The discourse on migration outcomes in the West has largely been dominated by issues of integration, but it is more relevant to view immigration in non-Western societies in relation to practices of exclusion and inclusion. Exclusion refers to a situation in which individuals and groups are usually denied access to the goods, services, activities and resources associated with citizenship. However, this approach has been criticised in relation to gender issues, which are very relevant to the situation of migrants. The authors in this volume address this criticism. Furthermore, when framed within a North–South discourse, it may be potentially ethnocentric to assume that the experience of exclusion is cross-culturally uniform. Indeed, work on migration issues has invariably been conducted within such a discourse. The contributors go beyond this binary discourse of ‘exclusion versus inclusion’ which has dominated migration research. They examine the situation of migrants in the Middle East and Asia as one that encompasses both exclusion and inclusion, addressing related concepts of empowerment, ethnocracy, the feminisation of migration and gendered geographies of power, liberal constraint and multiculturalism, individual agency, migrant-friendly discourses, spaces of emancipation and spaces of insecurity. The book highlights current research in the Arab Gulf states, and examines multiculturalism in Asia more broadly. It will be of particular interest to students and researchers in international labour migration studies in the Middle East and Asia.
Lian Kwen Fee is a professor of sociology at the Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam. His research interests include race and ethnicity, migration and multiculturalism. His two most recent books are Multiculturalism, migration, and the politics of identity in Singapore and International migration in Southeast Asia (eds).
Naomi Hosoda is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University, Japan. Her main research interest is anthropological studies on Filipino migration, with a focus on cultural normality, family, transnational community, education, and citizenship in Asia and the Middle East.
Masako Ishii is a professor at the College of Intercultural Communication, Rikkyo University, Japan. Her main research interest examines area studies of Muslim society in the Philippines focusing on gender, migration, armed conflict and the peace process.
The discourse on migration outcomes in the West has largely been dominated by issues of integration, but it is more relevant to view immigration in non-Western societies in relation to practices of exclusion and inclusion. Exclusion refers to a situation in which individuals and groups are usually denied access to the goods, services, activities and resources associated with citizenship. However, this approach has been criticised in relation to gender issues, which are very relevant to the situation of migrants. The authors in this volume address this criticism. Furthermore, when framed within a North–South discourse, it may be potentially ethnocentric to assume that the experience of exclusion is cross-culturally uniform. Indeed, work on migration issues has invariably been conducted within such a discourse. The contributors go beyond this binary discourse of ‘exclusion versus inclusion’ which has dominated migration research. They examine the situation of migrants in the Middle East and Asia as one that encompasses both exclusion and inclusion, addressing related concepts of empowerment, ethnocracy, the feminisation of migration and gendered geographies of power, liberal constraint and multiculturalism, individual agency, migrant-friendly discourses, spaces of emancipation and spaces of insecurity. The book highlights current research in the Arab Gulf states, and examines multiculturalism in Asia more broadly. It will be of particular interest to students and researchers in international labour migration studies in the Middle East and Asia.