Visiting Research Fellowships offered

The Migrating out of Poverty research programme consortium announces a call for applications from scholars who wish to pursue research on migration and development at the University of Sussex.

Successful applicants will receive Visiting Research Fellow status at the University of Sussex, be based in the Sussex Centre for Migration Research in the School of Global Studies and will work closely with researchers from Migrating out of Poverty.

The University of Sussex is ranked first in the world for development studies.

"Sussex’ world-leading reputation for international development gives us much to celebrate. It's thanks to the concentration of expertise that spans the University and brings us together with our close colleagues and partners, the Institute of Development Studies. Our critical, engaged research on the global issues of our times infuses our teaching in the School of Global Studies, from our undergraduate programmes in International Development to a dynamic portfolio of postgraduate degrees that include long-standing and new cross-campus collaborations with IDS, SPRU, CIE and Brighton and Sussex Medical School. We’re really pleased to be recognised in this way.”  - Head of School, Andrea Cornwall

Our aim is for fellows to participate in and contribute to the broader research objectives of Migrating out of Poverty, addressing research and/or policy issues related to migration, gender, poverty and development in the Global South. Our team is global with researchers based in Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa, Zimbabwe and the UK. We welcome applicants working in our countries of focus or with similar research themes to ours, described below, but will also consider original themes that provide new angles on migration and development related issues in the Global South.

Our research themes

Income and Remittances

Our research examines the impact of migration on the welfare of households by exploring patterns of remittance sending and their use, livelihood activities and outcomes such as poverty, consumption, asset ownership and living standards. We are building longitudinal rural household surveys for Ghana, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe that allow us to explore changes over time between households with and without migrants, and how these differences vary by important characteristics of the migrants and their families, such as destination and duration of migration, age, gender and skills of the migrant, and initial welfare standards of the household.  Our surveys also provide useful profiles of migrants and their remittance sending behaviour

Gender and Generation

Little is known about how migration, gender and generation intersect at the household level or how economic, social and cultural changes impact on these relations. Our research explores complex and multi-layered household dynamics within the family who remain back home in rural communities in Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal and Zimbabwe. An additional aim is to discern whether there are marked differences between migration to places that are accessible, low-cost and often linked with low financial return (internal/cross-border migration) and migration to places with higher entry barriers, high costs and expectations of high financial returns (international migration). We build evidence for gender-responsive approaches to policy-making and programming.

Migration Industry

The migration of an individual usually involves a range of actors including their own social networks, brokers, border control agencies, training and     certification institutions and even NGOs and religious organisations. These entities, collectively known as the “migration industry”, have grown due to the tightening of restrictions on legal options for migration and their increasingly complex procedures. This has different impacts on the welfare, rights, freedom and economic status of migrants and the research on this theme aims to gain deeper insights into these dynamics in different cultural contexts. An improved understanding of the infrastructure that facilitates migration enables us to make suggestions to reduce exploitation and maximise benefits.

Our digital spaces

migratingoutofpoverty.dfid.gov.uk

migratingoutofpoverty.blogspot.com

@MigrationRPC

www.facebook.com/migratingoutofpoverty

Who can apply?

We welcome applications from early career academics and more established academics employed by another Higher Education Institution, as well as from professionals working for local, national and international government and non-governmental organisations. We particularly encourage applicants from the Global South.

English is the principal working language of Migrating out of Poverty. For both academic and practical purposes, applicants should have fluency in English. 

How long are the fellowships?

Fellowships will usually be for a duration of between 4 and 12 weeks during normal term time, although longer periods may be possible (dependent on the ability to self-fund).

Facilities and practicalities:

The Migrating out of Poverty research consortium will provide office space and access to university services including computing, meeting rooms and the library. We encourage applicants that have funding for their visit via their institutions, but we may be able to reimburse travel and living expenses for those not able to secure funding.

Visiting Research Fellows are subject to UK Home Office immigration regulations. Visitors from outside the European Economic Area must ensure that they obtain an appropriate visa to carry out research in the University prior to arrival in the UK.

