The ever worth reading monthly magazine Monocle had a brief item that caught my attention. Unfortunately, the only mention I can find of it is in this brief article from Radio New Zealand.
Creating passports for Pacific people travelling within the region is one of the aims of a group of Pacific leaders meeting in Auckland to discuss a single Government for the Polynesian Triangle.
This is a primary goal of the about 60 chiefs, or Ariki, and other leaders from Tahiti, Hawaii, Rarotonga, Tonga and Fiji who are meeting with their New Zealand counterparts.
The gathering at Whaiora Marae in Auckland is looking at how to unite Pacific people in a single indigenous Polynesian government.
A spokesperson at the event, Matt Seymor says current governance, like the issuing of passports, has taken away the natural cultural ties of Pacific people in the region.
“Settler’s law and colonialism have taken away their whakapapa. As like in New Zealand their right to come down on to Maui’s fish. As you have Samoans and Tongans who have to go through passport clearance to enter into New Zealand.”
Where can I begin?
I've blogged here before about the migration issues facing Tonga in specific and Polynesia in general, and about migration in relation to the two Samoas, and about the subject over at my blog. Partly it's a matter of migration issues in relation to islands being quite personally familiar, partly it's an issue of the sheer income gaps between sending and receiving countries, partly it's a matter of how migration regimes control matters in a Polynesia that's culturally fairly homogeneous.
Manuhuia Barcham at New Zealand's Massey University has argued in the paper "Rethinking Polynesian mobility: A new Polynesian triangle?" that migration from poor to rich countries in Polynesia (here, New Zealand, Hawai'i, and French Polynesia and perhaps Melanesian New Caledonia as well) is conditioned by patterns of migration throughout the Polynesian cultural zone as by current political ties, never mind the ways in which some Polynesian areas are tied to larger non-Polynesian ones (New Zealand to Australia, Hawai'i to the mainland United States.
Polynesian countries which retained strong links with their colonial administrators or rulers received considerable economic support from the metropoles and have had access to their labour markets. Thus American Samoans have had easy access to the mainland United States, and residents of Niue, the Cook Islands and Tokelau, Islands although governing themselves in ‘free association’ with New Zealand, can access New Zealand passports and thus the New Zealand and Australian labour markets. Samoans enjoy a special relationship with New Zealand as a former colonial power which gives them some preferential treatment migrating there and residents of French Polynesia have the rights of French citizens. The British have, in contrast, restricted access for their former colonial subjects to Britain almost
completely.
While writers such as Crocombe (1994: 311-12) acknowledge the influence of these colonial ties on movement of Polynesian peoples, they generally fail to consider the free right of access Hawai’ians have to the continental USA and that of New Zealand Māori to Australia.
After the Second World War, Barcham argues, the need for labour in the richer Polynesian territories recreated a migration culture on the islands, and eventually led to a second wave of Polynesian migration to larger labour markets (i.e. Australia and the mainland United States), later economic troubles discouraging migration while encouraging specific causes (the Mormonism which led to Tongan settlement in Utah, say). This transnationalism is dynamic, linking the different regions of Polynesia in a diasporic context that extends even beyond Polynesia proper to continental landmasses on either side of the Pacific.
In this context, a pan-Polynesian passport would be incredibly useful, especially if New Zealand was included on account of its Maori heritage: Not only would New Zealand be a desirable target, but since 1973 the integration on Australia and New Zealander labour markets has made Australia basically just another option for ambitious New Zealanders.
This passport is hugely unlikely to happen, to be sure. Would the island-states of independent Polynesian states be willing to give up so much sovereignty, especially given the relative lack of puissance of the Pacific Islands Forum? Would New Zealand be willing to join in? Would Australia tolerate New Zealand's participation in that zone? How would the United States react? Et cetera. Still, it's an interesting idea.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
On soldiering and migration
Yesterday was Remembrance Day in Canada, the two minutes of silence starting on the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month commemorating the 65 thousand war dead of the First World War. These dead, like Caanda's other war dead, as in other nations, play a major role in defining national identities and histories, creating create collective traumas and comemmorations as group rituals. But, as I noted on my blog yesterday, although these events are common to the nation as a whole, the casualties aren't so dispersed.
