While ideas of global governance have recently been discussed and applied to the so-called management of human migration (for example, Betts, 2011 2013), there exists little global cooperation around the facilitation or regulation of migration, beyond the limited role of the United Nations and its High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the recent Global Compacts on Migration and Refugees ( Hyndman and Reynolds, 2020). In this article, we argue that while mobility remains a fundamental feature of human life, migration will persist as a global challenge as long as nation states continue to render people on the move precarious, through reactionary approaches such as policing borders and erecting structural barriers to movement. These include, for example, climate change, water scarcity, the rise of xenophobia and nationalism, war and conflict, technological advances in bordering, and the sudden and stunning arrival in late 2019 of the global pandemic brought on by the COVID-19 coronavirus. Various global shifts are amplifying and accelerating changes such that we are entering a new era of human mobility. Migration is complex in its endless forms and permutations, whether international or internal, labour migration, temporary or circular migration for work, travel for international study, or forced migration. Human migration ranks among the most pressing global social challenges of the 21st century. Topics of discussion include borders and geographical divides, gender, sexuality, race, class, labour, displacement, rights, access and climate-induced migration. We then discuss how different groups of people on the move struggle with structural barriers to migration, as they attempt to access and then settle into new communities, and the challenges to inclusion and integration encountered in so-called host societies. Advocating for intersectional and transnational approaches, we review some of the important, interdisciplinary dimensions of migration as a phenomenon that touches on every facet of human life. We argue that challenges associated with migration and displacement will persist if their governance continues in piecemeal, performative and nationalist fashion, with the privileging of resource investment in national border fortification over addressing the root causes of migration and displacement. This review article posits human migration as one of the most pressing social challenges of our time.
0 kommentar(er)
