Papers by Simon A . Bunchuay-Peth
Urban Planning , 2020
For the last decade there has been a lively debate on urban arrival spaces. Saunders' (2011) wide... more For the last decade there has been a lively debate on urban arrival spaces. Saunders' (2011) widely received book Arrival Cities can be seen as catalyst of this debate. Taking a hitherto largely unexplored comparative approach, based on two empirical research studies on migrant workers and highly-skilled migrants in Singapore, this study debates the notion of arrival cities and spaces and argues for a differentiated perspective on the complex and interdependent processes of spatially and socially arriving. By comparing how the politics of mobilities, migration management and differential inclusion influence the migration trajectories of workers and professionals we argue that the concept of transient spaces might be a more fruitful approach for understanding the differentiated processes of arriving and (not) becoming socio-spatially embedded. In order to educe the relevance of a processual perspective, and for a systematic comparison, we apply four analytical dimensions that shed light on the process of migrating, arriving, and passing through. These four dimensions comprise (1) arriving, (2) settling, (3) mingling locally and translocally, and (4) planning ahead for future mobilities. We argue that the scholarship on politics of mobilities needs to take note of the combined effects of states' and companies' neoliberal politics of mobility throughout the migration process, and of the increasing relevance of socio-technological orderings, which imprint migrants' socio-spatial embedding.
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Geoforum, 2020
Social resilience becomes particularly apparent in difficult times. In many rural regions people ... more Social resilience becomes particularly apparent in difficult times. In many rural regions people face multiple insecurities ranging from environmental change to losses of income and social conflicts. In such situations people often see migration as a path towards a better life – but is migration always the best solution or is it creating new challenges and insecurities? In recent years the nexus between migration and social resilience has increasingly been discussed. While many publications have been looking at in-situ impacts either at the places of origin or the destinations of migration little has been said about the translocal dimension of social resilience. In this paper we will take a look at translocal family networks between rural Thailand and Germany. The aim is to better understand the role of migration and translocality for social resilience. Based on a 10-month multi-sited research process with a mixed-methods approach we found that families with stronger translocal ties are more likely to increase their social resilience. However, this research also shows that it is important to disaggregate social resilience and to raise the question: resilience of whom?
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Temperature increase and changing rainfall patterns have been widely observed and well-documented... more Temperature increase and changing rainfall patterns have been widely observed and well-documented consequences of global climate change. However, the consequences at the grassroot level remain under researched. What are the impacts on agrarian production and local livelihoods? How are communities and individual farmers interpreting the new environmental conditions and how are they responding to the challenges? The Horn of Afrika Regional Environment Centre (HoA-REC) conducted a one-year research programme in Ethiopia to find answeres to these questions.
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Südostasien Zeitschrift, 2019
Boomtown, Smart City und neuralgischer Knotenpunkt der globalisierten Welt. Weniger Nation, als v... more Boomtown, Smart City und neuralgischer Knotenpunkt der globalisierten Welt. Weniger Nation, als vielmehr ein staatliches Supraunternehmen. Ein komprimierter Raum in dem man die großen Themen der Globalisierung wie Digitalisierung und wirtschaftliche Transformation wie in einem Brennglas beobachtet kann. Das ist das heutige Singapur. Vor gerade mal 53 Jahren wurde Singapur ein unabhängiger Staat und versuchte, die britische Kolonialzeit, die japanische Besatzung und politischen Differenzen mit dem ‚großen Bruder’ Malaysia zurückzulassen. Und doch hat Singapur auf subtile Art und Weise selbst eine Form der Unterdrückung geschaffen: Die weit reichende und permanente Kontrolle seiner Bürger, Arbeiter und all jener, die von außen nach Singapur kommen.
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Geographische Rundschau, 2019
Mobilität prägt den Lebensalltag von Millionen von Menschen in Bangladesch - sei es international... more Mobilität prägt den Lebensalltag von Millionen von Menschen in Bangladesch - sei es internationale Migration oder Binnenmigration. Dabei bestehen unterschiedliche Migrationssysteme nebeneinander: Dauerhafte Umzüge vom Land in die Stadt oder zwischen ländlichen Regionen überwiegen. Es gibt aber auch ausgeprägte Muster der saisonalen Arbeitsmigration. Migration verändert die Städte und ländlichen Regionen tiefgreifend. Migranten behalten meist enge Verbindungen zu ihren Herkunftsorten, was zu vielfältigen translokalen Verbindungen und Lebensformen führt.