The bumper sticker on Robin and Paulette Tedford's red Ford pickup truck is as direct as they come. "If you don't stand behind our troops," it reads beneath a Canadian flag, "feel free to stand in front of them." The message might seem jingoistic and surprising in peace-loving Canada, but the sticker is a hot item in this small central Nova Scotia town, and nobody here would think to question the Tedfords' right to display it.
On Oct. 14, 2006, their youngest son, Sergeant Darcy Tedford, 32, was on patrol outside Kandahar when his light-armoured vehicle was ambushed by Taliban insurgents firing rocket-propelled grenades. He and Private Blake Williamson were killed. Born in Calgary but raised near Truro since the age of one, Sgt. Tedford was the third solider from the area to be killed in Afghanistan. Corporal Christopher Reid, 34, had died in August 2006 when his light-armoured vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, and a month later, Warrant Officer Frank Mellish, 38, was killed in fierce fighting with the Taliban. Last December saw the combat death of a fourth Truro native, Corporal Thomas Hamilton, 26, who was born in Truro and raised in Upper Musquodoboit, about 45 kilometres away.
For a town of just 12,000 people, the war in Afghanistan has taken an extraordinary toll. It should not, however, come as a surprise. A careful study of the list of the 133 Canadian soldiers who've lost their lives in Afghanistan since 2002 shows they are far more likely to have roots in a town such as Truro than in Toronto or Vancouver. Reflecting overall patterns of enlistment in the Canadian Forces, those killed hail disproportionately from Atlantic Canada and the Prairies. They are for the most part white males under 40 who come from small towns rather than major urban centres.
[. . .]
Truro bills itself as "the hub of Nova Scotia," but it is a hub that most people skirt around on the way to and from Halifax. The tourism kiosk at Halifax airport greets arrivals with pamphlets on attractions in every corner of Nova Scotia, but the attendant came up empty when asked for material on Truro. Even inside the hub, a motel postcard rack offered cards from Digby, Pictou and the Annapolis Valley but nothing from Truro. Statistics Canada reports that the town's median household income is well below the provincial average, and its population is homogenous. Just 5% of the population are immigrants, with few recent arrivals, and English is the mother tongue of 96% of residents. It is a place where a Chinese restaurant can call itself Hou's Takee Outee without raising eyebrows.
It is also a place where military tradition runs deep. The names of 278 townsmen who fell in the two world wars, and now Afghanistan, are engraved on the downtown cenotaph. "The attitude of people here is they support the troops 100%," said Garry Higgins, president of the local Royal Canadian Legion branch. Remembrance Day ceremonies draw between 3,000 and 4,000 people, he said. Herb Peppard, an 89-year-old veteran of the Second World War, said the respect he receives from the townspeople reflects their appreciation of the military. "I think Nova Scotia is always represented well [in the Forces] compared to its population," he said. "We get very patriotic here."
This disproportionate number of recruits has been commented on before.
In 2005-06, 23 per cent of the Canadian Forces' recruits came from Atlantic Canada, according to a military spokesperson in Ottawa, while 26 per cent were from Quebec and 33 per cent were from Ontario. About 19 per cent came from the West.
But Michel Desjardins, a petty officer at the recruiting detachment in Bathurst, N.B., estimates that the number for Atlantic Canada is even higher.
"Eastern Canada, we do provide a lot of people for the Canadian Forces," Petty Officer Desjardins said. "I believe last time I looked, about a third of the Canadian Forces are from Atlantic Canada, and for a region of the country that only comprises something like 10 per cent of the Canadian population, it's a lot."
