Publication date:
20 July 2016Length of book:
196 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9781442254978
Focusing on the intersection between globalization and migration, this powerful text traces a dynamic, contradictory process that has set the world in motion and incorporated millions of migrants into an economic market whose dimensions are unprecedented in human history. Eliot Dickinson emphasizes recent developments in global politics, such as the massive number of refugees from wars in the Middle East who are now seeking asylum in Europe; the “Fortress Europe” mentality illustrated on the Italian island of Lampedusa; the heart-wrenching humanitarian challenge of Mexican and Central American children arriving alone in the United States; and the effects of climate change and environmental destruction on international migration. Today, with the collaboration of compliant governments and elites in the peripheral countries of the Global South, multinational corporations continue to flout regulations, destroy the environment, and take advantage of the large number of displaced, unemployed workers. While globalization is eliminating barriers between countries and making it easier for goods and capital to move around the world, the industrialized countries of the Global North are simultaneously putting up barriers to people and making it harder for them to migrate. This timely and provocative book explains how we have arrived at this paradoxical point in history and critically examines why governments are enacting policies that protect borders instead of people.
Eliot Dickinson, in vivid imagery taken from the stories of migrants with their hands forced by globalization processes, tells a story of our migratory times that began half a millennium ago and continues today. The reasons for past and modern migrations are thoroughly explained, leading to the inescapable conclusion that the world today has a choice to make. We can reject the reasons behind historical cyclical migratory patterns and the migrants who are a part of them and pay the price of failed states and peoples, or we can encourage through public policy the myriad contributions to global peace and prosperity that the overwhelming majority of migrants wish to make in their new lands. This book is a must-read for social scientists and concerned students alike.