Rural-to-urban Migration

The recent migration of cultural artists to Jeju Island can be regarded as a representative example of ： rural migration of a creative class. This phenomenon shows distinctions from Florida's Creative Class who prefers cities with openness and diversities. Furthermore, they are expected to influence on local societies and economy within a local context. Culture and arts migrants have settled in rural areas of Jeju Island and directly influenced the transformation of rural images and the expansion of tourism spaces into rural areas through their activities such as creation work and exhibition, sales. In the process, rediscovery of village symbols and development of designed products through representation of the human and natural environment of the villages have contributed to village branding. In addition, such activities have also promoted the growth of the local tourism by influencing the growth and transformation of the Creative Class within Jeju Island.

In this study, I present a new model for analyzing sociolinguistic variation within the framework of Optimality Theory (OT) and the Gradual Learning Algorithm (GLA). This model contributes to the advancement of sociolinguistic methodology as well as to OT and the GLA, unifying both linguistic and social factors. I propose a number of social constraints and incorporate them with linguistic constraints in the GLA. I show that incorporating social constraints yields variant-usage percentages that match real life occurrences. I follow the evaluation process of stochastic grammar in which social constraints are treated like linguistic constraints on a continuous scale of ranking strictness. Their ranking values may differ from one speaker or group of speakers to another. These differences in the ranking values may result in intra- and inter-speaker, intra- and inter-group, intra- and inter-community, or intra- and inter-dialect variation. The number and type of social constraints involved influence the percentage of occurrence of each variant and affect the ranking values of other constraints and the grammar chosen by a speaker or a group of speakers at a particular time and place.

This model enables us to show the effect of linguistic and social constraints simultaneously. It allows us to investigate individual as well as group grammars and shows that those grammars may act independently from each other. It also enables us to project expected percentages of variation by manipulating either the ranking values of constraints or the pair distribution of the output. Evidence comes from the study of the naturally occurring speech of migrant rural speakers of Colloquial Arabic to the city of Hims, Syria. These speakers show different degrees of variation, particularly regarding the use of the two variants [q] and [ʔ], based on various social factors, such as age, gender, residential area, and social class.

The aim of the study is to show how rural migrants adopt the new phonological system of the urban dialect to appear prestigious. The study will focus on the sound change of [q] to [ʔ] and the four stable variants [t] and [s] and [d] and [z]. It will show that variation may be influenced by different factors. The variable use of [q] and [ʔ] is attributed to prestige and social factors. The use of [t] and [s] and [d] and [z] is not social in nature; it has developed historically from the Standard Arabic (SA) [Ɵ] and [ð] respectively as a response to markedness constraints. Today, this variation is stable and each of the four variants is used in specific lexical items. Faithfulness constraints play a major role in maintaining the pronunciation of the input as [t] and [s] and [d] and [z] in the output. This stable phenomenon is further explained in terms of the two opposing effects of frequency (Bybee 2001).

In a situation where prestige plays a role in adopting a new variant, as in the case of rural migrants to the city of Hims, social constraints are viewed as the motivating force behind changing a grammar at a particular time and place. However, one should take into account that the activation of social constraints depends on the speaker’s selection or choice to activate them or not. Hence, these constraints may rank very high in the speech of a speaker who is highly aware of the social values attached to a certain sound. On the other hand, they may rank very low in the speech of a person who, for example, does not care to adopt a new form.

A theory that can take into account all the factors that lead to variation is a better theory than one that takes into account social factors in isolation and ignores grammatical factors or vice versa. Integrating social constraints into formal theory and showing that social constraints can have equal weight or even more weight than grammatical constraints in conditioning variation and change is essential in this study. Including social constraints in the computation provides explanation of the observed sociolinguistic variation between [q] and [ʔ] among members of the same social group or among different speakers or social groups. Interacting social constraints with linguistic constraints in the same framework is a simple comprehensive method to depict and explain the mental process of a speaker at a certain time and/or place. Feeding the GLA with the right output distribution gives the specific ranking values or grammar of each speaker or group of speakers. In other words, the model takes advantage of the stochastic grammar embedded in the GLA to generate grammars that match real life output percentages without trying all the possible rankings of constraints and counting the times those rankings give a certain output. Furthermore, where a statistical analysis fails to indicate the interaction between one social factor and others, the specificity implemented in the GLA by dividing a social factor into a number of social constraints enables us to see interaction among the same social constraints that emerged as insignificant in the statistical analysis. In this sense, implementing social factors as constraints and accounting for sociolinguistic variation within the framework of OT and the GLA has an advantage over other theories.

