The Promised land – A letter analysis of America letters from 1850-1870 This essay is about the Swedish emigration to America. This essay will focus on the period 1840-1870, where the main focus will be the american civil war, and what the immigrants wrote back to their relatives in Sweden. This study will also focus on the integration of Swedish immigrants. My main question are what did the swedes write back to Sweden during the war? And how did it differ from the period before and after the war? But also can a war assimilate a immigrant faster than it would be done without the war? The conclusion that has been made is that the war did help the swedish immigrants to integrate much faster than usually. Also the study shows that the language before the war was of that character that they where missing home whereas it shows that after the war it had completley turned around, instead of wanting to go back to Sweden, they wanted their relatives to come over to America.

Trumpalaikė emigracija suformuoja naujo tipo šeimas. Šioms šeimos skiriamas vis didesnis dėmesys, kadangi šioje srityje yra atlikta kol kas labai mažai mokslinių tyrimų. Darbo tikslas – išanalizuoti šeimų, patiriančių trumpalaikę emigraciją, išgyvenimus ir gautą pagalbą. Darbo klausimas: Kokius išgyvenimus patiria šeimos, kuriose egzistuoja trumpalaikė emigracija. Siekiant pasiekti užsibrėžtą tikslą bei uždavinius, pasitelktas kokybinis tyrimas, pusiau standartizuotas interviu. Tyrimo imtis – 5 moterys gyvenančios Vilkaviškio rajono savivaldybėje, kurių vyrai dirba tolimųjų reisų vairuotojais, tačiau visiškam duomenų pilnumui papildomai atlikti dar trys interviu. Jos buvo atrinktos panaudojant tikslinę tiriamųjų atranką bei „sniego gniūžtę“. Duomenys apdoroti atliekant turinio arba kitaip content analizę. Atlikus tyrimą paaiškėjo, kad šeimos, kurios išgyvena trumpalaikę emigraciją, patiria gana įvairius išgyvenimus. Tai labai priklauso nuo šeimoje vyraujančių tarpusavio santykių, sugebėjimo pasidalinti vaidmenimis, įvykus pokyčiams joje, taip pat nuo vaikų amžiaus, bendravimo su jais, vyrų emigracijos trukmės. Kuo vyrai ilgiau būna išvykę, tuo šeimos susiduria su tam tikrais sunkumais. Svarbiausia, kad dauguma jų nesikreipia pagalbos, nors pripažįsta, kad ji yra reikalinga. Tuo tarpu kitos nieko nelaukę kreipėsi pagalbos pas atitinkamus specialistus, anot kurių, ši pagalba yra efektyvi. O ši pagalba joms yra teikiama pagal poreikį. Nepaisant to, kad pusė tyrimo dalyvių teigė... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Short term emigration forms families of a new type. The latter families receive more and more attention, as a number of researches in this field is rather low. Aim: analyze experience of families, suffering from short-term emigration and assistance they get. Question: what is experience of families, suffering from short-term emigration? In order to achieve the set aim and objectives, a qualitative research and a semi standardized interview have been implemented. Sample: 5 females, living in the municipality of Vilkaviškis district, whose husbands work as long-distance drivers. However, in order to collect the full data, other 3 questionnaire have been added as well. The latter have been selected by intended choice of the respondents and using a “snowball” method. Data have been processed using a content analysis method. The results of the research have revealed that experience of families, suffering from short-term emigration, differ, depending on a type of dominant relations, an ability to share roles in case of changes; also on the age of children, communication with them, duration of communication between fathers and children, etc. Longer the husbands are away, larger troubles the family faces. The main point is that the majority recognizes that they need assistance, but does not ask for it. However, others are asking the professional help immediately, and, as the specialists put it, this type of assistance was very efficient. The assistance for the abovementioned... [to full text]

