The Orders and Borders of Global Inequality: Migration and Mobilities in Late Capitalism

Project Information

MIGMOBS

Grant agreement ID: 101097240

DOI

10.3030/101097240

EC signature date 7 September 2023

Start date 1 January 2024

End date 31 December 2028

Funded under

• European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 2 491 015,00

EU contribution

€ 2 491 015,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK - NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, CORK
Ireland

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MIGMOBS (The Orders and Borders of Global Inequality: Migration and Mobilities in Late Capitalism)

Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2026-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The ERC AdG MIGMOBS (2024-2028) investigates how borders and hierarchies are maintained between “the West and the Rest”. Mapping physical, virtual and non-human mobilities, the project details demographic and social connections over time between 23 states. This quantitative comparative historical work underpins co-productive ethnographic case studies rethinking a range of archetypal “migration systems” in and from Europe, Africa, Asia and South America.

FOUR CORE OBJECTIVES:
1. Explore how from 1970 to the present – across and between a range of states worldwide – changing categorisation of migration, mobilities or minorities, and the population flows and other connections they denote, relate to in- and between- country inequalities;
2. Identify how and why these processes vary across world regions in terms of political economy and regional integration in the context of growing economic, electoral, ecological and geo-political crises;
3. Investigate how marginal and disadvantaged populations to and from particular European, African, Asian and South American states experience, narrate and resist global inequality, as they struggle within and against the categories, statuses and borders imposed upon them;
4. Develop a new paradigm in the study of “political demography” that charts the origins and trajectory of a post-neoliberal “viral liberalism”, moving into a new phase of late capitalism.

In a world where the circumstances of birth disproportionately shape life prospects, there is a question about how borders and hierarchies are maintained. Even as international mobility challenges the so-called birthright lottery, where citizenship at birth largely defines one's opportunities, these boundaries persist. In this context, MIGMOBS project questions how the shifting classification of subordinate populations as migrants, free movers or minorities contributes to global inequalities. Drawing on extensive empirical research linking 23 countries, it will investigate how they assert their sovereign power by defining who qualifies as an ‘immigrant’, who is unjustly excluded, and how seemingly mundane mobilities like tourism and business travel remain unchecked.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Initiated in Jan 2024, MIGMOBS is a complex, consortium-based project, working at a large global scale and with a large team (presently of 18 researchers in 5 institutions), that is unusual even for an ERC AdG. At the core of its objectives lies the goal to fuse the development of a global longitudinal database on international mobilities, with a series of grounded, ethnographic based studies of specific migration-mobilities systems, articulating the views of migrants moving through changing migration-mobilities categories.

We note upfront a major achievement in the first two years, ahead of schedule, with the publication in February 2026 of a new mobilities dataset (The Global Transnational Mobility Database 2.0) by the Global Mobilities Project (GMP / MIGMOBS Project A) at the EUI. This database exhaustively covers cross-border travel to/from 200+ countries for the period 1995-2022. Outputs from the Global Mobilities Project team also comprise significant publications, presentations and ongoing paper submissions detailed in the technical part of the Scientific Report.

A major part of the work in the first two years was focused on the recruitment, induction and mentorship of our 12 post-doctoral and doctoral researchers, as well as establishing the consortium with a central management system and sharepoint, monthly team meetings, annual advisory board meetings, and a full programme of additional smaller meetings (online or in person, usually at least monthly). These enable the PI to be involved hands-on in every aspect of the project. We are up and running successfully at full capacity, planning towards a full workshop with team members at half-way point (June 2026), building on our successful first workshop early in year two (Feb 2024).

Interviewing and ethnographic fieldwork has been completed in Japan and Korea (Project B1, 40 interviews); it has been completed in Argentina and Chile (Project B6, 42 interviews); and it is well underway in Japan, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Indonesia (Project B5, 32 interviews completed), in Ireland (Projects B3, 36 interviews completed; B4, 10 interviews completed), and in the UK (Project B2, 16 interviews completed).

We have established working partnerships with several other major related research projects, notably CAMINAR (a pan-Latin American migration research network), as well as FREE MOVE (at Nebrija University, Madrid) and MOBILE (at Copenhagen University — both legal studies that are building databases of free movement internationally).

All outputs, whether direct or collateral, have benefitted from the uniquely supportive ecology of the network, enabling the collective support and mentorship of all members.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The accumulative work of the MIGMOBS project will add towards the intended advance beyond mainstream paradigms of immigration, integration and citizenship, that will come together as planned as a major synthetic work, and wide range of other outputs at the conclusion of the project. Our outputs and publications as detailed above, notably the GMP dataset discussed above, are already significant breakthroughs in migration research establishing empirical tools that challenge the dominant paradigm (as the project aimed to do).

What has been unexpected has been the degree of cross-pollination and collaboration enabled by the consortium for the various teams. Not only are we delivering on the centralised outputs envisaged by (and involving) the PI, but new collaborations are taking shape semi-independently with Co-Is. The group was brought together by the PI with this hope and intention, but the flowering of communication has been remarkable.

Our work at Leeds has gained unprecedented access and insight to the lives and experiences of Syrian refugees in the city, hosted in remote hotels. This research will be extended to other cities in the UK.

At Waseda, the collaboratively work has enabled new work on migrant infrastructure in Indonesia, looking at the recruitment and placement of care workers in Japan and Taiwan, and we have jointly been able to pioneer work on new high skilled Chinese migration in Japan and Korea, gaining insights into shifts in middle class attitudes in contemporary China after COVID.

Meanwhile, in Buenos Aires and Santiago, we are at the forefront of new research on migration-mobilities in South America, at a time of intense political change (and drama). We are uniquely positioned to observe changes in Venezuelan migration-mobilities systems, and the political oppression of mobile populations in Chile and Argentina as the two states have taken a significant rightward lurch. Among other things, the changes in migration policy in each is effecting a step away from the unique environment of free movement enabled in Latin America by MERCOSUR and human rights norms, towards a more familiar, restrictive (and selective) North Atlantic Western style regime.