Guest contribution for the blog 'Urban-rural migration and rural revitalization in Japan' funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and hosted by Professor Cornelia Reiher from the Institue of Japanese Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. ベルリン大学日本社会学科管理のブログに、鳥取で行っている山岳信仰に関わる現場調査から得た成果やフィールドワークの現況についてくゲスト投稿. https://userblogs.fu-berlin.de/urban-rural-migration-japan/2021/10/29/guest-contribution-revitalization-attempts-of-buddhist-temples-in-the-rural-regions-of-tottori/

The essay analyses rural-urban migration scenario in Bhutan (locally known as gung tong or khang tong) and its effect on social capital and socio-economic development. A special emphasis has been placed on need for strategic rural-urban migration trend for balanced development.

El presente trabajo analiza los flujos migratorios formados por mujeres procedentes de las provincias rurales españolas, que se desplazaban a Madrid con el fin de trabajar como sirvientas durante las décadas iniciales del siglo XX. Utilizando una base de datos con información de más de 25.000 criadas, obtenida del padrón municipal de Madrid de 1905 y 1930, se examinan las características que presentaba este tipo de desplazamiento y el modo en que las trabajadoras inmigrantes se insertaban en el servicio doméstico de la capital. El estudio pone de relieve la capacidad que tenía este sector para atraer mano de obra campesina a la ciudad y el importante papel que jugaron las mujeres en la migración rural-urbana en la España del primer tercio del novecientos.

In this dissertation, three lines of investigation were followed: (1) a review of the Biblical view of rural society and church health; (2) a review of works on church health and particularly reports from three mission fields: Korea, Taiwan and Thailand; (3) a quantitative study of rural churches in five counties in north Alabama compared with one county in Taiwan. Associations of multiple variables across two different cultural settings were investigate with chi-square tests. In addition to the nine key elements listed, one important finding was verification of a quantitative method that could be used to accurately describe whether churches are healthy or not.

Like other developing countries, rural-urban migration is the prime reason of developing megacity in Bangladesh. It is the most important factor for rapid urbanization as well. Dhaka, the only megacity in Bangladesh, became a megacity having more than 10 million of population in 2001. Dhaka is the center of attraction of this region since 7th century and the development phase of this megacity can be categorized into five- Pre-mughal period, Mughal period, British period, Pakistan period and independent Bangladesh period. Although rural-urban  migration plays the crucial most role to turn Dhaka from a city to megacity, it was not very significant during the first three period. With the partition of subcontinent Dhaka became the capital of independent Bangladesh and huge numbers of migrants start to step into this city.  Dhaka, the 9th largest of 21 megacities of the world, drags people towards it with several forces of attraction‘. This study, on the rural-urban migrants residing over the slums of Dhaka city, finds that availability of jobs, easy access to informal economy, 'Dhaka means Taka' conception and illuminating Dhaka‘ are the prime forces of attraction of Dhaka megacity.

This article focuses on migration strategies as exemplified by the Bohemian estate of České Budějovice in the second half of the eighteenth century. Formally, until 1781, the peasant population in Bohemia was bound by serfdom, which has until recently been believed to have considerably curtailed its mobility. The research in this article is based mainly on letters releasing people from serfdom and on registers of births, marriages and deaths. The article seeks to explain the migration strategies of the inhabitants of villages located near a major urban centre. It examines the migrants' motivations and how they sought to migrate while complying with legal constraints. It devotes particular attention to work and marriage migration, and discusses migration strategies against the background of how Early Modern Bohemian society functioned.

