersection […]
Draft: Lecture 3 (spring semester). Trans/national im/mobilities
“New Mobilities”? According to some globalization theorists: we are living in an age of increasing mobilities, and increasing connectedness and complexity conveying material goods by sea, rail and air individuals […]
Lecture 4 (spring semester).Why and how people migrate within and beyond national borders
Migration reasons, networks and scale (infra, international, global) What is a migrant? Do people migrate because of push or pull factors? Or sometimes Both? Does the political economy structure their choices/actions? Migration Networks […]
Draft Lecture 5 (spring semester). Chinese internal and international migration
Welcome to this week’s two-part lecture on Chinese migration. Today we will talk about Chinese migration. We will introduce Historical migration patterns: Late Imperial, Republican, Maoist, Reform (and post-reform) eras. Internal and […]
Draft: Lecture 6 (spring semester). Precarity, Immobility and Indigeneity
Sociological and post/colonial stratifications of im/mobility Bauman (1998:86) described the stratifications of postmodern consumer society in terms of freedom, or lack of freedom of mobility. The de-bordered (de-territorialised) freedom of mobility […]
Lecture 7 (spring semester): Displacement, asylum seekers, refugees.
Welcome to lecture 6 on kinds, causes and responses to forced and coerced displacement In this lecture we will discuss: Definitions: ‘forced migration’ ‘refugees,’ ‘asylum seekers,’ ‘internally displaced persons’. Asylum seekers & […]
Draft: Lecture 8 (spring semester). Penal and migratory immobilities
Prisons, like refugee camps and immigration detention facilities, are peculiar institutions that function at one end of a continuum of social and physical mobility and immobility. The prison works to forcibly confine […]
Draft: Lecture 9 (spring semester). Elite, professional and investment migration
Reading Duvell. F and Jordan, B. (2005) Migration: The Boundaries of Equality and Justice, London, Polity Press. Radhakrishnan, S. Appropriately Indian: Gender and Culture in a New Transnational Class, Duke University […]
Draft. Lecture 10 (spring semester). Migration, Gender and Class.
Reading Ehrenreich, B. And Hochschild, A. (eds) (2002) Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, Sex Workers in the New Economy. New York: Henry Holt. Jacka, T. (2005), “Between “Rural Idiocy” and “Urban Modernity””, […]