Applying:

To begin an application, please first send an abbreviated CV, a 1000-word outline of proposed research (including signalling any specific links to our research themes), duration of intended stay, and desired/expected output(s). Please include details with web links of your current institution and position and the level of financial support you have. If shortlisted, we will ask for two references.

Send an initial application or informal inquiries to migrationrpc@sussex.ac.uk with the subject line: ‘Visiting Research Fellow application’

Migrating out of Poverty, specifically the research theme leaders: Priya Deshingkar, Dorte Thorsen and Julie Litchfield, will review the applications.

For further information, please read the School of Global Studies web page on Visiting Research Fellows: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/global/research/academicvisitors/visitingresearchfellows

Once selected for a fellowship by Migrating out of Poverty, the candidate will receive further instructions similar to the procedures in the link above, however please send all application related communication or queries to migrationrpc@sussex.ac.uk

Deadline for applications:

31 July 2018  

(for anyone wishing to visit in the Fall 2018 term)

or

31 October 2018

(for anyone wishing to visit in the Spring 2019 term)

New Perspectives on Human Mobility in East Africa: Identifying Research Priorities

Call for Workshop Applicants

Organized by the Scalabrini Institute for Human Mobility in

Africa (SIHMA) and the Organisation for Social Science

Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA)

Eastern Africa is associated with a complexity of movements involving different groups of
people within and outside the region. Conflicts and violence have generated a large
number of refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced people (IDPs). According to
the UNHCR, at the end of 2017, countries such as Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania
hosted more than 3 million refugees and over 5 million IDPs. Domestic and regional labour
mobility, as well as movements of workers outside the continent, are also an important
aspect of migration within the Eastern African region. Over the past years, movements of
skilled and unskilled migrants to the Gulf States have increased due to geographical
proximity and the presence of labour agreements. These mixed migration flows are driven
by multiple socio-economic, political and environmental factors and in many case involve a
high number of irregular migrants who are trafficked to countries in the Middle East,
Europe and Southern Africa. Victims of trafficking are particularly vulnerable to human
rights violations and physical abuses and are of great concern for government in the East
Africa region. All the aforementioned aspects make it imperative to gain insight into the
fundamental nature of the migration challenges in the Eastern Africa region. It is therefore
necessary to review current knowledge about migration in East Africa, identify priority
areas for future research and work toward the establishment of a research network to
support policymaking.

This workshop will take place on 20 September 2018 at OSSREA, in Addis Ababa, and
plans to create a starting point for a research agenda and strong research questions with
regard to migration research in East Africa. It also seeks to promote a greater
understanding of the migration phenomena in the region through a coordinated, synergistic
and broad-spectrum depth of research.

Selected applicants will be expected to submit a paper related to New Perspectives on
Human Mobility in East Africa and present it at the workshop. It is envisaged that a number
of selected papers will be published on the third 2018 annual issue of African Human
Mobility Review (AHMR). AHMR is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal
published by the Scalabrini Institute for Human Mobility in Africa and created to encourage
and facilitate the study of all aspects of human mobility in Africa.

We rely on applicants outside Addis Ababa to draw upon their resources to fund their
travels because of our limited budget. Authors of selected paper will receive an honorarium
of $ 500 upon completion of the editorial process.

PAPER SUBMISSION PROCEDURE: Interested authors should submit the following
information:
- Full Name
- Academic/Institutional Affiliation
- CV
- A 300 word Abstract to describe the ideas and arguments for the paper.

Applicants are expected to submit a full paper (maximum 8000 words) before attending the
workshop. The work should be original and not have been published or presented
elsewhere.

Applications should be sent to Sergio Carciotto at director@sihma.org.za by June 18, 2018

Migrating out of Poverty in the news

We are delighted that the launch of the new phase of Migrating out of Poverty was covered by the Ethiopian Reporter. Here’s an English translation so you can see what they had to say.