Südasien, Translokalität, Arbeitsmigration
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This paper explores the mobilities and structural moorings of Thai labour
migrants in Singapore f... more This paper explores the mobilities and structural moorings of Thai labour
migrants in Singapore from a translocal perspective. We argue that
combining the mobilities paradigm with the concept of translocality offers
a fruitful avenue of investigation not only of the production of translocal
spaces, but also of their temporality and mutability. Through a multi-sited
research approach we shed light on the genesis as well as the decay of
translocal connections. This paper shows that translocal structures are
important moorings of migration, and raises the question of what happens
to translocal spaces when migration flows dissolve.
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This paper explores the mobilities and structural moorings of Thai labour migrants in Singapore f... more This paper explores the mobilities and structural moorings of Thai labour migrants in Singapore from a translocal perspective. We argue that combining the mobilities paradigm with the concept of translocality offers a fruitful avenue of investigation not only of the production of translocal spaces, but also of their temporality and mutability. Through a multi-sited research approach we shed light on the genesis as well as the decay of translocal connections. This paper shows that translocal structures are important moorings of migration, and raises the question of what happens to translocal spaces when migration flows dissolve.
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Over the last few years, migration has become a hot topic for the development community. In 2015,... more Over the last few years, migration has become a hot topic for the development community. In 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) integrated migration issues in a number of goals, including SDG 10, which targets “facilitating orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people including through the implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies” and reducing the costs of migrant remittances. In 2016, 153 UN member states came together to improve international cooperation and governance of migration and refugee issues, culminating in the “New York Declaration”, which committed to developing a “Global Compact on Safe, Regular and Orderly Migration.” While these statements circulate at the international level, this guide seeks to provide practical means to putting such global commitments into action in a tangible way on the ground.
This guide makes the case for integrating aspects of migration in community development. This is necessary because migration often has direct implications for the outcomes of development work at the local level and beyond. Only through careful planning can development practitioners help to shape migrationrelated outcomes – to both harness positive impacts and limit potential negative aspects of migration on
local livelihoods.
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Climate change and migration are drawing increasing interest from researchers and policy makers a... more Climate change and migration are drawing increasing interest from researchers and policy makers as well as from the general public. While in the beginning a simplistic and geo-deterministic comprehension of the environmental impact on human mobility had dominated the discussion, the framing of the relationship has recently become more differentiated. Vast empirical evidence derived from rural livelihoods research clearly shows that migration is an important strategy of households when dealing with multiple risks, including environmental stress. This has led to the growing acknowledgement of the idea of " migration as adaptation " in migration-environment research. We consider this conceptual development an important step for a better understanding of this nexus. Nonetheless, migration as adaptation has several shortcomings. Firstly, it is narrowly focused on migration as an adaptive response to environmental risks and neglects the significant impact of other forms of migration. Secondly, it does not cover other dimensions of how people, communities and societies deal with environmental change: a blind eye is all too often turned to processes of resilience building. Thirdly, migration as adaptation has been found to be interpreted in a way which justifies migration policies with neo-liberal tendencies. In order to overcome such drawbacks, we propose an approach that integrates translocality and social resilience. In this paper we thus introduce the concept of translocal social resilience and reflect on its conceptual implications. We will thereby show how this approach can improve the understanding of the migration-environment nexus, and how it can also shape the concept of migration as adaptation , allowing for nuanced and critical views on the dynamics in the migration-environment context.
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Im Jahr 2008 lebten weltweit erstmals mehr Menschen in Städten als auf dem Land. Spätestens seitd... more Im Jahr 2008 lebten weltweit erstmals mehr Menschen in Städten als auf dem Land. Spätestens seitdem ist vom urbanen Zeitalter die Rede. Beeinflusst wird die planetary urbanisation (Brenner u. Schmid 2011) maßgeblich durch Land-Stadt-Migration in Ländern des Globalen Südens, die wiederum häufig mit Exodus, Landflucht sowie neuer städtischer Armut in Verbindung gebracht wird. Galten das „Ländliche“ und das „Städtische“ im allgemeinen wie wissenschaftlichen Verständnis lange als unvereinbare Gegensätze oder weitgehend getrennte Sphären, rücken im Zeitalter der Migration (Castles et al. 2013) die vielfältigen globalen und translokalen Verflechtungen stärker in den Fokus.
