You don’t have to look far to find an article about human migration, refugees, illegal  immigrants or even climate refugees. Globally we are on the move; sometimes we choose to go, other times we are forced to relocate and build a new life. You yourself may be an immigrant or you may be the child of parents or grandparents who saw Canada as a place to build a better life.

Like all issues, migration can spark heated debate. Who should be let in? How many people should be let in?  If your community is not safe to live in and you are forced to move but stay within your country, why aren’t you also called a refugee?

H.O.T. Topic - Interview Questions

Scenario

You are a reporter. You have been invited to a world conference on human migration. You are to interview the leader of a developed country. That country’s government has recently passed legislation to severely limit the number and origin of immigrants. With reference to the groups you have just read about (Climate Refugees, Illegal Migrants, Refugees and Migrants) prepare three questions designed to challenge the leader to explain and justify the country’s recent policy.

Social Action?

Who would you like to ask these questions and why?

As you can see there are almost as many opinions about migration as there are migrants. Do any of these opinions resonate with your own thinking? In this activity we will move around the world to explore different elements of migration. Let’s go!

What would it take for you to feel that you and your family had to permanently leave your home? What would that move actually involve? What would you do first? What would be the hardest thing to leave behind?

For many Canadians, this is all beyond our imagination. We may chose to move, but it would be our choice. Here is one of the many disparities (great differences) between our experiences and millions, even billions, of people who have no choice.  For safety, they must leave.

Generally there are two broadly defined causes of migration. People making the choice to move are classified as voluntary migrants, while people who feel this choice has been taken out of their hands are classified as forced migrants. Forced migrants include refugees, internally displaced people and climate refugees. Internally displaced people experience the need to remove themselves from danger, so they leave their home, community or region, but do not cross any international boundaries in the process.

From religious pilgrimages to colonialism to the European exodus after WWI and WWII, human groups have left their homelands. How far back in human history do you think migrations began?

So people have always been migrants!  This video makes two points that are relevant to this activity. First, that the movement from rural to urban or countryside to city is the largest of all human migrations. Secondly that people are needed to move others out of poverty or to reduce economic disparity. These are important ideas for this activity.

Part 1: Migration Examples from Asia

Canadian Doug Saunders has given the rural to urban migration considerable thought.  In his book, Arrival City: How the Largest Migration in History is Reshaping our World, Saunders begins by illustrating what he means by an arrival city.

In his review Fred Pearce points out the merits of Saunders thesis. Arrival City: How the largest Migration in history is reshaping Our World.

Wikimedia

The Hukou is not the only government policy to address the impact of urban bound migrants. Fast paced developments of cities to house 300 000 to a million residents have been popping up all over China. Local governments, working to stimulate their economy have used construction to drive their economy. These mega-projects have used phenomenal amounts of money, labour and resources in their construction, and in return expect equally phenomenal results: 100s of millions of citizens moving into cities like Tianducheng, Dongguan and Kangbashi.

None of this is “organic.” The local officials build and local farmers and arrival city residents may be forced to move. Productive farmland is used for urban development. The need to show the world that China can “outperform” the West is met. What questions does this leave you wondering about the future of urban China, or about the future of millions of arrival city migrants? In what ways is or isn’t this sustainable?

Part 2: Migration - Examples from Africa

The term, internally displaced people (IDP), has become more commonly used since the current civil war in Syria where millions of people have not left the country and therefore are not afforded the support we give to refugees.  They have stayed and remain both fearful of the civil war and wary of the government whose responsibility it is to protect them.

It is shocking how many countries have internally displaced people and how difficult it is to determine the real numbers of people in this situation.

Daily Mail

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre keeps a multi year record of IDP for countries around the world. Can you find a country in their database that does not have an IDP camp? The answer might surprise you.

What can we learn?

You will have noticed the strikingly high number of children living in these IDP camps. If you asked a child living in these conditions to document their experience with 3 or 4 photographs, what do you think the subjects of their photographs would be?

National Geographic gave children cameras so that they could document their own story and called it Life in a Refugee Camp, As Seen By Children.

How similar were your predictions and the actual photographs in the photo gallery? What could explain the similarities and differences?

Part 3: Migration Examples from the West

While we have seen a variety of examples of migration (voluntary and forced) around the world we don’t actually have to go that far from home to look at examples of human migration.

In the spring of 2016 Donald J Trump famously announced during the Presidential Primaries, that he would build a wall along the border between the USA and Mexico. Why?  To block the movement of illegal or undocumented workers. While this is unrealistic, and for many, offensive, look back at the quotes at the beginning of the activity. Other leaders share the view that closing their borders is in their country’s best interest. Certainly this was part of the Brexit “leave the European Union” stance.

Issues that make it into our popular culture (TV, movies, social media etc.) often grab our attention more quickly than those in mainstream media.  We regularly have humourists/commentators such as Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah and John Oliver bring their opinions and analysis of national and world issues to our attention.  

In reality, people moving without the necessary documentation is a persistent problem, one that rises out of financial and quality of life disparity.

Rural to urban migration in China and Brazil, IDP in Africa, illegal immigrants in the USA, economic migrants in Canada; that’s quite the list.  Let’s look at one final example of the interrelationship of migration and people moving to find the best quality of life for themselves and their families.

Japan has had a “closed door” immigration policy. That is to say they do not want other cultures entering their country and changing the ethnic profile of the nation. Even with a declining population, less than 3% of the population are immigrants.   Remember in Canada, immigrants are seen as the solution to the problem of declining population.

While this Journeyman short documentary is a bit dated it does illustrate the plight of the illegal immigrant who is taking extreme risk to provide a better life for their family back in China. Japan’s battle with rising tide of illegal Chinese immigrants.  This provides yet another viewpoint and national stance on the complicated topic of immigration.

In all of the examples above, it is clear people leave their home countries to improve their quality of life. But what are the reasons countries should receive migrants?