Migratory context and drivers:
◾Until the early 1990s, Ethiopia was one of the largest sources of refugees and migrants in Africa; since then it has become the largest refugee-hosting country in Africa.
◾Compared with many other countries in Africa, Ethiopia has a relatively low international migration rate. Analysis anticipates Ethiopia may experience rising outward migration rates in the next few decades as it develops and, as a result, continuing migratory pressures.
◾Most migration from Ethiopia is driven by lack of livelihood opportunities – especially for the young.
◾Oppressive political context and insecurity are cited as the second most important migration drivers.
◾Specific groups face migratory pressures from political and economic exclusion and marginalisation.

Outward migration:
◾The few legal options lead to irregular migration – in particular to the Middle East.
◾While the profile of migrants from Ethiopia varies by destination, in general migrants are young and single, increasingly female, and many are Oromo and Amhara people. The majority of legal Ethiopian migrants that go to the Middle East are young women.
◾Many migrants are victims of fraud, forced labour, and physical, sexual, and psychological abuse by employers or traffickers.
◾Secondary outward migration by refugees in Ethiopia (especially Eritreans) to Europe occurs as a result of their frustrations over their lack of opportunities in Ethiopia.

Inward migration:
◾Ethiopia hosts large numbers of refugees – most of whom are women and children – from conflict-affected parts of South Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea. Most refugees are prevented from working, with the exception of some Eritreans who can undertake informal employment.
◾There are also returning migrants, many of whom intend to migrate again.

Internal migration:
◾Migration within Ethiopia is thought to be larger than external flows. Rural-urban migration to improve livelihoods is a low but growing trend, in particular for young people, and can be a first step towards international migration.
◾Other internal displacement has been driven by drought, war, political conflicts, resettlements, villagisation policies and poverty.

Migrant journeys:
◾There are three main irregular routes migrants and refugees take out of Ethiopia:
– Eastern irregular route: desert and sea route from Afar, Dire Dawa, Jijiga, through Djibouti or Somalia, to Yemen and onwards.
– Southern irregular route: overland route from Moyale to Kenya and on to South Africa.
– Northern/western irregular route: overland route from Metema/Wollega province through Sudan and on towards Libya and Europe (by sea).
◾Taking an irregular route means that Ethiopian migrants and refugees are smuggled or trafficked during their journey.
◾The government response has been to legislate against smugglers and traffickers (conflating the two) and to impose a temporary ban on migration to the Middle East between 2013 and 2015. However, there have been few prosecutions and people have taken other illegal routes instead. This may change with the introduction of new legislation.

Development impacts of migration:
◾Remittances, from those abroad and in country, have had a positive effect on households and the country’s development, although some migrants struggle to send them. Officially remittances are worth USD 3-3.5 billion (2014/2015) (the true figure is likely to be higher). Declining international support for assistance to refugees in Ethiopia and the inability of most refugees to engage in livelihood opportunities are contributing to negative development impacts of refugees for Ethiopia.
◾Foreign aid has been credited with contributing to Ethiopia’s development, although it has also been criticised for supporting programmes that are claimed to have contributed to displacement. The effectiveness of donor support in helping to meet development challenges will depend on the Ethiopian government improving governance, empowering local authorities, and becoming more accountable to its citizens.

This paper explores beauty ideals prevalent among young women in Chennai, India. It is part of a larger project that contributes to the emerging scholarship around women's experiences in the rapidly changing landscape of urban India, with a focus on young female rural to urban migrants living in the city of Chennai (their destination). Drawing on findings from an ethnographic study of women living in hostel accommodation conducted in 2015 and 2016, I consider the talk, observations, and beauty practices of the research participants. In particular, I explore the ways in which 'lighter' skin colour is privileged as more desirable and how participants both reproduce and contest this construction. The discussion here delves into the obsessive aspiration for lighter skin, its gendered dimensions, and its reflection in online spaces.

This working paper examines the role of rural-urban linkages in the context of sustainable development and environmental protection, analyzing how harnessing linkages between urban and rural areas can potentially reduce spatial disparities. Emphasis is placed on examining the flows of people, goods, money and information between rural and urban areas, as well as upon the linkages that form between different economic sectors.

