The 1951 Refugee Convention aims to provide international legal protection to all asylum seekers. Individuals making asylum claims based on persecution which relates to their sexual orientation however are not explicitly represented in Article 1A (2) of the Convention. As a consequence, cases based on sexual orientation are usually argued under the ‘membership of a particular social group' category, a classification which has long remained the most contested of the Refugee Convention grounds for granting asylum. This thesis focuses on the experiences of lesbian women as they navigate the UK asylum process. The research explores how sexuality is constructed and performed as women seek asylum as well as how this impacts upon their social and sexual identity. A theoretical framework for the study is principally (though not exclusively) drawn from the works of Judith Butler (1990, 2004, 2006) and Michel Foucault (1978, 1979), as well as Ken Plummer's (1995) ‘telling sexual stories'. The research draws upon in-depth, repeat interviews with eleven lesbian asylum seekers and refugees in the UK. These women all reported to have experienced physical and sexual violence in their home countries as a consequence of their homosexuality and all had sought international protection in the UK on the basis of their sexuality. The analysis presented in this thesis reveals that the experience of going through the UK asylum process was, for the women in this study, an emotionally challenging and confusing experience. As a consequence of women's traumatic experiences in their home countries, they were often over familiar with secrecy which added to the difficulties of self-identifying as a lesbian in the UK. The legal requirement to evidence and ‘prove' one's sexual orientation was considered problematic and frequently left women feeling compelled to ‘perform' their sexual identity in order to be believed as a credible lesbian. In addition the analysis presented demonstrates that the requirement to share intimate narratives on demand and in an open and public way had a range of significant implications on women themselves. This included how women felt that their sexuality was persistently judged and the devastating impact of not being believed. This thesis also shows how navigating complex legal procedures impacts upon women's social and sexual identity. The study demonstrates that living in limbo, without permanency and stability exacerbated women's experiences of social isolation and rejection and left them occupying a distinct social space, excluded from British, asylum seeking and migrant groups. Despite these struggles however, the data presented in the thesis also reveals women's ability to recognise, fight and campaign for their legal citizenship and to enjoy the freedom to express their sexual identity and sexual self-esteem. The desire to create a safe space, to understand their sexuality and to re-construct a sense of belonging was paramount as women fought for their sexual entitlements.

The notion of environmental migration, and the associated desire to predict the likely scale of the phenomenon in the future, has frequented academic debate since the 1980s. Despite this, current estimates of the numbers of people likely to be displaced by environmental change by 2050 range from 150 million to 1 billion. By developing an agent-based model this research attempts to provide a rigorous means of quantifying the influence of future changes in climate (using rainfall as a proxy) upon migration trends within the context of Burkina Faso. Located in dryland West Africa, the population and economy of Burkina Faso are highly dependent upon rain-fed agriculture, placing them in a position of considerable vulnerability to future changes in rainfall. The conceptual basis behind the Agent Migration Adaptation to Rainfall Change (AMARC) model presented by this thesis is developed using contributions from the fields of climate adaptation and social psychology to focus upon three Theory of Planned Behaviour components of the migration decision: behavioural attitude; subjective norm; and perceived behavioural control. Rules of behaviour defined within the model are developed and parameterised using information gained from both retrospective migration data analysis and the responses of interviewees in focus groups conducted across Burkina Faso. Following a process of stringent model validation and testing the AMARC model is used to investigate the role of changes in rainfall variability upon past and future modelled migration. Although a relatively clear hierarchical impact of (from highest to lowest modelled migration) average, dry and wet rainfall conditions upon total modelled migration is identified, the individual flows of migrants that make up the total show unique and varied relationships with changes in rainfall. Furthermore, modelled internal and international migration flows show both similarities and differences when compared with relationships identified between rainfall and migration within existing literature.