7.2% of the Canadian population, to be precise. Further in this second source, one observer suggests that joining the military is just another form of out-migration.
Jonathan Vance, Canada Research Chair in Conflict and Culture at the University of Western Ontario in London, agrees that it is a high proportion and suggests that military recruitment should be viewed as another form of out-migration in the region "because you sign on not really knowing where it's going to take you. And out-migration is itself almost entirely for economic reasons.
"It may well be, for Maritimers with limited job prospects, joining the military is not that much different from going to the oil sands in Alberta, except for the fact there's a chance you'll get killed. It does fit in with the decades-old pattern of Maritimers leaving the province in one way or another."
There's a similarm phenomenon in the United States, where Southerners play a disproportionately large role in thjat country's armed forces.
* The South provides a disproportionate share of the nation’s troops. An analysis of Department of Defense state reveals that 35% of the nation’s active-duty military personnel come from 13 Southern states. Of the top 15 states where those serving in the military are born, the South accounts for seven.
* The South especially dominant in stationing troops. 51% of active-duty U.S. military personnel based in the continental U.S. are stationed in the South. Four of the top states for stationing troops are in the South: Virginia, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia.
* The South has been the region most highly impacted by the loss of soldiers in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Of the U.S. troops that have died in Iraq, 38% were based in the South. 47% of those killed in Afghanistan were based in Southern states.
The South provides nearly twice as many recruits per capita than the Northeast. This extended Heritage Foundation review points to the relative underrepresentation of the populations of California, the Midwest, and the Northeast in the country in the number of recruits, although some of its other claims re: the representative nature of the army's recruitment may be significantly overstated.
As for the United Kingdom, low unemployment rates have contributed to the growing number of recruits of non-British citizenship, amounting to nearly 10% of the total numbers.
This pattern makes sense. The link between relative economic deprivation and the propensity to enlist in the military--not, it should be emphasized, under draft conditions, but as volunteers--is well-known. Service in the military is socially prestigious, provides an easy way to escape a relatively deprived background, and--perhaps most importantly--provides a secure, nay, even guaranteed, job and source of income. Many militaries also provide benefits, like free health care or education subsidies. If these options are available to someone who'd otherwise lack them, whether because of region or because of social class, it's not surprising that they'd enlist.
This leads to an interesting set of questions. Do these North Atlantic trends prevail elsewhere: are Sicilians more likely to be in the military than Lombards, DOMiens than Métros, Brazilians from Recife versus Brazilians from Rio Grande do Sul, Siberians than Moscovites? Economic disparities within European Union member-states' regions, never mind between social classes, would seem to create incentives in that developed area. The question of where people formerly in the military settle on the end of that career would also be interesting to answer: do they return to their home regions, or, equipped with financial and career-related capital, do they head to their country's economic nuclei?
The bumper sticker on Robin and Paulette Tedford's red Ford pickup truck is as direct as they come. "If you don't stand behind our troops," it reads beneath a Canadian flag, "feel free to stand in front of them." The message might seem jingoistic and surprising in peace-loving Canada, but the sticker is a hot item in this small central Nova Scotia town, and nobody here would think to question the Tedfords' right to display it.
On Oct. 14, 2006, their youngest son, Sergeant Darcy Tedford, 32, was on patrol outside Kandahar when his light-armoured vehicle was ambushed by Taliban insurgents firing rocket-propelled grenades. He and Private Blake Williamson were killed. Born in Calgary but raised near Truro since the age of one, Sgt. Tedford was the third solider from the area to be killed in Afghanistan. Corporal Christopher Reid, 34, had died in August 2006 when his light-armoured vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, and a month later, Warrant Officer Frank Mellish, 38, was killed in fierce fighting with the Taliban. Last December saw the combat death of a fourth Truro native, Corporal Thomas Hamilton, 26, who was born in Truro and raised in Upper Musquodoboit, about 45 kilometres away.