More than 11 million Birr budget is allocated for the study

A study that investigates why citizens from different Ethiopian regions - who migrate to be house maids or for other jobs in Addis Ababa, other cities, to the Middle East and other countries - prefer illegal routes instead of the legal means was launched.

The study is to be conducted by the Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA) and is to be carried out by scholars recruited from Addis Ababa University and other areas and organised into three teams. A budget of more than eleven million Ethiopian Birr has been allocated for the study.   

The study is entitled, “Migrating out of Poverty” with three themes namely, Migration Industry, Gender and Generations and Income and Remittances in Ethiopia.

Fekadu Adugna (PhD) from Addis Ababa University is the coordinator and researcher of the team that studies the “Migration Industry in Ethiopia”. He informed the Reporter that the main aim of the study is to find out why citizens migrating within country from regions to Addis Ababa and from Ethiopia to other countries prefer illegal migration routes. He explained that the study is an attempt to understand why migrants prefer non-legal brokers even though over four hundred legal agencies are available and how the non-legal brokers are able to recruit migrants for illegal migration.   

According to his explanation it has been seen and well known for many years that children can get money from their farming families who, without any hesitation and suspicion, provide their illegally migrating children with money by selling their oxen and any available assets and who are easily convinced by the persuasion of non-legal brokers.

The researcher pointed out that not only the journey of the family member but also understanding how the non-legal brokers create migrant route networks from Ethiopia until they arrive in the Middle East is a part of the study and explained that this kind of process is referred to as “Migration Industry” or “Migration Infrastructure”.

He reported that OSSREA, which was established 37 years ago by African scholars, has accomplished many projects. They have started to work on migration of citizens in Ethiopia. He pointed out that the funds for the study were obtained from the UK Department for International Development (DFID) through Sussex University.

The researcher argues, “If we call migration illegal, it is difficult to rectify the problem”. He emphasises that beyond saying “they are not governed by rules” and accusing and criminalizing their act, the study is important to understand the problem thoroughly and advise them on how problem could be resolved and present findings to policy makers as part of the solution.

Trying to rectify the problem by accusing and criminalizing brokers by calling them “illegal brokers”, when it is known that double the amount of legal migrants leave the country through illegal routes every day, makes the problem more hidden, secret and disastrous.  As a result, he stressed that better results would be achieved, and the problem could be alleviated, by coming together and working together towards rectifying the problem.

Do migrants chose illegal brokers because the brokers only ask for a small sum of money; because they do not require additional criteria for migration; or is it because the brokers are uneducated and do not care much about their citizens? He added that the major task of the research team is to present recommendations to the government from results drawn from the migrants’ families at grassroots level and non-legal brokers.

He commented that instead of calling non-legal brokers ‘criminals’ which makes them hide themselves, his team started the study to create the necessary knowledge and find answers by asking them what they think should be done, if they need support, how they should be supported, and how to support them and teach them before formulating policy. He pointed out that even though the government has banned these types of journeys for the last four years because of the disasters that have happened to Ethiopian citizens in Saudi Arabia and other places, illegal migration has continued just like formal migration. Because it is necessary to correct the problems through concerted efforts, the team is trying to come up with comprehensive findings which would help to rectify the problem. He underlined that the study tries to present other study results in the area to the government and thereby to facilitate the alleviation of the problem.  

Another researcher in the team is studying the changes to the families of those who go from the regions to Addis Ababa, to other cities, and abroad. Adamnesh Atnafu (PhD) explained the underlying basis of this study is to understand family perspectives on the benefits of female and male migration.  

She added that the team studies identify whether it is the father or the mother who puts into utilisation the remittance sent by the migrant. Particularly it examines how they utilise the money to send female children to school and family and children negotiate on to bring about change in their lives.

The third research theme compares the lives of families whose members have not migrated with that of whose family members have migrated and studies the importance of remittances and the changes they bring to families. They will make an in-depth study of the family members of those who legally or illegally migrate, identify the advantages and disadvantages, and present the outcome to the government to be considered in relevant policies.