Migration, globalisation and diversity

Posted: June 6th, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: diversity, Estonia, migration | No Comments »

Until a few days ago, I thought that globalisation has increased the migrations of people, because there are more planes in the air, more cars on the road, more refugees trying to escape war and persecution, etc. But that has turned out to be a very deceptive picture. Last year, Mathias Czaika and Hein de Haas from the University of Oxford analysed migration from a globalisation perspective in their article “The Globalization of Migration: Has the World Become More Migratory?” It appears that some of the common conceptions there are about migration today are wrong, or at least very misleading.

Czaika and de Haas come to the somewhat unexpected conclusion that international migration has not accelerated. This is not so much due to the restriction of immigration by the destination countries, but much more due to the impact of technological change. While one might think that improvements in transportation and communication technology has made it so much easier to move around, these also make it easier to stay at home. You can commute long-distance (i.e. work in Finland and live in Estonia) and you can work from home. You do not need to physically relocate yourself in a country to do at least certain level of business there, and you can use different internet-based services such as Skype.

But how does one then explain the congestion in the skies and the rapid rise of the overall volume of people moving? The authors say, that the growth has come mainly from non-migratory forms of mobility, i.e. people commuting long-distance, going on tourist trips, business trips and short-term assignments. So the increase in mobility has not resulted in an overall relative increase of migration.

It is also not true that migration has made all countries more diverse. It has made the countries to which people migrate more diverse (with the benefits and challenges that come with it), but source countries have become more homogeneous as a result. This is also applicable to Estonia, from which 22 495 people more have emigrated from than have immigrated to in the years 2004 – 2014. At the same time, ethnic diversity has decreased: the share of ethnic Estonians in the population has grown from ca 68% in 2001 to ca 70% in 2011 (data from Statistics Estonia). This means that minorities emigrate in a larger share than others, presumably due to discrimination and lower economic opportunities resulting from their social status.

Migration trends also show the concentration of talented people in certain cities and regions, which results in more inequality and obstacles for development for those left behind. Richard Florida has stated that successful areas focus on the quality of place to attract high-skilled creative people that produce high-value economic growth.

Quality of place cuts across three key dimensions: what’s there or the combination of the built environment and the natural environment, the setting it provides for the pursuit of creative lives; who’s there or the diverse kinds of people that can be found, signaling that anyone can make a life in a community; and what’s going on, the vibrancy of street life, café culture, arts, music, and outdoor activities. (Florida 2014)

In this sense globalisation can make countries/cities/regions winners and losers. Winners are those which are able to create an environment to attract (and grow) the creative class. Losers become more homogeneous and will be left behind with less talent and more challenges.

Migration flows are not something that happen in themselves. They are a result of political choices. Restriction of immigration (especially refugees) and unwillingness to deal with sexism, racism, xenophobia, homo- and transphobia is a political choice that Estonia has made in the past. In my opinion that choice is hurting Estonia’s future.

Read:

Czaika, M. and de Haas, H. (2014), The Globalization of Migration: Has the World Become More Migratory?. International Migration Review, 48: 283–323.

Florida, R. (2014). The Creative Class and Economic DevelopmentEconomic Development Quarterly28(3), 196-205.


Online freedom and offline borders

Posted: May 9th, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Estonia, european union, human rights, migration, refugees, thoughts | No Comments »

The role of Facebook, twitter and social networking applications in the so-called “Arab Spring” and other forms of resistance to authoritarian regimes has been much lauded in the West. The spread of social media seems to also have a role in the ongoing migration disaster at Europe’s borders, but also probably requires a fundamental rethink to the physical boundaries between countries.

Restrictive migration policies are already morally problematic, especially when talking about refugees. Seyla Benhabib wrote that:

Migrations pit two moral and legal principles, foundational to the modern state system, against each other. On one hand, the human right of individuals to move across borders whether for economic, personal or professional reasons or to seek asylum and refuge is guaranteed by Articles 13 and 14 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On the other hand, Article 21 of the declaration recognizes a basic right to self-government, stipulating that “the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.”  /…/

The international system straddles these dual principles but it has not been able to reconcile them. The irony of global developments is that while state sovereignty in economic, military, and technological domains is eroded and national borders have become more porous, they are still policed to keep out aliens and intruders.  The migrant’s body has become the symbolic site upon which such contradictions are enacted.

/…/

If conditions in a person’s native country so endanger his life and well-being and he becomes willing to risk illegality in order to survive, his right to survival, from a moral point of view, carries as much weight as does the new country’s claim to control borders against migrants.  Immanuel Kant, therefore, called the moral claim to seek refuge or respite in the lands of another, a “universal right of hospitality,” provided that the intentions of the foreigner upon arriving on foreign lands were peaceful.  Such a right, he argued, belonged to each human being placed on this planet who had to share the earth with others.

Even though morally the right to hospitality is an individual right, the socioeconomic and cultural causes of migrations are for the most part collective.  Migrations occur because of economic, environmental, cultural and historical “push” and “pull” factors. “We are here,” say migrants, “because in effect you were there.”  “We did not cross the border; the border crossed us.”

European countries, especially my own coutry Estonia, seem still to be much in favour of moving to very secure physical borders while at the same time promoting extreme freedom online. People around the world at the same time are more and more living a blended online and offline life, both modes complementing and impacting the other, sometimes indistinguishably so. The 1,3 million strong Estonia is a particular example of this clash: it is the most conservative EU country in terms of migration and citizenship, and at the same time it promotes “e-residency”, a project to attract foreigners to use its e-services.

