We checked 8 migration studies journals on Friday, January 16, 2026 using the Crossref API. For the period January 09 to January 15, we retrieved 24 new paper(s) in 7 journal(s).

Ethnic and Racial Studies

Rivers of injustice: exploring Oklahoma’s black floodplain communities through the framework of whiteness as property
Edith Ritt-Coulter
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Abolitionist intimacies: queer and trans migrants against the deportation state
Jessica Walmsley
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Whiteness as freedom: paradoxes of liberty and slavery in British New York, 1664–1763
Andrew Wells
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The possible form of an interlocution. W. E. B. Du Bois and Max Weber in correspondence
Michael Halewood, Michael Thomas
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Introduction
John Solomos
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Shaping the city with faith: place-making of immigrant Muslim women in Helsinki
Riina Sinisalo
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International Migration

Labour Migration at the Crossroads: Politicisation and Segmented Governance in Croatia
Andrea Spehar
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This article examines how labour migration is governed and politicised in Croatia, a post‐socialist EU member state undergoing a rapid transition from emigration to immigration. Drawing on policy analysis, party manifestos, and media sources, it traces Croatia's shift toward liberalised recruitment of third‐country nationals amidst labour shortages and demographic decline. At the same time, migration has become increasingly politicised, particularly during the 2024 national elections. The article introduces the concept of segmented migration governance to capture this dual logic: while policy frameworks have liberalised to meet market needs, institutional oversight remains weak, integration underdeveloped, and political narratives fragmented. Technocratic depoliticisation by the ruling centre‐right coexists with cultural threat narratives from far‐right actors, generating a stratified political field. By situating Croatia within broader debates on migration governance, populism, and post‐socialist transitions, the article highlights the need to better understand how labour migration regimes are shaped by institutional legacies, elite strategies, and regional political economies. The analysis concludes by recommending stronger oversight of recruitment agencies, enhanced labour protections, and more inclusive integration policies to ensure the long‐term sustainability and legitimacy of Croatia's migration model.

International Migration Review

Book Review: Citizenship and Genocide Cards BrinhamNatalie (2025). Citizenship and Genocide Cards: IDs, Statelessness and Rohingya Resistance in Myanmar. London and New York: Routledge. 232 pp. $120.00 (Hardback)
Pranab Kumar Panday
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Loyal to What and Whom? Relational Loyalty and Migration Decision-Making in Hong Kong
Samson Yuen, Gary Tang
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What prompts citizens to stay or leave when political conditions deteriorate in their homeland? Traditional theories suggest that loyalty to one's homeland encourages individuals to stay rather than emigrate. Yet, there is limited empirical research examining how specific forms of loyalty influence emigration decision-making. This article analyzes loyalty through a relational lens, focusing on the ideological distance citizens perceive between themselves and others in their political community, rather than their degree of attachment to an identity or political entity. We use the concept of relational loyalty and argue that it plays a role in shaping citizens’ emigration decision-making. Drawing on a survey of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, we find that individuals who perceive themselves as more committed to liberal democratic values than the average citizen are more likely to have formulated concrete emigration plans. However, this perceived value disparity has limited predictive power in determining mere emigration intentions or actual emigration. These results demonstrate that while divergences in political values can influence politically-motivated emigration, their impact varies across different stages of the emigration decision-making process. Our study contributes to the widely used exit-voice framework and deepens our understanding of emigration dynamics among pro-democracy constituencies within authoritarian contexts.
Refugees De Jure versus De Facto: Legal Recognition and the Difference That It Makes
Roger Waldinger
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Research on the integration of refugees in the United States has uniquely focused on the experience of persons resettled with the refugee label. Yet many, if not most, refugees resettled in the United States have been ordinary migrants, persons whose departure from home was discretionary not compelled, but to whom the refugee label was affixed for political reasons. By contrast, the same body of research has ignored the experience of persons who exited home because of compulsion but arrived in the United States as self-settlers, a population consisting of persons granted asylum (the legal equivalent of refugee) and the still larger number of de facto refugees, whose quest for asylum has been denied. Correcting this deficiency, this paper contrasts the experiences of Vietnamese and Salvadoran immigrants to the United States, populations that fled violence, arrived simultaneously in the United States in large numbers, and have since grown in parallel fashion. Although most Vietnamese and Salvadorans arrived after passage of the Refugee Act of 1980, which defined eligibility for refugee recognition in universalist terms, the United States only granted de jure recognition to Vietnamese, denying legal protection to de facto refugees from El Salvador. This paper analyzes the history behind that decision, shows how it affected subsequent immigration and naturalization patterns, and considers long-term impacts on integration.
Where to (Next)? Family and Childhood Migration Experience and Migration Aspirations in Adulthood
Claudia Brunori, Louise Caron, Sergi Vidal
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Migration is increasingly recognized as a dynamic, often recurrent, and intergenerational process. Yet, little research has examined how childhood exposure to international migration, through one's own moves and through family history, shapes aspirations for future (im)mobility. In this article, we address this gap using a life course perspective to investigate how both direct and indirect migration experiences during childhood influence openness to international migration in adulthood. We distinguish between immobility, return migration, and onward migration aspirations, and explore underlying mechanisms such as socioeconomic status, transnational ties, multilingualism, experiences of discrimination, and identification with the country of residence. Using data from the French survey Trajectoires et Origines 2 , we find that individuals with a more recent immigrant descent tend to express higher return migration aspirations but lower onward migration aspirations. Direct migration experiences in childhood are associated with greater openness toward migration overall, though differently by descent: among those with a distant immigrant background, childhood migration fosters openness to onward migration, while it increases return aspirations among those with a more recent immigrant descent. These results offer new insight into how migration and immobility aspirations are shaped early life experiences and family migration histories.