For a town of just 12,000 people, the war in Afghanistan has taken an extraordinary toll. It should not, however, come as a surprise. A careful study of the list of the 133 Canadian soldiers who've lost their lives in Afghanistan since 2002 shows they are far more likely to have roots in a town such as Truro than in Toronto or Vancouver. Reflecting overall patterns of enlistment in the Canadian Forces, those killed hail disproportionately from Atlantic Canada and the Prairies. They are for the most part white males under 40 who come from small towns rather than major urban centres.
[. . .]
Truro bills itself as "the hub of Nova Scotia," but it is a hub that most people skirt around on the way to and from Halifax. The tourism kiosk at Halifax airport greets arrivals with pamphlets on attractions in every corner of Nova Scotia, but the attendant came up empty when asked for material on Truro. Even inside the hub, a motel postcard rack offered cards from Digby, Pictou and the Annapolis Valley but nothing from Truro. Statistics Canada reports that the town's median household income is well below the provincial average, and its population is homogenous. Just 5% of the population are immigrants, with few recent arrivals, and English is the mother tongue of 96% of residents. It is a place where a Chinese restaurant can call itself Hou's Takee Outee without raising eyebrows.
It is also a place where military tradition runs deep. The names of 278 townsmen who fell in the two world wars, and now Afghanistan, are engraved on the downtown cenotaph. "The attitude of people here is they support the troops 100%," said Garry Higgins, president of the local Royal Canadian Legion branch. Remembrance Day ceremonies draw between 3,000 and 4,000 people, he said. Herb Peppard, an 89-year-old veteran of the Second World War, said the respect he receives from the townspeople reflects their appreciation of the military. "I think Nova Scotia is always represented well [in the Forces] compared to its population," he said. "We get very patriotic here."
This disproportionate number of recruits has been commented on before.
In 2005-06, 23 per cent of the Canadian Forces' recruits came from Atlantic Canada, according to a military spokesperson in Ottawa, while 26 per cent were from Quebec and 33 per cent were from Ontario. About 19 per cent came from the West.
But Michel Desjardins, a petty officer at the recruiting detachment in Bathurst, N.B., estimates that the number for Atlantic Canada is even higher.
"Eastern Canada, we do provide a lot of people for the Canadian Forces," Petty Officer Desjardins said. "I believe last time I looked, about a third of the Canadian Forces are from Atlantic Canada, and for a region of the country that only comprises something like 10 per cent of the Canadian population, it's a lot."
7.2% of the Canadian population, to be precise. Further in this second source, one observer suggests that joining the military is just another form of out-migration.
Jonathan Vance, Canada Research Chair in Conflict and Culture at the University of Western Ontario in London, agrees that it is a high proportion and suggests that military recruitment should be viewed as another form of out-migration in the region "because you sign on not really knowing where it's going to take you. And out-migration is itself almost entirely for economic reasons.
"It may well be, for Maritimers with limited job prospects, joining the military is not that much different from going to the oil sands in Alberta, except for the fact there's a chance you'll get killed. It does fit in with the decades-old pattern of Maritimers leaving the province in one way or another."
There's a similarm phenomenon in the United States, where Southerners play a disproportionately large role in thjat country's armed forces.
* The South provides a disproportionate share of the nation’s troops. An analysis of Department of Defense state reveals that 35% of the nation’s active-duty military personnel come from 13 Southern states. Of the top 15 states where those serving in the military are born, the South accounts for seven.
* The South especially dominant in stationing troops. 51% of active-duty U.S. military personnel based in the continental U.S. are stationed in the South. Four of the top states for stationing troops are in the South: Virginia, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia.
* The South has been the region most highly impacted by the loss of soldiers in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Of the U.S. troops that have died in Iraq, 38% were based in the South. 47% of those killed in Afghanistan were based in Southern states.
The South provides nearly twice as many recruits per capita than the Northeast. This extended Heritage Foundation review points to the relative underrepresentation of the populations of California, the Midwest, and the Northeast in the country in the number of recruits, although some of its other claims re: the representative nature of the army's recruitment may be significantly overstated.