A key strand of research for social and economic historians of the pre-industrial period is the relationship between city and countryside. Sometimes urban and rural environments enjoyed mutually beneficial relationships, though in other cases cities reduced their rural hinterlands to poverty and decay – the question is, why? By focusing on late-medieval Florence and Tuscany, this paper moves away from approaching this question through an ‘urban bias’, and suggests the answers can be found within the structural configuration of rural societies themselves. Essentially, some rural regions were well set up to repel urban predatory tendencies, while other societies were susceptible to exploitation.

The purpose of this article is to describe some of the critical urban transformations in Albania since the fall of communism in 1990 and their economic, social, and environmental consequences, and to respond to some of the negative views about the greatly increased urbanization. This article discusses the benefits as well as harms of urbanization in Albania and argues that, in balance, urbanization is a positive force.

The  movement  of  human  beings  from  areas  of  origin  to  area  of  final  destination  is  a  natural
phenomenon  among  human  societies.  This  study  focuses  on  rural-urban  migration  with  the  aim  of
identifying  the  socio-economic  and  cultural  causes of  rural-urban  migration,  the  socio-economic  and
cultural  implications  of  migration  from  the  study  area  to  other  areas  of  final  destination,  the  coping
strategies  adopted  by  the  community  members  with  the  aim  of  discouraging  rural  urban  migration,
what needs to be done to curb the movement from a community to other places. To this end the study
made  use of both primary data  and  secondary data  to  source information from  members  of the  study
community.  Purposive  sampling  was  used  to  select  research  participants,  both  key  informants  and
focus group participants’ from the entire population. Research participants revealed that the people of
Kpongu  perceived  development  as  provision  of  social  infrastructure  as  well  as  improve  standard  of
living  which  is  a  motivating  factor  for  migration. To  most  of  the  respondents,  migration  was  positive
and  brings  about  improved  standard  of  living.  It was  revealed  that  some  of  the  causes  of  rural-urban
migration  in  Kpongu  include  lack  of  economic  opportunities,  inadequate  social  amenities  among
others.  The  study  concluded  with  some  measures  put in  place  to  mitigate  migration  as  well  as  some
recommendation to help reduce migration from the study area to areas of final destination.

Key words: Rural-urban migration Kpongu community, rural community development.

Coined as the city of man, Metro Manila is ranked as the 3rd densest city in the world. Despite the high unemployment rates, it continues to receive an influx of migrants from other regions of the Philippines in hopes that they can fulfil, what the researchers called the Manila Dream. Manila Dream is defined as the fantasy type of Manila. It is seen as the gateway for success which emerges from the shared realities of Filipinos residing outside the city. Bormann’s Symbolic Convergence Theory was used to provide a take on social reality because it states that the dramatization of shared social realities lead to the chaining out of fantasy themes such as the Manila Dream. Genre studies was also used a sub-theory because it helps in refining the the elements of fantasy and migration films by doing a content analysis to help illustrate the Manila Dream fantasy. Semi-structured interviews with migrants helped investigate the insights and motivations for migration. Content film analyses were used in order to properly craft the symbolic the convergence of the Manila Dream and situate in into cinema. This study was done in hopes to open the discussion of the urban-centric migration here in the Philippines.

