Perspectives onYouth and Migration

Presented by Dr Adrian HadlandSUII Migrant Youth Identity Workshop, 2015

Today’s Presentation• My Background

• Xenophobic Violence

• Human Trafficking

• The ‘One City’ Project

• Early observations

My background

• First experience of teaching & migration: camps for Vietnamese “Boat People”

• Political journalist for 15 years, based mainly in South Africa, stories included end of apartheid, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

• Acting Editor of the Cape Argus, Parliamentary correspondent for Business Day, Senior Writer for The Sunday Independent

• Moved into policy area in 2002-10, Democracy and Governance Research Programme (Human trafficking, Middle East Peace process, criminal violence), completed PhD in 2007

• Have consulted for World Bank, UN Development Programme, SA Presidency

• PhD in 2007, shifted to academia in 2010 when appointed Associate Professor of International Communications at the University of Nottingham (Ningbo).

• Multiple nationalities, scattered friends and family, three careers (Bauman)

Xenophobic Violence: South Africa 2008

• Sudden outbreak of violence leads to 60 deaths, 10,000s displaced

• Violence aimed at ‘foreigners’, particularly from Zimbabwe, Zambia - neighbours and allies

Case study: Xenophobia

• Commissioned by the South African Cabinet - a report within two weeks

• Team of 33 including 8 PhDs were already in the field gathering data on violence and crime

• Switched to this project for one week

Methodology:• Review of media reports• Evaluation of scholarship, local and global• Focus group discussions (in Alexandra, Mamelodi, Tembisa

and in Imizamu Yethu)• Interviews with stakeholders

Expected findings

• Not only, or even first, country to experience xenophobia

• Competition for resources, especially housing and jobs

• Government inefficiency and lack of delivery

• Fuelled by unemployment and the economy

• Failure of migration policy

• Migrants stereotyped, usually falsely

Unexpected findings

• Dramatic differences in how genders (and generations) experience xenophobia (migration)• ‘Foreigners’ not only African, but also non-local, eg sePedi and isiTsonga, Pakistani, Chinese and South African• ‘infection’ of violence as means of protest• Challenge to legitimacy of state (communication)• Specificities of local conflict (difficult to generalise); general state of siege• Exclusive citizenship (“the particular form that nation-states take, and the ways in which nationalism can either create inclusive political communities, or exclusive political communities”) Hadland 2008, p15

Human Trafficking

• EU FP7 project (£1-million), 2009

• Objectives: map trafficking trends, identify profile of victims, motives of agents and key driving factors, including victims – especially children’s – voices

• Highly complex and ethically charged

• Routes (criminal syndicates), children (illegal), prosecutors (difficult to get responses)

Methodologies• How to access organised crime?

• How to access trafficked children?

• Methodology is as innovative, varied and remarkable as you want it to be.

• Student videos, training, website, engagement, participation

One City Project• Cape Town, post-democracy (1998)

• “’One City, Many Cultures’ was aimed at creating a more tolerant, more diverse and integrated city of Cape Town, at a time when intolerance was rife in the city. Every day, we delved into the different religions and cultures that existed in the city, explaining how they related to the important things in life, such as birth, growing up, coming of age, weddings, growing old and death and remembrance” – Ryland Fisher

• Combat ignorance and stereotyping

Scottish Migration

• The number of minority ethnic people in Glasgow more than doubled between 2001 and 2010

• Scotland has a declining population and a looming skills shortage

• Currently on a major drive to boost immigration with a current target of 24,000 new migrants per year (Gardham 2014)

• Range of measures by Scottish Parliament to attract migrants, including incentives to bring and retain international students

• Migration is considered critical to the expansion of the Scottish economy and to boosting tax revenues by as much as £50-billion by 2030 (Gardham 2014).

• Most immigrants are in their 20s (38% according to the 2011 census), from many countries such as Bangladesh, China and Pakistan.

Early thoughts• The challenges of migration don’t stop when a host country has accepted

people. For many, that’s when the hard bit starts.

• Communication as a critical element of integration, within communities, with government, between individuals and groups. Particularly important for the youth (‘isolation’)

• The importance of religion, language and culture as prisms through which integration takes place

• Fantasy (the Scottish dream, opportunity) versus reality (isolation, exclusion)

• Not only migrants who need to adjust and accept their new situation, but also the ‘natives’. Changing attitudes and breaking down ignorance among locals just as important in acquiring language skills and adopting cultural and national emblems of belonging.

• Methodologies can be endlessly innovative; real prize is the possibility of making creative practice by research participants fundamental to the project while equipping them to continue with and develop this creative practice.

Conclusions• The process of migration tells us much about the human condition

• One of the most important issues of contemporary times; the ‘consequence’ of globalisation

• People in crisis expose the fissures and cleavages of society, but also provide the opportunity to investigate and counteract them

• The youth are particularly important as they experience migration and integration in different ways and their experiences have a long-term impact on society

• Hope this project will shed new light on these processes and will explore how positive notions of culture and belonging can help create an inclusive sense of national and Scottish identity going forward.

Thank you!

adrian.hadland@stir.ac.ukhttp://www.scottishinsight.ac.uk/Programmes/Programmes20152016/MigrantYouthIdentities.aspx

References• Hadland, A (ed) (2008) Citizenship, Violence and Xenophobia

in South Africa: Perceptions from South African Communities, handed to Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya on June 05 2008.

• Hadland, A (ed) (2009) Violence and Xenophobia in South Africa: Developing Consensus, Moving to Action. Cape Town: HSRC Press. - includes various recommendations

• Allais et al (2010) TSIRELEDZANI: UNDERSTANDING THE DIMENSIONS OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN SOUTHERN AFRICA. Cape Town: HSRC Press: http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/research-outputs/view/4940