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the effects of public policies on rural-urban migration and human capital expansion, and to examine the role of human capital (among other domestic and external factors) in the long-term economic growth of developing countries. Human capital expansion and labor migration from villages to cities are two aspects of the structure of labor markets in poor countries that are continuously influenced by public policies— policies that are often either ineffective or have unintended adverse consequences. For example, while much of human resource policy in developing countries is directed toward increasing the supply of educated labor, inter sectoral in-country migration and unemployment have become more pronounced, requiring new thinking on policy responses. This dissertation analyzes the outcomes of such policies and offers insights into how they might be improved. Chapter 2 extends a two-sector, general-equilibrium model of rural-urban migration to include government spending. Provision of public goods acts as a productivity-enhancing input in private production that results in external economies of scale. This approach is generalized by introducing an unbalanced allocation of public expenditure in rural and urban sectors due to political economy considerations, differential sector output elasticities with respect to government input, and distortionary taxation. The chapter studies the effects of an increase in public spending and taxation on sectoral outputs, factor prices, urban unemployment, and welfare. Of particular concern here is to study the effect of an unbalanced allocation of government spending between rural and urban areas. Chapter 3 studies the effects of selected education policies on the size of the educated labor pool and on economic welfare using the “job ladder” model of education, which is relevant to liberal arts education in developing countries. The policies considered are (1) increasing the teacher student ratio, (2) raising the relative wage of teachers, and (3) increasing the direct subsidy per student. In addition, the chapter analyzes the impact of wage rigidities in the skilled or modern sector on the size of the educated labor force. The analysis consists of five major sections. First, it reformulates the Bhagwati-Srinivasan job ladder model to make it amenable to analyzing the comparative static results of the effects of selected policies. Second, since higher education is mostly publicly financed, the analysis extends the job ladder model to incorporate public financing of the education sector. It then examines that model along with the effects of changes in policy parameters. Third, the analysis develops another extension of the job ladder model to include private tuition practices by teachers that are prevalent in many developing countries. Fourth, to analyze the impact of wage rigidities in a less restrictive framework where individuals can choose education based on ability and cost, the chapter develops an overlapping generations model of education with job ladder assumptions of wage rigidities in the skilled or modern sector. The chapter examines the flexible market and fixed market (with wage rigidities) equilibrium scenarios, and compares the impact on the threshold level of abilities and the size of the educated labor force. Finally, using specific functional forms of human capital production, cost, and ability density functions, the chapter analyzes the equilibrium outcomes. The analysis shows that in an economy with wage rigidities in the skilled sectors (modern and education sectors), the result of quality-enhancing policies under the simple job ladder model is an increase in the total size of the educated labor force. However, under an extended version of the job ladder model, the result depends on the relative size of the effects of an increase in the cost of education and the effects of an increase in the expected wage. The overlapping generations/job ladder model formulation used in the chapter finds that an increase in the present value of the expected wage and/or an increase in the marginal product of education will increase the demand for education. The minimum threshold level of ability falls, and more people are encouraged to acquire educational skills. Chapter 4 estimates the effects of openness, trade orientation, human capital, and other factors on total factor productivity (TFP) and output for a pooled cross section, time-series sample of countries from Africa and Asia, as well as for the two regions separately. The models are estimated for the level and growth of both TFP and output by using panel fixed effects. The generalized method of moments is also applied to address endogeneity issues. Several variables related to political, financial, and economic risks are used as instruments, together with the lagged values of the dependent and endogenous explanatory variables. The data for this study span 40 years (1972–2011) and are grouped into five-year averages. Several sources were used to obtain the most updated data, including the newly released Penn World Table (Version 8.0). The chapter finds that inducing a greater outward orientation generally boosts TFP, per capita output, and growth. Greater accumulation of human capital has a consistently positive effect on output and TFP growth in both Africa and Asia. Its positive influence comes rather independently of trade variables than interactive terms with openness. Furthermore, inflation does not negatively affect growth, although inflation variability is found to adversely affect TFP and output in Africa. Chapter 5 concludes the dissertation by providing conclusions, a summary of major results, and possible directions for future research.