The study analyzed the effects of rural-urban migration on food security status of rural farming households in Kaduna State, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling technique was used for selecting samples for this study. In the first stage, four Local Government Areas were selected based on their proximity to Kaduna and Zaria which are urban centers, from which two rural communities were each selected. The last stage involved random selection of 20% of the farming households from each rural community selected in stage two to give a total of 120 households for the study. Data were collected using structured questionnaires. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, food security index, migratory effect estimation model and binary logistic regression model. Results of socio-economic characteristics of farming households showed that the mean age of household heads in the study area was 39 years, majority (87.5%) of the households were headed by males and 83.3% of the households’ heads were married. Major occupations of the household heads were farming and trading representing 40% of all the respondents and over 59% of them had secondary school education. The results further shows that the average household size was 11 persons. Also, 40% of the household heads had farming experience of between 14 and 22 years and mean annual households income was ₦557,783.00. Majority (55.8%) of the household heads claimed not to have access to extension services. Results of socio-economic characteristic of emigrants on the other hand revealed that the mean age of emigrants of the study area was 22years and majority (82.6%) were males, and most (57.8%) of them acquired secondary education or more. Also, 62.4% of the emigrants were single and 20.8% and 25.5% were engaged in trading and unconventional literacy training respectively. Results of food security status of households revealed that 67% of the households were food secure and 33% were food insecure. The Mean Per Capita Food Expenditure (MPCFE) and food security line were ₦3,549.61 and ₦2,366.41 respectively. Result of labour loss revealed that majority (61.6%) of the households lost man-days of labour ranging from 101-150 man-days, with mean labour loss of 76man-days. Average remittance received by households in the study area was ₦95,467.00. Findings further showed that 51% of the households had positive migratory effects, while 49% had negative migratory effects. Results of logistic regression analysis showed that the coefficients of migratory effect and remittances received by households were positive and significant at 1% and 10% levels of probability respectively; while that of labour loss to migration was negative and not significant on food security status of the farming households. The result further shows that the most common food insecurity coping strategy was borrowing money to buy food items, which ranked 1st. The study concluded that rural-urban migration had a significant positive influence on food security status of rural farming households in the study area. The study finally recommended that extension agents should be responsible for creating awareness among rural populace on the need to remain and be productive in the rural area.

There are several factors, responsible for rural-urban migration, influence the migrant’s migration status. The main objective of this paper to discuss the influence of migration factors on the determination of migration status of the rural-urban migrants’. As a case study, this study purposively selected the largest slum of Bangladesh according to single criterion- high concentration of rural-urban migrants. A total of 263 face to face interviews and 5 FGDs were conducted. Respondents, who are household heads of the migrant families, were chosen randomly and interviewed using both open ended and close ended questionnaires and for data analyses, respondents were categorized into two divisions- temporary and permanent migrants. Multivariate analyses show that both push and pull factors influence the migration status of migrants’, however, social factors, except occupation at rural origin, do not have any considerable influences.

This article examines issues of migrancy and socioeconomic disadvantage in present-day China with references to two cases involving the celebritization of migrant beggars and buskers. The first concerns Cheng Guorong, a 34-year-old vagrant beggar with mental health issues who became an international fashion icon known as “Brother Sharp” in 2010 after an amateur photographer posted candid photographs of him walking down a street on an internet forum. The second case involves two migrant buskers in Beijing who performed to an audience of around 1 billion viewers worldwide on China Central Television Station's annual Spring Festival Gala in 2011, after a friend posted a mobile phone video clip of them singing on his microblog. These cases show how the mediated contexts provided by the World Wide Web, combined with the corollary growth of a young digital-technology–savvy population, are generating new entertainment-orientated communities and celebrity-making practices in China. It also shows how these seemingly apolitical entertainment practices are refashioning public debates about the politics of prosperity and equality.

This paper explores the conditions for collective action to generate inclusion when agriculture transforms. The analysis finds that changes related to agricultural transformation have often led to urban migration for those rural and agricultural populations that could not cope with “modernization.” In the coming decades, agricultural transformation in rural areas may lead to more varied responses such as new farming patterns including more labour and thus require a broader diversity of collective action. Based on a range of theoretical and empirical references, the analysis proposes a framework that goes beyond sector-oriented perspectives, linking several interconnected domains where collective action can contribute towards inclusion. The paper also explores how to operationalize this collective action framework. It concludes that at stake is the ability of research and policymaking to support initiatives that cut across sectoral frontiers, favour interactions that open local people up to new ideas and beliefs, and look to bridge gaps in social status and between local and global thinking.

A partir de pesquisa etnográfica realizada nos últimos anos no sul de Moçambique, o presente artigo responde antropologicamente à pergunta colocada por um telespectador moçambicano sobre o porquê da
inexistência de sujeitos homossexuais em contextos rurais locais. O argumento central aqui apresentado é de que ainda que o desejo (homo)erótico preceda e prescinda da linguagem, a constituição de um sujeito propriamente homossexual não. Logo, as cidades oferecerão não apenas um ambiente propício para a vivência de experiências eróticas e identitárias desse sujeito, mas também a episteme necessária para que ele se constitua como tal.

