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Migrant Rights, Agency, and Vulnerability: Navigating Contradictions in the Eurasian Region

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2020

Caress Schenk Open the ORCID record for Caress Schenk [Opens in a new window]
Caress Schenk*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science and International Relations, Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan
*
*Corresponding author. Email: cschenk@nu.edu.kz
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Abstract

Migrants are often presented in simplified terms that focus on the threats they experience or pose to the host society. This produces an image of migrants who have no agency and are victims of their circumstances or who respond to their circumstances by turning to crime and illegality. In this special issue, we reframe migration by highlighting how migrants leverage the various vulnerabilities they encounter, turning them into agency and self-sufficiency. We explore different types of vulnerability and agency for migrants in the Eurasian region, which often originate from the same sources, including structural factors, state and governance practices, social networks, and gender roles. Through interactions with a variety of state and nonstate actors, migrants have the ability to make choices that reduce uncertainty and risk in their migration environment and on returning home. These choices coexist with vulnerability and a lack of formal rights but do not replace them, creating complex and contingent relationships between precarity and agency.

Keywords

Mobilitymigration policyprecarityagencyinformal practicesRussiaEurasia
Type
Special Issue Article
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 48 , Special Issue 4: Special Issue on Migrant Rights, Agency, and Vulnerability , July 2020 , pp. 637 - 643
Copyright
© Association for the Study of Nationalities 2020

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