As for the United Kingdom, low unemployment rates have contributed to the growing number of recruits of non-British citizenship, amounting to nearly 10% of the total numbers.
This pattern makes sense. The link between relative economic deprivation and the propensity to enlist in the military--not, it should be emphasized, under draft conditions, but as volunteers--is well-known. Service in the military is socially prestigious, provides an easy way to escape a relatively deprived background, and--perhaps most importantly--provides a secure, nay, even guaranteed, job and source of income. Many militaries also provide benefits, like free health care or education subsidies. If these options are available to someone who'd otherwise lack them, whether because of region or because of social class, it's not surprising that they'd enlist.
This leads to an interesting set of questions. Do these North Atlantic trends prevail elsewhere: are Sicilians more likely to be in the military than Lombards, DOMiens than Métros, Brazilians from Recife versus Brazilians from Rio Grande do Sul, Siberians than Moscovites? Economic disparities within European Union member-states' regions, never mind between social classes, would seem to create incentives in that developed area. The question of where people formerly in the military settle on the end of that career would also be interesting to answer: do they return to their home regions, or, equipped with financial and career-related capital, do they head to their country's economic nuclei?
Sunday, November 08, 2009
If people around the world could move, who would leave for where?
A recent Gallup poll that reported very large numbers of people--700 million, actually--right now would like to migrate between countries has gotten quite a lot of attention from the press. What, exactly, did the pollsters find?
From its surveys in 135 countries between 2007 and 2009, Gallup finds residents of sub-Saharan African countries are most likely to express a desire to move abroad permanently. Thirty-eight percent of the adult population in the region -- or an estimated 165 million -- say they would like to do this if the opportunity arises. Residents in Asian countries are the least likely to say they would like to move -- with 10% of the adult population, or roughly 250 million, expressing a desire to migrate permanently.
The United States is the top desired destination country for the 700 million adults who would like to relocate permanently to another country. Nearly one-quarter (24%) of these respondents, which translates to more than 165 million adults worldwide, name the United States as their desired future residence. With an additional estimated 45 million saying they would like to move to Canada, Northern America is one of the two most desired regions.
The rest of the top desired destination countries (those where an estimated 25 million or more adults would like to go) are predominantly European. Forty-five million adults who would like to move name the United Kingdom or France as their desired destination, while 35 million would like to go to Spain and 25 million would like to relocate to Germany. Thirty million name Saudi Arabia and 25 million name Australia.
Roughly 210 million adults around the world would like to move to a country in the European Union, which is similar to the estimated number who would like to move to Northern America. However, about half of the estimated 80 million adults who live in the EU and would like to move permanently to another country would like to move to another country within the EU -- the highest desired intra-regional migration rate in the world.
Most of the world's international immigrants, according to the 2009 United Nations' Human Development Report, move from one developing country to another developing country or between developed countries. Gallup's data would suggest then that the countries people desire to migrate to permanently do not necessarily reflect reality -- especially in regard to developing countries. Eighty percent of those in developing countries who would like to move permanently to another country would like to move to a developed country, while 13% of respondents in developed countries would like to move to a developing country.
What countries would see the biggest changes?
"Across the countries surveyed, Singapore posts the highest positive PNMI of all countries and areas, with a net migration index value of +260%. This means that Singapore's adult population would increase from an estimated 3.6 million to as high as 13 million. The Democratic of the Congo (Kinshasa) posts the highest negative PNMI, with a net migration index value of -60%, which means its adult population would decrease from an estimated 32 million to as low as 13 million."
More, if you go to this detailed table, you'll see the estimated spectacular changes, with the French, German, Canadian and British populations reaching more than 90 million (if from very different bases), the Chinese, Indian, and Russian populations each shrinking by 5%, Ecuador, Ukraine, Romania and Taiwan (!) by 20%, and countries in Central America, North and West Africa, and a variety of African failed states with Haiti facing population shrinkages by more than a third and often more than half.