In South Africa, the scale of rural-urban resettlement after apartheid continues to overwhelm the capacity of the government to house city dwellers in need of shelter. But the legitimacy of the postapartheid government rests on its ability to secure the rights of citizens who enjoy constitutional guarantees, including the right to housing. Because the government cannot simply repress this unhoused surplus population, it seeks instead to delegitimize some portion of it. It does so by developing a number of moralizing discourses, the subject of this paper, which distinguish between patient, deserving citizens, and unruly queue jumpers perceived to threaten the democratic project itself. Housing officials misrecognize squatters as a cause, rather than a consequence, of the state's failure to deliver, policing new land occupations with a draconian severity. They justify such repression in the name of protecting the democratic order, which is assumed to require waiting instead of improvisation.

A significant percentage of youth in urban Africa is employed in the informal sector. The informal sector is more accessible than the formal sector for people with low human and financial capital, such as youth migrants from rural areas. But the sector is also generally considered to provide a subsistence livelihood. This study examines whether street based self-employment in Africa offer a stepping stone towards a better livelihood or an urban poverty trap for youth migrants.  The analysis is based on data from a survey of 445 street vendors in two urban areas in Ethiopia. We found that street based self-employment is indeed dominated by migrant youth; 96% of those engaged in the street based self-employment are youth and 98% are migrants from rural areas or smaller towns. Our analysis suggests that street based self-employment can offer a viable transitional employment for migrant youth. We found that the average monthly earning of these self-employed youth is better than the minimum wage in the public sector and much higher than the official poverty line. We found that most of the youth consider this as a transitional employment and accumulate skill and capital with a view to establishing their own enterprise or accessing skilled employment. Young women are less likely than young men to seek exit out of street based self-employment but education increases their aspiration. Youth with better-off parents back home and those with larger network in their new residence are more likely to change their current occupation. The main risk for the livelihood of youth in this type of employment is lack of legal recognition to their activities and work place, which manifest itself in the form of arbitrary eviction and displacement from their work place.

Podemos decir que, en cierto sentido, las ciudades de Bolivia se han “andinizado”, no solo en cuanto a manifestaciones culturales, sino en cuanto a su estructura económica, territorial y social profunda. Podemos decir también que lo andino se ha urbanizado, puesto que a la lógica andina del “control vertical de un máximo de pisos ecológicos” se ha introducido el elemento urbano y con ello, sostenemos, se ha adecuado este modo de control territorial a un modo de control  socioeconómico

While previous studies have documented the trials of rural-to-urban migration in post-reform China, little is known of the consequences of urban demolition and attendant uncertainty on migrant mental health. Exploring the affective and subjective dimensions of life lived amidst rubble in a migrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Shanghai, this essay describes and analyzes small-scale practices of endurance through dynamics of time, place, and sociality. We understand these modes of dwelling in a ruined environment as key to what we refer to as the management of subjectivity, producing moments of being that potentially enable to feel and act otherwise. Considering the management of subjectivity in its own rights rather than as mere echoes of postsocialist governmentalities, we sustain a dialogue with recent writing on the production of happy and self-reliant marginalized subjects through the Chinese authorities' turn to “therapeutic governance.”