South Africa is in the throes of a skills crisis. This situation is seriously hampering the country's economic progress and global participation. This study focuses on the analysis of skills migration in South Africa, and specifically aims to provide a conceptual framework for better cognition of the skills situation in South Africa. The study is presented in a series of four articles with a final chapter that incorporates these articles in a cognitive unit and, therefore, provide a cognitive map to better understand skills migration in South Africa. Article one of the study provides an in–depth discussion on the serious shortage of skilled workers and its impact on the progress of the country. This crisis is largely due to the failure of the national education and training system to supply the economy with much needed skills required to support economic growth and job creation. The findings of this study indicated that there are various factors that are contributing to the skills shortages in the country. Some of the factors include: poor education standards, emigration, crime and HIV. It must be noted that these factors cannot be addressed overnight. Hence, this study emphasised the role that skilled foreign workers can play in alleviating the skills shortages in the country. The contribution of foreign workers could be viewed as a short to medium solution to the skills crisis. Finally, this study has confirmed the findings of similar studies undertaken by the Centre for Development and Enterprise that opening the doors to high–skilled immigration can only serve as a means of supplementing the skills pool and hence contributing to the economic growth of the country. In relation to the above, that is, a means to address the skills shortages, article two supported the view that a more expansive and robust policy approach to skills immigration can be part of the larger solution of addressing the skills shortages of the country. This would allow for economic progress and make South Africa globally competitive. Hence, the primary purpose of this article was to determine the effectiveness of South Africa's immigration policy to support skills immigration. Attempts to recruit foreign skills to work in South African firms is proving to be a challenge as there are a number of issues in South Africa's immigration policy that makes it restrictive for organisations when recruiting skilled foreign workers. The following are some of the consequences of this restrictive policy: due to major infrastructural growth and development during the 2010 period, there is tremendous strain on the construction industry as a result of shortage of engineers, quantity surveyors, technicians and architects. Problems in retaining skilled mining staff combined with insufficient new graduates and an aging workforce is affecting the South African industry. A dearth of engineering skills at Eskom has also contributed to the power crisis. Thus it could be concluded that South Africa's skills immigration policy is problematic and not helpful in addressing the skills shortages of the country. In addition and in relation to factors that are contributing to skills shortages in the country, article three of the study focused specifically on factors that either push or pull people into a country. Push factors are generally regarded as negative factors as they push people out of the country. These factors include affirmative action, which contributes to emigration of skilled individuals, crime, HIV, economic instability, poor health care and dissatisfaction with the political situation of the country. Pull or positive factors on the other hand draw skilled South Africans to a country. These factors include: attractive salary packages, early retirement within the education sector, an opportunity to gain international work experience, an improved lifestyle and variety of career choices. Certain immigrants are pulled to South Africa as they see it as offering them economic opportunities that are not available in their home country. However, these immigrants range largely from unskilled to a limited number of highly skilled workers. This is inadequate to address the skill shortages. Hence, this situation also points towards recruitment of skilled foreign workers as a short to medium term solution. The final article of the study confirms that skills shortage is a global phenomenon. As a result there is fierce competition amongst countries to attract skilled labour so as to alleviate these shortages and improve their competitive footing in the global economy. One major way that these countries strive to achieve their goal, is through promoting targeted skills immigration programmes to attract skilled workers. In order to alleviate these skills shortages and be part of the global economy, South Africa has to take lessons from these countries. Therefore, the main purpose of this article in the study was to indicate the advantages of having a competitive skills immigration policy. It also highlighted practices that make certain countries skills immigration programmes successful. In doing so, these suitable practices could be offered to policy makers so that they can make informed decisions on improving the skills immigration policy of the country. Finally, there is a general consensus that South Africa's policy on skills immigration is in need of radical review due to the fact that it is highly restrictive, bureaucratic, user–unfriendly and costly to administer. Moreover, it serves as an impediment for business and industry to recruit skilled foreign labour into the country as a result of excessive, and often, unnecessary regulations and procedures. As a consequence, South Africa tends to attract a higher proportion of unskilled and semi–skilled foreign workers when, in actual fact, it should be attracting highly skilled immigrants. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Business Administration))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