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The climate change discourse in Bangladesh has the potential to overemphasize the environment as ... more The climate change discourse in Bangladesh has the potential to overemphasize the environment as a driver of migration. This paper on Migration Trajectories and Labour Spaces - Securing Livelihoods in a Changing Environment scrutinizes the mere reduction of migration decisions to climate change and points towards the danger of simplifying migration decisions, which are manifold and complex by nature. Recent attempts of migration studies, such as the translocality approaches enable us to capture the complexity of migrants’ livelihoods and migration decisions. The paper presents empirical results from a multi-sited study conducted in Bangladesh. Against other studies emphasizing the dominance of rural-urban migration this paper shows that the rural areas play a more significant role as destinations than often assumed. Work and employment opportunities are the goal for migrants, not the city or rural places as such. Social networks and translocal connection shape the diverse migration patterns in Bangladesh. It is both the conditions at the place of origin as well as the circumstances at the destination places that influence migration decisions. In this vein the paper shows the necessity to go beyond simple causal drivers of migration.
LANGUAGE: German
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In the face of globalization, it is inevitable to rethink the notion of locality. In its simplest... more In the face of globalization, it is inevitable to rethink the notion of locality. In its simplest form, locality is defined by physical or geographical borders. A village is an example of locality, which is usually defined by its settlement area. Today such a definition of locality is not useful because it curtails the realities of a globalized world such as, diversifying migration flows or global economic interdependencies etc..
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Talking about migration and human environment relations in times of globalization and climate cha... more Talking about migration and human environment relations in times of globalization and climate change is a highly relevant but also difficult venture. The debate usually takes place in a blurred field between science, media and politics. The tug of war between alarmists and sceptics has dominated the scientific debate. Whereas the alarmists try to show a causal link between climate change and migration, the sceptics deny direct causal relation between environment and migration and criticize the “shaky empirical character and sloppy nature” (Piguet 2012: 155) of the alarmist assumptions. Since the advent of a critical view of climate change and migration, it seems that scholars increasingly refrain from drawing links between environmental change – including climate change – and human migration in order to avoid the geo-determinism trap. However, we start from the assumption that human-environment relations are intimately coupled and argue that the heated debate should not prevent us from scrutinizing the complex nature of these interrelations. Doing so we further argue that this can be realized by combining on a conceptual level the discussion of two broad topics that even today remain largely unconnected: translocality and Social-Ecological Systems (SES) approaches.
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Conference Presentations by Simon A . Bunchuay-Peth
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Teaching Documents by Simon A . Bunchuay-Peth
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Papers by Simon A . Bunchuay-Peth
Südasien, Translokalität, Arbeitsmigration
migrants in Singapore from a translocal perspective. We argue that
combining the mobilities paradigm with the concept of translocality offers
a fruitful avenue of investigation not only of the production of translocal
spaces, but also of their temporality and mutability. Through a multi-sited
research approach we shed light on the genesis as well as the decay of
translocal connections. This paper shows that translocal structures are
important moorings of migration, and raises the question of what happens
to translocal spaces when migration flows dissolve.
This guide makes the case for integrating aspects of migration in community development. This is necessary because migration often has direct implications for the outcomes of development work at the local level and beyond. Only through careful planning can development practitioners help to shape migrationrelated outcomes – to both harness positive impacts and limit potential negative aspects of migration on
local livelihoods.
LANGUAGE: German
Conference Presentations by Simon A . Bunchuay-Peth
Teaching Documents by Simon A . Bunchuay-Peth
Südasien, Translokalität, Arbeitsmigration
migrants in Singapore from a translocal perspective. We argue that
combining the mobilities paradigm with the concept of translocality offers
a fruitful avenue of investigation not only of the production of translocal
spaces, but also of their temporality and mutability. Through a multi-sited
research approach we shed light on the genesis as well as the decay of
translocal connections. This paper shows that translocal structures are
important moorings of migration, and raises the question of what happens
to translocal spaces when migration flows dissolve.
This guide makes the case for integrating aspects of migration in community development. This is necessary because migration often has direct implications for the outcomes of development work at the local level and beyond. Only through careful planning can development practitioners help to shape migrationrelated outcomes – to both harness positive impacts and limit potential negative aspects of migration on
local livelihoods.
LANGUAGE: German