This doctoral thesis commences with a meticulous examination on whether financial, social and institutional determinants associate with the migration performance in Europe and accordingly in Greece. Motivated by the intensity, the magnitude and the financial recession, this thesis presents three empirical chapters on the examination of the determinants that affect the phenomenon of migration. Prior to these three empirical studies a chapter introduces and defines all the variables used as well as the theoretical and methodological framework of the thesis. The first empirical chapter demonstrates a comprehensive sample of 15 European countries from 1990 – 2012, which have been divided into 3 groups (Weak-EMU, Strong-EMU and Non-EMU countries) in order to investigate the behaviour of each group during these periods. It follows a quantitative analysis of the economic and social determinants on migration, in order to comprehend their relationship with the phenomenon. The chapter concludes with the discussion of our results with an analytical review of the selected variables upon migration. Results reveal that Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain are countries that are more exposed to the financial crisis, something that consequently affects negatively the behaviour of each employed economic variable. Additionally, results detect that one significant outcome is that the GDP growth rate, inflation and the imports of goods are related to migration, while on the other hand the 10-year government bond yield is not affiliated to the phenomenon. The second empirical chapter covers the financial, social and institutional determinants that motivate Greek nationals to leave their country and emigrate to wealthier destinations during the recent financial crisis. First, it reviews the theoretical explanations for the efficiency of the factors on migration. It then provides a survey on the relevant empirical studies and subsequently an analysis of the variables, which have a significant impact on labour migration. Based on the theories presented, the study develops a model to explain how financial, social and institutional factors are correlated with the economic downturn and lead to adverse financial and social shocks such as massive migration outflows of Greek nationals. More precisely, the second chapter indicates that Greece has been very exposed to the financial crisis, thus had a strong impact on the decision of Greek natives to emigrate. As conditions deteriorate, Greece was in a severe financial situation due to the financial crisis and was dependent on the monetary policy support, something that emerged the country to experience major and drastic changes on its social cohesion. Further, we can identify, that debt to GDP, exports of goods, ln of imports of goods, long term unemployment and population growth are positively related to emigration from Greece, while on the other hand cash surplus, foreign direct investment and bank capital are negatively associated to the phenomenon. Finally, we employed advanced techniques to model the factors that motivate the existing regular immigrants in Greece to abandon the country and return to their own during the economic crisis period (return-migration). The findings reveal details on the imbalances of the economic, social and political framework of Greece that consequently affected negatively the growth rate of the country and created a fragile economy with high rates of unemployment and inflation. Hence, it compares the economic, social and institutional factors, which are related to the literature of return migration. According to the estimated results, the phenomenon of return migration is neither related in a predetermined way with unemployment rates nor poverty levels, but with tax revenue, corruption and government debt. Consequently, this situation had a strong negative impact in the behaviour of each financial, social and institutional determinant, with immediate result to the migrant families who pursue an improved quality of life back to their home country.

This thesis investigates the motivation behind individuals’ decision to migrate, the impact of migration on the host countries’ economies, and finally the impact of high skilled emigration on the human capital level in origin countries. Chapter 1 investigates whether ICT facilitates migration flows from origin to host countries based on the magnitude of the flows. Chapter 2 investigates the productivity effects of migration in four European Union (EU) countries: the UK, Spain and the Netherlands for 1995-2008 and Germany for 2002-2008. This analysis was carried out using EU Labour Force Survey (LFS) and EU-KLEMS data. We apply the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) variant for the autoregressive distributed-lag (ARDL) estimator. Various findings are presented in order to distinguish between EU and non-EU origins as well as the skill level of migrants. Chapter 3 contributes an insightful panel data analysis of human capital and high skilled emigration for 74 origin countries from 1980 to 2000 with a five-year frequency. We find a significant negative brain drain impact of high skilled emigration across countries sampled.

This dissertation delves into re-casted, re-negotiated, and emergent U.S. and Latino perspectives that are resulting from trans-border cultural and national fusion and undocumented Mexican immigration to the U.S. between the years 2000-2015. Five cultural products-- newspaper headlines, literature, music, political cartoons, and memes-- as produced by Mexican individuals on one side of the U.S.-Mexican Border and undocumented individuals on the other, who are part of the millennial generation, are considered against fossilized notions of gender, race, class, and national identity to determine if and how millennial Mexicans and millennial undocumented individuals are leveraging specific cultural tokens to be tools of defiance and to promulgate a re-writing of self.

This dissertation assesses the degree of assimilation achieved by Irish immigrants in the US in the last decades of the nineteenth century. It employs a matching technique to link specific individuals in both the 1880 and 1900 US censuses. I use this technique to create matched samples of Irish immigrants and native born Americans, allowing me to capture significant information concerning these individuals and their families over this timeframe. Utilising these samples, together with other data, I assess the degree of assimilation achieved by Irish immigrants, in aggregate and in selected subsets, with native born Americans across a range of socio-economic characteristics over this period. Among my principal findings are that Irish immigrants did not assimilate quickly into American society in this period, nor did they achieve occupational parity with native born Americans. Younger Irish and those who immigrated to the US as children experienced greater assimilation and achieved higher levels of occupational mobility, as did those Irish immigrants who married a non-Irish spouse. Higher levels of geographic clustering were associated with lower degrees of assimilation and lower occupational outcomes. My research provides support for the argument that such clustering delays immigrant assimilation. My results also indicate continued cultural persistence by Irish immigrants as it relates to their choice of names for their children. Irish immigrants who gave their children a common Irish name closely resembled those who married an Irish-born spouse - they underperformed in the workplace and experienced a lower degree of assimilation. These results suggest that the flame burning under the Irish melting pot in the last decades of the nineteenth century was not very hot, and that the assimilation process for Irish immigrants into American society was a varied and multidimensional one.