South Africans leaving their country of birth is not a new phenomenon. South Africa currently has a large shortage of engineers and the fact that engineers are seeking better opportunities abroad is worsening the skills shortage in South Africa. Engineers form a vital part of any manufacturing, design, supply or production entity and leave a large setback if a skilled, experienced engineer decides to emigrate. Official statistics from self-declared emigrants showed that 601 engineers out of the total 16,165 self-declared emigrants left the country in 2003. This figure can be double the given number of 601 if the multiplication factor of 2.0 is taken into consideration for people that do not complete the emigration forms at the airports. The focus of this study was to investigate the emigration potential of the skilled engineer along with the factors that might lead to emigration, and were classified into three distinctive groups, namely, economic, political and social. These aspects are generally referred to as "push" factors that drive people out of the country such as racism, crime and violence; as well as "pull" factors that attract people such as better work opportunities, better salaries and better education. An electronic survey questionnaire was used to determine the emigration potential of the engineers within a large mining organisation. The respondents had to indicate their emigration potential as well as the major factors that would contribute to them leaving South Africa. The overall measured potential for emigration within the specific mining organisation was significantly low. Only twenty percent of respondents agreed that they are planning to emigrate within the next five years and only two percent within the next year. Forty-six percent of respondents agreed that they would rather like to work in another country for only a few years than to emigrate permanently. Various reasons could have lead to the contradicting low measured emigration potential within this specific organisation. Literature has proven that there is a significant relationship between intention to emigrate and organisational commitment. Results also showed that emigration potential tend to increase the better the engineer is qualified; with the emigration potential amongst electrical and mechanical engineers higher than all other disciplines. Crime and violence were the number one factor impacting the respondent in terms of potential emigration. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

The large rise in the number of asylum seekers coming to Britain in the 1990s and since then has made asylum policy and associated matters an increasingly important issue for the government. On the one hand, the government has wished to deter asylum seekers but on the other, it recognises the importance of integrating those who are given permission to settle. Issues surrounding asylum seekers have become highly political as the media, local authorities and local people have all become involved in trying to influence the content and delivery of asylum policy. This thesis focuses on the effect of the current dispersal policy on asylum seeker and refugee integration. In this piece of research, an asylum seeker is an individual who reaches the UK through his/her own means and submits a request for asylum to the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) at the Home Office. Asylum seekers who are granted permission to reside in the UK are defined as refugees in this thesis, whether they be Convention refugees or individuals possessing Humanitarian Protection (HP) or Discretionary Leave (DL). This study uses the approach to integration developed by Ager and Strang (2004a) and in particular their four main components of asylum seeker and refugee integration. My major hypothesis is that dispersal exercises a negative impact on the four dimensions of integration studied because this policy sends asylum seekers to localities where there are no settled co-ethnics, hostile host-community members, limited employment opportunities and inadequate dwellings. In order to test this hypothesis, I compare the significantly different integration opportunities encountered by asylum seekers and refugees in two contrasting dispersal cities, Newcastle and Birmingham. Given the national, ethnic and socio-economic heterogeneity of the group under study, I also adopt a case study approach and focus on the experiences of Kurds from Iraq. Significantly, asylum seekers and refugees possess different rights and for this reason, their experiences of dispersal and integration are analyzed separately. I chose semi-structured interviewing with asylum seekers and refugees because this method reflects my structured research strategy as well as my commitment to remain alert to unexpected findings. Furthermore, this technique helps the researcher appreciate the standpoint of the group studied, an important objective in my study. The in-depth nature of the qualitative data produced also assists with the understanding of the complex processes tied to the effect of the dispersal policy on integration. A non-probability sampling technique, snowball sampling, customarily used when a population is elusive, was employed to select the sample of asylum seekers and refugees. Semi-structured interviews were also carried out with national policy-makers and local service providers as well as Kurdish community workers and businessmen. These interviews helped the researcher understand the standpoints of central and local government, the voluntary and private sector as well as the perspective of influential Iraqi Kurds. The findings suggest that asylum seekers and refugees' experiences of dispersal and their process of integrating into UK society are not necessarily contradictory phenomena. In fact, in some instances, the dispersal policy has introduced members of this group to better integration opportunities than they would otherwise have encountered in their voluntarily chosen, traditional areas of concentration, in London and the South East of England. The conclusions also highlight several gaps in Ager and Strang's (2004a) integration framework, namely the absence of an intra-national spatial dimension, the failure to incorporate the ambivalent, non-linear effect of the passage of time and finally, the lack of reference to the idea that success in one sub-area of integration can reduce progress in another.

This thesis examines migration as a contemporary social phenomenon. Adopting Marxian dialectics, migration is defined as a form and as a process of social relations. Thus, migration exists as a differentiated but also as an internal part of social totality. This social totality, as a historical result, constitutes the general social framework within which migration is examined. This study of migration starts from the examination of this particular social organisation of social relations. Migration as an international phenomenon is explored through migration policies and flows, alongside with the relationship between national and international contexts. Moreover, the analysis focuses on a new territorial political organisation, the EU, and its interaction with migration. Furthermore, this study explores the ways that migration is constructed in a specific national context, that of the Greek state. Particularly, the interest in on the ways that migration is included in the social and political process in Greek society. Finally, the analysis focuses on people's experience as migrants in Greece, which is examined through structural social characteristics and attitudes, in order to illustrate that migration means a process of being constructed as a 'migrant' depending on both general and specific social contexts.