The assumption seems to be that we can separate offline and online lives from each other. But that is not possible. People who migrate or intend/have to do so (a few of whom have to resort to dangerous and inhumane journeys across the Mediterranean or other external borders) also live partly online. They see the self-curated life stories of their Facebook friends and instagram contacts in Europe, which acts as a further motivation to try to take on the trip to  escape persecution or seek a better life. They use social media to organise transport and contact smugglers, in absence of secure and safe legal pathways (but of course, are not really “lured in” by them as reported by many in the media). One of the translators to Estonia’s troops in Afghanistan was able to create an unprecedented discussion in Estonian media about getting refuge, because he was able to use social media to contact journalists and others in Estonia.

This conundrum is not solvable by creating barriers to the online side. The ridiculous proposal to close the social media pages of smugglers, which was among the initial lackluster EU plans to address the issue, would be practically impossible to implement (as most of the EU’s initial plans). What can be done is to rethink asylum and migration policies so that it takes into account the fact that we live in borderless online world in a way that softens, not hardens, borders offline, a part of which is dealing with poverty and inequality. This might eventually lead to a world without borders both offline and online.


Estonia’s refugee debate

Posted: May 1st, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Estonia, european union, human rights, migration, refugees, thoughts | 1 Comment »

In Estonia, the European migrant/refugee crisis has resonated particularly strongly. This is somewhat surprising at the first glance, but actually quite expected, because it calls upon issues that are extremely important, but with which Estonia at the same time struggles.

  1. The acceptance of liberal democratic (or Western) values of tolerance. Historically, European liberal social values have been accepted by the Estonian political elite only superficially. Human rights and tolerance in particular have not become entrenched due to the lack of will by the political powers to deal with the topic (partly due to their own world view). Perhaps it is true that Estonia also was admitted to the EU too soon, and only because it promised to do certain things and legislated others, but has no real intention to take European values seriously. The refugee issue forces us to overtly choose between universal moral and legal values prescribed by international human rights and nativism/nationalism.
  2. The large Russian minority in Estonia. The usual counter argument from the conservative politicians (and many others) is that there already are 30% of non-Estonians living in Estonia and we should not increase that percentage. This is offensive to the Estonian Russians basically stating that they are second class and that it would be better for them to leave. It also tells us that the integration policies so far have been a failure, since the poisonous discourse of Estonian Russians as not being a part of “us Estonians” still hangs on. The decision to accept migrants would help to deconstruct this damaging discourse.
  3. Facing up against racism and islamophobia. I included racism and islamophobia here, because there seems to be much more willingness to accept Ukrainian refugees than Arab or African ones, which in my opinion is not only related to the geographic and relative proximity of Ukraine, but also to the skin color and religion of the different refugees. There is a strong undercurrent of racism and islamophobia in Estonia, which is fuelled by lack of direct contact with people from muslim background or people with a black skin colour combined with negative media portrayals and stereotypes. The debate makes it easier to fight these negative stereotypes, especially thanks to Estonian journalists who have sought out refugees who have come to Europe both in Italy, Greece and Sweden and who help telling their very human stories.
  4. The sovereignty and borders issue. Refugees and other migrants symbolise the impossibility of having closed borders in today’s globalised, interdependent world. Borders have become and should be porous, says Seyla Benhabib, and I agree. Fortress Europe is an endeavour that was doomed from the start. Keeping people from moving from one country to another is not morally or ethically compatible with how we live our lives today and the refugee crisis forces us to recognise this. It also means that sovereignty must be and is gradually transformed from a national one to cosmopolitan one, if we want to preserve and grow peace and prosperity. In Estonia, the strong rhetoric of keeping our borders secure and the criminalisation of irregular border crossings are completely wrong things to say or do.
  5. The raison d’etre of Estonian statehood. Partly because of neoliberal thinking, we have created in Estonia a state with the wrong values. In Estonia even more so than in other Western countries, the state must be foremost a well-oiled machine that efficiently delivers services (and protects us from Russian invasion). Although the Estonian Constitution prescribes a strong liberal Western state, the actual state that we have is more of a value-neutral, almost nihilistic one (except the nationalist streak which only seems to be strong in the national defence and interior realms). Overall the Estonian political elite have not taken moral stands on value issues, delegating authority and responsibility for these values to Europe. Now, with the refugee crisis, the Estonian government is faced with a moral decision (much like with the civil partnership law last year), in which it has to clearly make a choice. It forces our pragmatic party politicians to make a moral leadership decision.

So, the European refugee crisis is also at the same time an Estonian identity crisis. The voluntary acceptance of a number of refugees by resettlement from refugee camps outside of Europe and participation in the burden sharing for asylum seekers (although I do not think it is helpful or humane to characterise asylum seekers as a ‘burden’) will contribute to the slow untangling of all of those issues and hopefully make Estonia a better society for all of us. In 2018 Estonia will take on the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU (and also celebrate 100 years of the Estonian state), which means that we will be center stage in Europe and the world, and we have to be able to deal with and lead on all kinds of issues, but migration is surely going to be one of them. It will be an important test of whether we are mature enough to lead on these moral issues.