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Public opinion in Canada has hitherto assumed that because five of Canada's ten millions of people are of British origin, that British immigrants to Canada will experience no problems in establishing themselves in the New World, that migration from the Old World to the New is of no greater import than migration from one province of Canada to another. [...]

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The subject of international migration has become an important social issue and feature of globalized labour market in health care. International migration of nurses has increasingly become a concern and the volumes are reported to be increasing particularly from the developing world where, in some countries, is a leading cause of attrition and subsequent shortage of nurses as a human resource. This has implications on the capacity of health systems to respond to the challenge of health care delivery to populations considering that nurses form the largest health workforce in most countries. In Zambia, nurse migration has equally been a concern including the absence of relevant studies with evidence to inform policy direction, planning and management of nursing human resource. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent of nurse migration, the reasons why nurses resign their employment positions and leave the country, why other nurses do not migrate and to further determine the perceived nurse migration impact on the public health care system. The study was a non-experimental descriptive survey design that used both quantitative and qualitative approaches to data collection and data analysis. A triangulation approach was used in data collection involving various methods; multistage, stratified and systematic sampling; purposive and snowball with a range of data collection instruments; semi-structured for focused interviews of nurse migrants, nurses seeking verifications and policy makers; self-administered questionnaire that enlisted data from clinical nurses and nurse educators on the perceived impact of nurse migration on the public health care system and topic guides for focus group discussions. Computer software were used to code and analyze data; SPSS version 11.0 for quantitative data and NVivo7 for qualitative data. A total of 309 clinical nurses and 23 nurse educators responded to the self administered questionnaire. Thirty three key informants participated in focus group discussions conducted in four health facilities situated in four districts. There were five directors at provincial, district and national levels and 13 nurse migrants interviewed. Data on nurses with verification of qualifications sent to countries were collected from a total of 1,142 records; 931 for RNs and 211 for ENs. The study was guided by a conceptual framework developed from two migration theories namely the World Systems Theory and the Push and Pull Theory. The World Systems Theory structured the world into three zones of Periphery (poor countries), Semi-Periphery (Transitional economies) and the Core (industrialized wealthy countries). Push factors caused people to leave the Periphery to the Semi-periphery and to the Core where the Pull factors attracted those from the Periphery and Semi-periphery. Major findings of the study showed dissatisfaction with work conditions, poor living conditions, lack of professional recognition and autonomy and lack of access to professional development as being among the push factors while the pull factors included attractive work conditions, conducive work environment and access to professional development, among others. The perceived impact included nurse shortage, excessive workload, long working hours and poor quality of patient care. Findings on issues for policy on managing nurses leaving for greener pastures were in the form of interventions that would address the push factors and formed the basis for recommendations from the study. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2007.

This thesis explores representations of Italian migrant women in textual renditions of the Italian presence in Britain written and produced by descendants of Italian migrants between 1982 and 2002. The thesis offers detailed critical readings of six texts focusing on the experiences of Italian migrant women in Britain and their identity formation, and is organised according to genre categories including: theatre, romantic fiction and culinary memoir. Through close textual analysis, paying particular attention to key themes of movement, space and place within the context of female migration; the study scrutinizes the identity formation of Italian migrant women by demonstrating how seemingly clear and univocal models of Italian identity can be reconfigured as fluid conceptualizations of identity. It is argued that Italian identity as it is represented in a British context can be considered as a construct constituted by the repetition of a series of stylized acts. It is precisely through the repetition of these acts that Italian migrant women create forms of sustenance and stability for themselves and their families within the host country. This study moves beyond monolithic images of Italian migrant women, broadening the number of perspectives from which they can be viewed, by examining the way in which they are represented as stretching the seemingly fixed boundary between the public and private sphere in an attempt to transgress spatial and identity boundaries.

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.