Question
Exercise: Applying Theories of Migration
1. Select someone you know who has migrated from one country to another.
It can be yourself, someone in your family, a friend, a neighbor, or even a
character in a book.
2. Who is this person (name, gender, approximate age, background…)?
3. Where did they come from and where did they go? When was this?
4. Why did the person migrate? (Apply theories of migration!)
5. Was the person aided by networks of migration and/or institutions?
How?
6. Conclusion: What theories does this story best illustrate?<choose 1 theory, the best one>
Your paper should be about 4 pages long, double spaced in 11- or 12-point font. It
is due October 11. If you choose to base your exercise on a character in a book,
please provide a full reference
Answer
Student’s Name:
Name of Course:
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The person I would like to focus on is a US immigrant named James Rand. This man, who is in his mid-thirties, immigrated into the US from Palestine. He came from a lower middle class and he had just completed his college education. The Israel-Palestine conflict made him feel insecure in his home country. His place of residence was within the occupied Palestinian territories. His encounters with conflicts have made him hate war and to become tired of it.
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When James made the decision to move out of his home country, the conflict with Israel did not show any signs of coming to an end. James knew that he had to keep looking for any chance of moving of his beloved country in order to pursue a better, peaceful life. Having just completed a college education, James was also highly optimistic that his dream of becoming an architect was still within sight. He hoped that migrating into the United States would open new windows of opportunities, stability, and peace of mind.
James’ predicament and the circumstances within which they need to migrate away from his home country can be analyzed on the basis of the stress-threshold theory. This theory is one of the psychology-based theoretical models of explaining migration from one country to the other. This psychologically-oriented model conceives migrants as being rationally bound (Fawcett, 1985). For instance, an individual decision-maker is always limited by his capacity to formulate as well as solve problems, and to acquire as well as retain information.
In order to cope with these problems, the individual has to use a simplified model as required by the situation at hand. He has to act rationally with regard to the personal model that rules his circumstances. The individual evaluates various alternatives, which he determines to be either satisfactory or unsatisfactory.
The stress-threshold model is based on the view that a potential immigrant assigns a place utility to his current place of residence in terms of economic, social, psychological, and many other costs and benefits that are derived from that location. The individual carries out a place utility of the place and relates it to a threshold, which in this case is his attainments or experience, as well as the experience and attainments of his peers. James assessed the experiences and attainments that he gathered in Palestine and compared them to those of peers. The ravages of war took a huge toll on his threshold, making him feel an urge to migrate to the US.
Within the stress-threshold model, geographical mobility can be divided into two stages. First, a potential immigrant takes into account their present situation. This analysis does not necessarily commit them to migrate. Rather, it commits them to start looking for alternatives. Second, the potential immigrant decides to relocate or to make an adjustment to their current location. These two stages are highly dependent on the way in which the potential immigrant processes all the information that is available in the local place.
The term ‘awareness space’ is used in this migration theory to refer to those places which the potential immigrant has knowledge and information about, through direct contact, mass media, through relatives and friends, or links made through intermediary agencies such as housing companies and employment services. In most cases, this knowledge includes just a small subset of the total number of opportunities that are available.
For James, the US was just one of the possible places that were better than Palestine. Other places that he had gathered information and knowledge about included Germany, Britain, China, France, and Norway. Out of all these places, the US appeared to offer the best prospects for James. For this reason, he started making concerted efforts to immigrate to this country.
James says that he immigrated into the US through the assistance of the United States High Commission for Refugees. He also says that many Palestine-based non-governmental organizations that deal with the plight of refugees were instrumental in offering James information on how he could emigrate out of Palestine and into the US.
Like other psychologically-based theories, the stress-threshold model does not take into account various alternatives to moving. Therefore, adjustments within the home country are out of question. James chose not to adjust to life at his native country no more. He had seen enough of war during his childhood and adolescence. He had seen many of his friends and family members killed in Israeli attacks and he was afraid of his life too. He reasoned that if his dead friends were still around, they would share in his dream of moving from the home country and into the US.
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In the increasingly globalized world of today, James’ experiences contribute greatly to new insights into psychological theories of migration, particularly the stress-threshold model. The experiences shed light on the various ways in which an immigrant can perceive solutions to stress. In the context of today’s global migration trends, James’ experiences are also useful in the analysis of the world-systems theory. In this theory, a sociological perspective to migration is adopted, with the emphasis being on the emerging migration opportunities created by differences in different national economies (Massey, Arango& Hugo, 1993). According to the world-systems theory, migration is merely a natural outgrowth of various disruptions and dislocations that occur inevitably in the course of capitalist developments. The educational and career opportunities that James was pursuing in the US are largely inspired by the capitalist nature of today’s labor practices.
In the stress-threshold theory, the notions of stress and awareness appear to be applicable to a continuum that ranges from free migration through impelled migration, to forced migration. James’ situation can best be described as impelled migration. Although stress levels as a result of the war were high enough to seem like implicitly forced migration, James had the option of facing it all and remaining in Palestine, just like many of his friends, who he left behind.
Where stress is high, the majority of people tend to move since little choice is available. In this case, their moves are best categorized as impelled migration. On the other hand, when stress is low, few people move, and when they do, their moves are viewed as free migration. Stress, in this theory, is a critical factor for initiating the migration from one country to the other.
In summary, the case of James Rand is highly relevant for the purposes of analyzing various theories of migration. Two of these theories: the stress-threshold and world-systems theory, have been mentioned in this paper. The theories explain slightly different dimensions of international migration in the context of James Rand’s circumstances.
Reference
Fawcett, J. (1985) Migration psychology: New behavioral models, Population & Environment, 8(1), 5-14.
Massey, D., Arango, J. & Hugo, G. (1993) Theories of International Migration: A Review and Appraisal, Population and Development Review, 19(3), 431-466.