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

‘A citizen at last’: return migrants transcending identity and citizenship in Mexico's racialized regime
MĂłnica L. Jacobo SuĂĄrez, Colette Despagne Broxner, Guadalupe Chavez
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A ‘temporal turn’? Proposing time as method
Melanie Griffiths
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Journal of Race Ethnicity and Politics

Languages and Linkages: Explaining Diaspora Attitudes Toward the Ancestral Homeland
Meiying Xu, Richard Turcsanyi, Amy H. Liu, Tse-Min Lin, Chia-Lin Kao
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What explains the attitudes of diasporas toward their ancestral homeland? One answer suggests some pull toward the country of origin (“ancestral homeland”) based on a shared cultural identity. In contrast, another explanation looks at how host country (“contemporary homeland”) politics surrounding the “perpetual foreigners” can push the diaspora toward their ancestral homeland. In this paper, we recognize that the link between the diaspora and the ancestral homeland is malleable. Specifically, we focus on the linguistic link—which can vary both spatially and temporally. We argue that when individuals of the diaspora do not speak the ancestral homeland language with their family at home, the primordial ethnic bond is weakened, and thus, they are less positive toward their ancestral homeland. We test our argument by focusing on the ethnic Chinese diaspora globally. Using the Sinophone Borderlands Survey, we identify and test whether those who speak Standard Chinese at home are more pro-China than their coethnics who speak a non-Standard Chinese vernacular. The results highlight that while the ethnic Chinese diaspora is more positive toward China than the non-ethnic Chinese respondents, what matters is whether a, and if so, which, Chinese vernacular is spoken.