Depuis le milieu des années 1980, les politiques nationales de dévelop-pement au Laos ont favorisé le déplacement des populations des hautes terres vers les zones rurales de plaine. Ces relocalisations initiées par l'État ont induit d'autres formes de mobilité, de nature plus spontanée. Ainsi, depuis le cap du millénaire, la croissance urbaine se nourrit d'un véritable exode rural touchant particulièrement les tranches les plus jeunes de la population tant masculine que féminine. C'est ce qui a pu être observé à Houay Yong, un village tai de la province de Houaphan, que les jeunes quittent de plus en plus nombreux pour tenter leur chance en ville, essentiellement à Vientiane, la capitale. Cet article, de nature exploratoire, pose un regard anthropologique sur les ressorts de cette mobilité, en mettant l'accent sur l'intégration dans l'économie (inter)nationale, les ima-ginaires de la ville et de la modernité, l'évolution des liens générationnels et de genre, l'attachement émotionnel au village et la persistance de principes hiérarchiques fondés sur l'ancestralité. Summary.-The Rural Flight in Laos. Mobility, Youth and Kinship in Houay Yong (Houaphan Province).-Since the mid-1980s, the highlands of Laos have been affected by a policy promoting resettlements into the lowland countryside. This policy eventually had a leverage effect on other forms of mobility of a more spontaneous nature. Since the turn of the century, the urban population has grown tremendously, due to a strong rural flight of the youth-both male and female. This has been observed in Houay Yong, a Tai village in the province of Houaphan. More and more youths leave the village to take a chance in the city, especially in the capital, Vientiane. This paper highlights, from an anthropological perspective, the driving forces of this process, with a focus on the villa-ge's integration into the (inter)national economy; the imaginary of the city and of moder-nity; the evolution of generation and gender relations; the emotional attachment to the village; and the persistence of a hierarchy based on ancestrality. * Communication présentée à la séance académique d'ouverture tenue le 12 octobre 2017. Texte reçu le 13 janvier 2018, soumis à peer-review.

This essay uses as an illustrative example the infamous Nirbhaya Case, the brutal case of gang-rape and murder in New Delhi, India, and a set of politico-legal, governmental, moral, socioeconomic and journalistic narratives that ensued in its wake, to analyse a broader discourse on the urban landscape of Delhi as a morally pristine space threatened and invaded by " urban floating populations ". The author looks into the narrative construction of the (threatening) floating populations of migrant labourers and the (threatened) urban landscape within an ethical-politico-legal-cultural discourse that constructs – and imagines – the city as a moral landscape conducive to the manoeuvres of Big Capital, and simultaneously uses, abuses and erases the migrant labour feeding the city's upper and middle classes. The discussion draws upon a range of materials – from journalistic writings, opinion pieces and media interviews, to court verdicts and government reports – to locate a perception of insecurity that structures the narrative rendering of the city as a cluster of middle-and upper-class residential areas (sharif mohallas, as a Delhiwallah, a citizen of Delhi, would put it). This narrated insecurity touches upon issues that range from sexual violence and murder to urban cleanliness and littering of the urban landscape.

This paper proposes an analysis of internal migrants as a social category whose qualities and historic tendencies could make it a new middle class. These qualities include their entrepreneurial potential and increasing role as producers and consumers of goods and services, a group that is interested in stability and steady economic growth.
In Bishkek, where more than one third of the population of Kyrgyzstan resides, these internal migrants have changed the urban environment by joining the urban workforce that provides goods and services, as well as becoming consumers and voters. They continue being the most visible and effective actors in changing economic, social and, eventually, political practices in the Kyrgyz capital. This policy paper draws mainly on the cooperation between the development consultancy DialectICON, public foundation Erayim, and the Bishkek mayor’s office. This was possible during research and training projects called "Opportunities for Legalising Small Businesses of Self-Help Housing Districts of Bishkek" (April-June 2008).

Esta reciente investigación trata de demostrar la necesidad de contemplar, analizar y reivindicar la oportunidad que significa la articulación estratégica de los saberes locales endógenos indígeno-campesinos y los conocimientos científico-técnicos (expertos) dentro de la Universidad Veracruzana Intercultural (UVI) y su contribución al diálogo de saberes en los procesos de manejo y gestión de recursos naturales en las comunidades indígenas nahuas y popolucas de la Sierra de Santa Marta en Veracruz (México). Para tal fin, desde una metodología cualitativa como la etnografía y la aplicación de entrevistas abiertas o no estructuradas a los distintos actores sociales, esta investigación ha identificado, analizado y etnografiado diversos proyectos de gestión integral y sustentable de recursos naturales, agrosilvopastoriles, pesqueros y ecoturísticos en la Sierra de Santa Marta.