The transnational activities of migrant groups have become a major issue in recent decades. This study offers an analysis of overseas Sikhs' involvement in Punjab issues; especially concentrating on post-1984 period, when a vigorous support and mobilisation by overseas Sikhs for a 'homeland' has led to diplomatic strains between the Government of India and some of the states with large Sikh migrant population. This study concentrates upon the mobilisation among Sikh migrant groups in Canada, the United States and Great Britain -three countries which account for over three quarter of overseas Sikh population. The issue of 'homeland' among displaced minorities and migrant groups has usually been studied as a diasporic phenomenon. In a theoretical formulation preceding this study, the term diaspora and recent contributions to extend its scope to all such migrant groups who were neither forced out of their homelands nor had continuous historic connections is critically examined. Rejecting the wider definition advocated by more recent contributors to extend this term to any migrant group which maintains some connections with their land of origins, a case is made for only those migrant groups which are essentially involved in a demand for a secure and independent 'homeland' to be part of 'diaspora studies' Proceeding with migration history and experiences of Sikhs in Britain, Canada and the United States, the study explores the persistence and continuation of cultural and religious practices derived from their land of origins. Noting that neither the homeland for Sikhs was an unambiguous term till recently nor were they forced out from their homes, Sikh migrant groups provide an interesting but problematic example of transnational ethnic linkages. The next two chapters analyze the social, cultural and political links with the Punjab. The study then provides a description and analysis of Sikh mobilisation as a reaction to dramatic events in the Punjab in June 1984. The last chapter situates overseas Sikh mobilisation as a reaction to a crisis which has fermented some new elements of ethnic consciousness with consequent bearing upon the group identity and political mobilisation within overseas Sikh migrant groups. It also notes the impact of overseas Sikh mobilisation on the transnational relationship of concerned states and their respective policies towards Sikh migrant groups. This study of overseas Sikhs provides an interesting case of transnational politics where a crucial event in a migrant groups' home country could perceptibly shift their political loyalty towards an imaginary homeland, and how in the process, their land of origin becomes a 'threatened homeland' . The study thus illustrates the limitation of the existing analytical concepts dealing with the behaviour of migrant groups whose attachments to their roots are principally triggered into a virulent form of mobilisation due to a traumatic event in their religious centre. The study draws upon a wide range of sources including interviews with leading participants, and a thorough examination of ethnic Purijabi media of the United States, Canada and Great Britain. In addition it takes account of the growing body of secondary materials associated with the study of Sikhs in the Punjab.

This thesis aims to contribute to current discussions on citizenship and transnationalism by analyzing the circumstances of Paraguayan, Bolivian and Peruvian immigrants in Argentina. More precisely, I examine the impact that state-promoted criminalizing discourses had on the lives of these immigrants in La Plata city in the late 1990s. On the one hand, their access to public services and resources was importantly constrained, submerging many into increasingly pauperized conditions. On the other hand, new distinctions were created within these nationally defined groups as a result of discursive and residential strategies deployed by many of these immigrants.

This thesis analyzes the influence of globalization on state sovereignty in the design and implementation of policies concerning asylum seekers. Using Canada as an example, it is argued that there are three emerging global forces that directly challenge the sovereignty of the state in matters of immigration. These forces are neoliberal and global security discourses and international refugee rights standards. But these forces have not led to a decline in the power of the state. Rather, they have forced the state to develop new strategies in order to reassert its sovereignty and regain its legitimacy. The state has responded to neoliberal and security pressures by designing, implementing and reinforcing control policies over asylum seekers. It has reacted to the international refugee rights norms and the demands of the refugee advocacy groups by developing strategies to integrate some of their principles without relinquishing its authority and autonomy.

Bibliography: leaves 274-308. / xiv, 308 leaves : ill. (chiefly col.), maps ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Examines the social and economic impacts of international labour migration on villages in Northeast Thailand. Based on Hugo's migration impact frameword, the study assesses the efforts of overseas labour migration on the social and economic wellbeing of migrants, families and communities at the origin. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Geography, 1999?