Mass Migration in the World-system by Terry-Ann Jones Eric Mielants

Author:Terry-Ann Jones, Eric Mielants [Terry-Ann Jones, Eric Mielants]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781594518140
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2011-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

Oil War and the Reverse Migration

As the Kuwait-Iraq war broke out in 1990, there was a sudden wave of return migration to Kerala, the first major flow of return migrants of the state. Nearly 80,000 persons from Kerala were repatriated from Kuwait alone in a very short time (Nair 1999:213; also see Saith 1992). However, even as they made their arrangements to come home, the migrants also ensured a transfer of their hard-earned money; there was even a 10 percent increase in remittances from the Middle East in those banks in Kerala that dealt with foreign exchange within a fortnight after the war began in Kuwait (see Isaac 1992). Migrants moving back home when the political and socioeconomic conditions of host countries become less attractive only to move back again when the domestic situation becomes less attractive is a common phenomenon in international circulation across geopolitical frontiers, creating what Duany (2002) calls “mobile livelihoods.” The state of Kerala tided over the crisis brought on by the Kuwait war, an eventuality that provides us with two theoretical insights. First of all, Kerala proved itself to be a social democratic state with a developmentalist ideology that succeeded, at least partly, in mitigating the negative effects of reverse migration. As the educated malayali sent his/her hard-earned money home, the state was not found wanting—it extended various temporary support measures to the people affected by the war. Secondly, the Kuwait war prompts us to characterize not only the sending state but also the national bourgeoisie of the host country. During the Asian Crisis of 1997–1999, the Malaysian government wanted to send the migrant workers out of the country, but the plantation companies intervened, claiming that they could not function without them, which ultimately thwarted the restrictive policies of the state (see Pillai 1999; Castles 2002:1150). This is a situation similar to the one in the United States where the farming lobby argues for its right to employ Mexican workers (Castles 2002:1150). But in the case of the Kuwait war, neither the national bourgeoisie nor international capital articulated such concerns; the host state was also absent from the larger negotiations across borders.

The evidence of return-migration, apart from such crisis-induced situations, makes concerns for the Kerala state, both in terms of its flow of people and cash. Nearly 45,000 persons were thought to have been compulsorily repatriated to India in the mid-1990s, probably half of them were from Kerala (see Nair 1999). In 1998, it was estimated that the total number of emigrants who returned to Kerala was 7.39 lakh, with the highest return occurring within the highest sending region in the state, namely, Malappuram. Prakash (2004) has determined that many of the emigrants returned after having worked in the Middle East for more than ten years. The highest return migration came from Saudi Arabi (41 percent) followed by the UAE (26 percent). Of the total return emigrants, 42 percent came home during 1996–98. It has been revealed that not less than 75 percent of the

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