In my next few blog posts, I will be exploring the topic of education as it relates to migrants. I aim to answer the questions: do migrants have access to education at the same level as natives? If not, why? I will be attempting to answer these questions in the context of Germany and Russia, […]
Migrating for work
The Kolberi Life: Cross-Border Migration and the Struggle for Survival
Kolbers or kolbars are Kurdish laborers who transport goods from Iraqi Kurdistan to the Kurdish region of Iran– what Kurds call the Rojhelat. The average kolber is between the ages of 13 and 65.5 While kolberi used to predominantly be made up of male breadwinners, the practice has recently expanded to include young teenagers. Some […]
1973 Oil Crisis Overview
The oil crisis of 1973 had profound effects on the world economy and spurred trends in labor migration that have continued to amplify to today. The oil crisis began with the Yom Kippur / October War between Israel, supported by the United States, and Egypt and Syria, supported by the Soviet Union.1 In response to […]
Reproductive Health Access for Migrant Women
For women who migrate, access to health care, in general, is extremely restrictive. However, reproductive health care has become an even more restrictive resource, especially for women who do not have citizenship or legal status in the country they reside in. Migrant women, compared to men, face increasingly more challenges due to restrictive medical barriers […]
Clinking Glasses Over Central Asia’s Hardship
The 2020 Covid-19 global pandemic has exacerbated social and economic struggles in Central Asia while strengthening Russia and China’s grasp over the region. While stronger relations with Russia and China can help the five governments of Central Asia appear more legitimate, little progress will be gained for the people of Central Asia. Migrant laborers will […]
Development of Afghan Migration to Iran
For hundreds of years, Afghans have migrated to Iran in order to improve their livelihoods. In the 20th century, the first major wave of Afghan migration to Iran came with the monumental upswing of the Iranian oil industry. Through recruitment by the Iranian government, thousands of Afghan laborers came to Iran.3 The workers enjoyed better […]
The Turkish-Georgian Migration Exchange
One area of migration that I kept coming back to in our discussions of migration theory was the bidirectional labor migration I encountered while living near the Georgian-Turkish border. So many of the theories of migration (like the push-pull model, neoclassical migration theory, human capital theory, etc.) seemed to easily explain migration between high-developed, wealthy […]
NELM Can’t Explain Labor Migration from Uzbekistan
The new economics of labor migration (NELM) uses family unit as the unit of analysis. On the surface, it looks like it is a perfect theory that can be used to explain the labor migration situation in Uzbekistan. From Sophie Massot’s article, we learned that the Uzbek society is heavily family-driven, and the decision to […]
The Turkish Experience in the Russian Federation
When we talk about migration to the Russian Federation, the main receiving countries that come to mind are those in Central Asia, but rarely do we think about Russia’s southwestern neighbor, Turkey. Towards the end of the Cold War, Turkey improved their relations with the Soviet Union through trade deals, which allowed Turkish companies to […]
New finds online–Central Asians in Russian prisons, and Tajik women laborers
Marianne, Sept 18 Thanks to my many fabulous facebook friends, I sometimes become aware of things that might interest some of you and are related to this class. The first is a blog by scholar Rastamjon Urinboyev. He writes about legal and social issues for Central Asian migrants in Russia, and this is his posting […]