Journal of Refugee Studies

Telling the gendered story: the construction of migrant subjectivities in UNHCR’s animated information campaign
Gaetano Giancaspro, Tutku Ayhan
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This article explores how the UNHCR exercises productive power through gendered knowledge in migration governance. Using multimodal semiotic analysis of twelve animated films from the Telling the Real Story campaign, we examine how public information campaigns (PICs) on irregular migration risks balance humanitarian protection and border control through gendered depictions. While PIC research is expanding, it often overlooks the role played by gender in the campaigns’ content. Our analysis shows that TRS’s animated films legitimize and reward female migrants’ agency only when aligned with UNHCR’s institutional goals, while pathologizing male mobility by consistently framing it as a threat or failure. These representations emerge across four themes: family (entrepreneurs vs caregivers), violence (aggressors vs victims), professional aspirations (money vs education) and autonomy (independent vs dependent). We argue that such discourse reinforces gender essentialisms, mainly through different renderings of migrant agency, legitimizing both humanitarian and securitizing migration governance while potentially undermining migrant empowerment.
‘Partial returns:’ displacement, mobility, and translocal connections in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina
Ondƙej ĆœĂ­la
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This paper revisits the complexities of post-war returns in Bosnia and Herzegovina, exploring how returnees’ motivations, livelihood strategies, and personal circumstances intersect with the changing political, social, and material landscapes of displacement and return. Drawing on fieldwork data, it demonstrates how returnees sustain translocal connections through networks, commuting patterns, and socio-economic practices. By introducing the notion of partial return, this paper advances a critical framework for examining the dialectical tension between mobility and emplacement among internally displaced people who decided to return. Empirically, the study distinguishes between nominal and de facto modes of partial returns, highlighting how they arise as adaptive responses to the gap between international return policies specified in the Dayton Peace Agreement and intricate post-war realities. By situating partial returns as pragmatic responses to the difficulties, uncertainties, and insecurities shaping post-war environments and everyday local contexts, this study contributes to debates concerning migration, displacement, and transnational studies.
Art, agency, and access: refugee experiences and resistance in the context of EU’s migration management
Berfin Nur Osso
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This Field Reflection is based on the introductory speech (lectio praecursoria) I delivered at the public examination of my doctoral thesis on 10 January 2025 at the University of Helsinki. The thesis explored the interplay between EU migration management measures and the lived experiences of refugees, focusing on the Greek island of Lesvos as a critical site of bordering and refugee resistance. Drawing on three case studies conducted between 2021 and 2023, the research examined how physical, legal, and social borders shape refugee access to EU territory, protection, and integration in Europe. Through interviews with representatives of two civil society organizations in Lesvos, refugee-produced artwork and social media content, the study also highlighted the political agency of refugees as they navigated and resisted restrictive measures. Refugee-created visual artifacts, such as paintings and photographs, serve as powerful tools for self-expression and advocacy, challenging dominant narratives of victimhood, invasion, and threat. The findings underscore the need to reimagine migration governance, centering refugee voices and prioritizing protection over deterrence. This Reflection contributes to broader discussions on refugee rights, border politics, and the human dimensions of migration management.
The role of collective hypervisibility in everyday lives of refugees: the Syrian refugee hubs in metropolitan areas of Turkey
Z Ezgi Haliloglu Kahraman, Ezgi Irgil
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This paper examines refugee hubs that attract heightened scrutiny and opportunities for integration. Focusing on Turkey, we argue these hubs offer a sense of protection and expose refugees to increased control by authorities. Thus, we introduce the concept of collective hypervisibility to analyse how Syrian refugees in two Turkish hubs articulate and perceive their lived experiences through both positive and negative perspectives as a group. Refugees often view these neighbourhoods as shields from typical integration challenges faced by newcomers. However, living in such spaces also renders them targets, as all refugees are perceived as a homogeneous group, ignoring individual differences. By exploring refugee perceptions, we reveal shared dynamics across refugee hubs and offer insights relevant to similar contexts globally.
Waiting out the crisis: a strategy for resisting displacement in Burundi
GuĂ°rĂșn Sif FriĂ°riksdĂłttir
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This study investigates waiting and displacement by focusing on the period before people fled their country as opposed to the more common focus on the time after people have crossed borders. The research is based on several interviews with 19 Burundian refugees who fled Burundi sometime between 2014 and 2022 and were living in Belgium or Sweden at the time of the interviews. My interlocutors attempted to wait out the period when they were in danger and used various strategies to ensure their security during this wait. This waiting period prior to leaving the home country had some different characteristics to waiting after fleeing. This waiting was an attempt to hold on to a near past, a past of living securely in Burundi, rather than an attempt to access a new future, which is often the case in other waiting scenarios in migration.
Reproductive health injustice in internally displaced persons camps in Nigeria
Jessica Oga, Vera Ekundayo, Titilayo Aderibigbe
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The sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Nigeria remain critically under-addressed, with displaced women facing compounded vulnerabilities shaped by intersecting forms of marginalization. This study examines the multidimensional reproductive injustices experienced in New Kuchigoro camp, Abuja, and Malkohi camp, Yola, using in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 36 internally displaced women, selected through purposive sampling. Grounded in the reproductive justice theory and informed by intersectional feminism and structural violence, the research integrates doctrinal analysis with phenomenological inquiry. Findings reveal systemic barriers to reproductive autonomy, including coerced reproductive decisions, pervasive gender-based violence, and limited access to essential SRHR services. These injustices are compounded by entrenched socioeconomic inequalities, patriarchal power structures, and gaps in international and domestic legal protections for SRHR in displacement settings. The study underscores the urgency of gender-responsive healthcare interventions, economic empowerment initiatives, and robust accountability mechanisms to dismantle structural inequities and safeguard the reproductive rights of displaced women in Nigeria.