A partir de los métodos y técnicas anteriores se ha puesto de manifiesto que en estas innovadoras experiencias, que se presentan como posibles modelos ecológicos, económicos, sociales, culturales y educativos alternativos para contribuir a la mejora de la precaria realidad de las comunidades indígenas y/o campesinas mesoamericanas, en cuanto se refiere a aspectos de neto e ineludible interés como el desarrollo humano, la justicia social y la sustentabilidad ambiental, participan decisivamente, en colaboración directa con los campesinos indígenas y promotores locales, egresados y estudiantes de la Licenciatura en Gestión Integral para el Desarrollo (LGID), en su Orientación de Sustentabilidad, de la Universidad Veracruzana Intercultural (Sede UVI-Las Selvas).

Asimismo, se observa la capacidad que tienen estos proyectos alternativos de conservar el trabajo y mejorar la existencia de las personas que se encuentran en situación de resto o redundancia respecto a las necesidades del sistema económico capitalista hegemónico, “evitando, en buena medida, tener que recurrir a la emigración” (Moreno Arriba-AECID, 2013:210) hacia los estados del norte de México como Baja California,  Chihuahua y Sinaloa o a cruzar la frontera con los Estados Unidos con la grave y compleja problemática que ello conlleva tanto en los lugares de partida como de destino.  Se trataría así de evitar en la medida de lo posible lo que Castells (2002) ha definido como la “Sociedad 20:80”, en virtud de la cual una quinta parte de la población planetaria, el 20 por ciento, vivirá en la opulencia, en tanto las cuartas quintas partes restantes se verán condenadas a una lucha feroz por sobrevivir. En definitiva, se muestra cómo, desde una “ecología de los saberes” (Santos, 2009) y de una gestión intercultural, los recursos de las selvas tropicales han permitido sobrevivir dignamente a diferentes comunidades campesinas y/o indígenas en condiciones estructurales globales desfavorables.

Palabras clave: Emigración - Recursos – Intercultural – Diálogo – Sustentabilidad.

Floods displacement is still a dilemma in Libya because of political instability and lack of will to create policies to improve the situation of the Eastern population in their region of origin. This policy paper therefore aims to monitor the impacts of floods, particularly in Eastern Libya regions, in an attempt to provide solutions for this problem, analyzing the role of the state and understanding human vulnerability. This is in hopes that this study would contribute to guiding the civil society and policymakers themselves towards innovative solutions in this field.

Ulaanbaatar is expanding rapidly at its edges through the construction of informal settlements by influxes of former nomads. In an unfolding narrative paralleling the population shifts, laws intended to govern urban settlement have themselves been unsettled. As migrants seek urban advantages — education, cultural cosmopolitinization, and economies of employment and consumption — they must negotiate the legal regime, embracing it when advantageous but selectively skirting its restrictions. Concerned for losing legitimacy, either from breaking laws too recklessly or adhering to laws too strictly, settlers have developed a discourse that tracks with shifts in legal codes. This article studies families navigating the edges of the legal landscape — veering out of and back into legitimacy — and concludes that constructing vernacular housing is crucial to their strategies of urban participation.

The present study explores the variable use of [q] and [ʔ] in the Colloquial Arabic of rural migrant families residing in two neighborhoods of the city of Hims, Syria. Principally, the roles of social factors (sex, age, area of residence, and social class), lexical borrowing and speech accommodation are analyzed. A quantitative study was carried out to examine the frequency of each sound in the naturally occurring speech of a sample of 36 interviewees belonging to families who migrated from rural areas, where [q] is socially dominant, to the city of Hims, where [ʔ] acts as a prestige marker. Speech accommodation seems to be at play in this case of apparent language change among rural-origin speakers. In general, younger speakers appear to accommodate more fully to city norms, using the prestige variant [ʔ] with a significantly higher frequency than older speakers in the Himsi context. Area of residence in the city of Hims also exerts a significant influence on the use of the prestige variant. Differential patterns of accommodation were explored in a qualitative analysis highlighting the usage of individual speakers. The continued use of [q] is partially attributable to lexical borrowings from Standard Arabic into Colloquial Arabic. The data suggest that cross-generational change may start with particular words and then spread to other words, meaning that the mechanism of change from [q] to [ʔ] in migrant families in Hims could be lexical diffusion. This phenomenon is most apparent in the speech of the older generation.