There's problems with this poll, of course. Are the questions and the results truly comparable between countries, are the respondents motivated by enduring or ephemeral factors, are the pollsters correct in assuming that there would not be as much migration between rich and poor countries as the results claim? Still, as questionable as this poll may be, it does provide interesting insight into what people say they would like to do, and how they perceive their home countries and destination countries? Britain, France and Spain seem to be more attractive than Germany or Italy, there at least seems to be the possibility of greatly intensified internal migration in the European Union, the low percentages of potential emigrants in Russia and most of Eurasia correspond to absolutely large numbers, and so on. These perceptions may yet approach reality, at least.
From its surveys in 135 countries between 2007 and 2009, Gallup finds residents of sub-Saharan African countries are most likely to express a desire to move abroad permanently. Thirty-eight percent of the adult population in the region -- or an estimated 165 million -- say they would like to do this if the opportunity arises. Residents in Asian countries are the least likely to say they would like to move -- with 10% of the adult population, or roughly 250 million, expressing a desire to migrate permanently.
The United States is the top desired destination country for the 700 million adults who would like to relocate permanently to another country. Nearly one-quarter (24%) of these respondents, which translates to more than 165 million adults worldwide, name the United States as their desired future residence. With an additional estimated 45 million saying they would like to move to Canada, Northern America is one of the two most desired regions.
The rest of the top desired destination countries (those where an estimated 25 million or more adults would like to go) are predominantly European. Forty-five million adults who would like to move name the United Kingdom or France as their desired destination, while 35 million would like to go to Spain and 25 million would like to relocate to Germany. Thirty million name Saudi Arabia and 25 million name Australia.
Roughly 210 million adults around the world would like to move to a country in the European Union, which is similar to the estimated number who would like to move to Northern America. However, about half of the estimated 80 million adults who live in the EU and would like to move permanently to another country would like to move to another country within the EU -- the highest desired intra-regional migration rate in the world.
Most of the world's international immigrants, according to the 2009 United Nations' Human Development Report, move from one developing country to another developing country or between developed countries. Gallup's data would suggest then that the countries people desire to migrate to permanently do not necessarily reflect reality -- especially in regard to developing countries. Eighty percent of those in developing countries who would like to move permanently to another country would like to move to a developed country, while 13% of respondents in developed countries would like to move to a developing country.
What countries would see the biggest changes?
"Across the countries surveyed, Singapore posts the highest positive PNMI of all countries and areas, with a net migration index value of +260%. This means that Singapore's adult population would increase from an estimated 3.6 million to as high as 13 million. The Democratic of the Congo (Kinshasa) posts the highest negative PNMI, with a net migration index value of -60%, which means its adult population would decrease from an estimated 32 million to as low as 13 million."
More, if you go to this detailed table, you'll see the estimated spectacular changes, with the French, German, Canadian and British populations reaching more than 90 million (if from very different bases), the Chinese, Indian, and Russian populations each shrinking by 5%, Ecuador, Ukraine, Romania and Taiwan (!) by 20%, and countries in Central America, North and West Africa, and a variety of African failed states with Haiti facing population shrinkages by more than a third and often more than half.
There's problems with this poll, of course. Are the questions and the results truly comparable between countries, are the respondents motivated by enduring or ephemeral factors, are the pollsters correct in assuming that there would not be as much migration between rich and poor countries as the results claim? Still, as questionable as this poll may be, it does provide interesting insight into what people say they would like to do, and how they perceive their home countries and destination countries? Britain, France and Spain seem to be more attractive than Germany or Italy, there at least seems to be the possibility of greatly intensified internal migration in the European Union, the low percentages of potential emigrants in Russia and most of Eurasia correspond to absolutely large numbers, and so on. These perceptions may yet approach reality, at least.
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