Population Space and Place

The Effects of the COVID‐19 Pandemic on Internal Migration Trends in TĂŒrkiye and Medium‐Term Forecasts for the Future
Salih Birinci, Yusuf Kızılkan
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The COVID‐19 pandemic has had significant effects on demographic mobility, economic systems, environmental changes, and social structures. In this study, using internal migration data from 2008 to 2023, the structure of interregional migration flows and internal migration trends in TĂŒrkiye during the COVID‐19 pandemic were evaluated. The migration movements of the regions before and during the pandemic were analyzed using crude migration, migration effectiveness, and net migration methods to examine changes in interregional migration flows. In addition, the Bayesian ARIMA model was used to estimate short‐ and medium‐term transformations in internal migration flows following the pandemic. This method was used to project internal migration flows at the regional level up to 2035. The analyses revealed a general decrease in migration intensity across all regions during the pandemic period. Furthermore, migration intensified significantly from metropolitan areas to smaller settlements and rural areas during the pandemic. The forecast model developed in the study predicts a decline in net migration rates in regions such as Istanbul in the coming years. In contrast, regions such as the Mediterranean, Aegean, and Western Anatolia are expected to receive more migration in the future. The study concluded that although the migration pull factor of metropolitan cities will weaken, they will retain this characteristic. Conversely, regions that have consistently experienced negative migration from the past to the present will continue to exhibit this characteristic in the coming period. The study's findings indicate that the impact of the reverse migration pattern observed during the COVID‐19 pandemic on internal migration flows was short‐lived. In this regard, the study has the potential to contribute to the planning of migration management policies, particularly by providing forecasts of migration flows and internal migration burdens at the regional level in the short and medium term.
Place Matters to Life After Return: Investigating Second‐Generation ‘Return’ to Different Locations in Turkey
Nilay Kılınç, Russell King
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Turkish migration to Germany has been the largest‐scale labour migration in postwar Europe, yet scant attention has been paid to the return flow to Turkey, and even less to the second generation's ‘return’. This paper rectifies this oversight and focuses specifically on the role of place in shaping the post‐return experiences of the second generation relocating to their parents' homeland. Based on narrative interviews with 71 returnees, we find that different outcomes await those relocating to the megalopolis of Istanbul, the tourist hub of Antalya, and a range of provincial towns. Istanbul offers the widest spectrum of job opportunities, especially to those with higher‐level qualifications. Antalya is attractive to returnees with low qualifications who are easily able to find work in the tourist economy and enjoy an ‘alternative’ lifestyle. Those who move to the provincial locations in northern, central and eastern Turkey are following family migration networks but face more difficulties accessing the labour market and adapting to a more ‘traditional’ society. Return outcomes are influenced by the positionalities of returnees, where the interplay of gender, class and social location in specific places shapes diverse return experiences.
Same Country, Different Journeys: Ukrainian Voluntary Versus Forced Migrants in Poland
Sabina Kubiciel‐LodziƄska, Arkadiusz Gardecki, Bogdan Ruszczak, Jolanta Maj
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Poland has emerged as one of the primary destinations for Ukrainian refugees, with ~953,000 forced migrants from Ukraine residing in the country as of May 2024. This paper examines the differences in labour market integration between Ukrainian voluntary migrants and forced migrants in Poland, comparing their situations from 2022 to 2024. The analysis is based on three quantitative surveys conducted in 2022, 2023 and 2024. The article compares the situation of both groups of migrants in several aspects: labour market situation, job satisfaction, knowledge of spoken Polish and migrants' residence plans. Our research revealed that the differences between the two groups evolved throughout the study period. Among the surveyed group of Ukrainian refugees, the proportion of those entering employment has increased significantly, reaching 64% in 2024. In the same year, the employment rate among pre‐war migrants was higher, at 75.7%. The survey shows that the knowledge of the Polish language among refugees has improved over the analysed period. In the first edition of the survey, more than 20% of respondents did not speak Polish, whereas in 2024, this number had decreased to 3.2%. Our research contributes to human capital theory by emphasising that the realisation of migrants' potential—how effectively they utilise and develop their skills, education and experiences in their new country—depends not only on their qualifications but also nature of migration and shows the contrast between voluntary and forced migrants from the same country.
The Making of Semi‐Regularity Among Migrants in TĂŒrkiye: Impacts of Work Permit Policies
F. Bilge Kahraman
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This study investigates the effects of work permit procedures and rules in TĂŒrkiye on the legal status of migrants. Drawing on the literature on critical migration studies, it argues that work permit procedures in TĂŒrkiye position migrants within a legal category that can be described as semi‐regular. In this study, semi‐regularity refers to the legal status of migrants who possess the right to reside legally (e.g., through a residence permit or temporary protection status) but participate in the labour market without a work permit. Migrants experience this semi‐regular status differently in the labour market depending on their country of origin. Furthermore, unlike irregular migrants, those with semi‐regular status have access to some services, but in contrast to fully regular migrants, their access to services remains only partial. Research to date has largely focused on migrants in the Global North and this study broadens the literature on migrants' legal status by providing an example from TĂŒrkiye, a country of the Global South.