This thesis offers a new interpretation of the life and importance of George Padmore (1903-1959). Padmore was one of the most well-known ‘black communists’ in the 1930s. He became a major nexus for anti-colonial resistance in London between 1935- 1957 and one of the foremost political thinkers behind the pan-African movement. Through an analysis of his writing and his networks this thesis argues that Padmore engaged in a permanent state of political activity, guided by a practice of ‘pragmatic anti-imperialism.’ By tracing his journalism in West African and West Indian colonies, it shows that Padmore’s influence was far more extensive than previously imagined. This study begins from the hypothesis that the pragmatism of Padmore’s politics can only be demonstrated by examining his whole life, and thus takes the form of a biography. Taking Padmore’s pragmatism as a starting point, the forms in which he was understood and labeled by others are fundamental to this study since they demonstrate the extent to which Padmore was willing to compromise and ‘play the game’ of imperial politics, and they show the boundaries of the field in which he operated. Overall, this thesis aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of race and non-violent resistance in anti-imperial politics in the first half of the twentieth century by focusing upon the role of a mobile, life-long activist from the diaspora who attacked the moral basis of late colonial rule from within.

This study is about refugee integration: how refugees become citizens, and more generally how outsiders become insiders. More specifically, it is about an appropriate conceptual framework for studying and understanding refugee integration processes. I propose that refugee integration be understood as local politics, and that, therefore, refugees and hosts negotiate their relationships with each other based on their respective interests and using a series of material and symbolic exchanges. While this conceptual approach to integration seems self- evident, this empirical, process-oriented, and spatially and temporally specific approach radically departs from the predominant normative assumptions in the policy and academic literature. The thesis sets out and develops how this simple framework, consistently applied, carries analytical correlates which stand in marked contrast to most analyses of refugee integration processes. My argument is supported empirically with a detailed case study of villages in a rural border area of South Africa where many (former) Mozambican refugees are settled since the 1980s. I spent four years (2002-2006) living and conducting field work in this area. The thesis by published (and publishable) works includes five articles covering different aspects of refugee integration as political negotiation. These include: 1) analysing the conceptual dangers and empirical fallacies of approaches to local integration which frame it as a ‘solution’ within the international refugee assistance and protection regime; 2) illustrating how common conceptual and methodological approaches to studying refugees tend to hide the presence of integrated refugees; 3) applying the political negotiation approach across time periods by comparing the integration processes of two ‘waves’ of Mozambicans fleeing conflict into South Africa in the mid-1800s and the 1980s; 4) showing how integration processes, including those related to legal status, often function according to very different logics than intended by national or international legal frameworks and policies targeting refugees; and 5) looking at processes of negotiated integration at the level of the village and how they are spatialised.

This study explores the `gendered' process of international migration in Asia. It proposes that gender is one of the principal analytical factors for theoretical conceptualisation in the study of international migration. The study examines the case of Korea, which has been transformed into one of the major labour receiving countries in Asia since the early 1990s, but which has received less attention in the English literature on migration. The aim of the study is to examine the process of international migration in the historical, social and political contexts of Korea, by way of the integration of theoretical analyses with a critical gendered lens. A theoretical framework for this study is based on the observation that theorising the multifaceted process of international migration - which takes place with various interrelated variables - requires multidisciplinary and multidimensional approaches. The study therefore analyses the social formation of the `gendered' process of international migration by looking closely at the three different migratory stages of women migrants: the migratory journey; employment; and settlement in the country of destination. The primary empirical data used in the study were collected during a six-month period of field research - between April and September 2005. Qualitative data were derived from in-depth interviews with 31 migrant women, as well as employers, government officials and NGO workers. Based on a feminist standpoint of the outsider-within, the study locates the lives of migrant women from the margin to centre of the analysis. The empirical study shows that migrant women are `outsiders' who exist `within' the very core of international migration system in which they are, nevertheless, marginalised and silenced. The study suggests that the ostensibly gender-neutral process of migration is gender specific, resulting in different migration experiences between women and men. Gendered and racialised social relationships of power are pervasive in the structure of international migration and state institutions. At the same time, the differently `sedimented' practices of women and men - who strategically draw on institutional rules and resources to facilitate migration - become institutionalised in a gendered way. This, in turn, influences the gendered process of international migration that is reproduced and transformed over time.