Skip to main content
Home

Main navigation

  • Home
  • Series
  • People
  • Depts & Colleges

Main navigation

  • Home
  • Series
  • People
  • Depts & Colleges

African migration to and from Europe: Rethinking circular migration

Series
International Migration Institute
Audio Embed
Antony Otieno Ong'ayo presents an alternative approach to the management of migration in the context of EU–Africa migration relations
The effects of contemporary migration dynamics within and from Africa to Europe increasingly translate into cross border challenges facing the European Union. The socio-economic and political factors shaped by the processes of globalisation continue to generate different dimensions of migration in Africa. These dynamics have become major policy challenges in the management of migration and leveraging migration of development. Current policy initiatives are informed by top-down approaches that attach different opportunities and restrictions to them through categorisations such as irregular migrants, asylum seekers, failed asylum seekers, illegal migrants, skilled migrants, highly-skilled migrants, second generation and return migrants. However, these approaches do not take into account the agentic responsibility of African migrants and the communities that they have established in the respective destinations countries to manage themselves. Moreover, they fail to address return decisions and constraints to circularity as experienced by African migrants who may consider going back. Drawing on the experience of sub-Saharan African migrants in the Netherlands, this paper presents an alternative approach to the management of migration in the context of EU–Africa migration relations. It starts from the premise that the experiences and leadership of migrant communities in host countries are vital for a bottom-up driven approach to ‘managed migration’. Tapping into diaspora agency, structures of leadership, consultation and decision-making within the African communities provides new approaches to circular migration that translates into a triple-win situation.

More in this series

View Series
International Migration Institute

Migratory flows, colonial encounters and the histories of transatlantic slavery

Olivette Otele explores how histories of transatlantic slavery impact on contemporary questions of migration
Previous
International Migration Institute

'All the money I raised, I raised from Ghana': Understanding reverse remittance practice among Ghanaian migrants in the UK and their relatives in Ghana

In the context of Ghanaians in the UK, Geraldine Adiku explores how migrant remittance practices are not only from 'developed' to 'developing' country; many are sent in the reverse direction, a fact largely ignored by scholarship on the topic
Next

Episode Information

Series
International Migration Institute
People
Antony Otieno Ong'ayo
Keywords
African migration
migration policy
european union
Department: Oxford Department of International Development
Date Added: 03/02/2017
Duration: 00:50:43

Subscribe

Apple Podcast Audio Audio RSS Feed

Download

Download Audio

Footer

  • About
  • Accessibility
  • Contribute
  • Copyright
  • Contact
  • Privacy
'Oxford Podcasts' Twitter Account @oxfordpodcasts | MediaPub Publishing Portal for Oxford Podcast Contributors | Upcoming Talks in Oxford | © 2011-2022 The University of Oxford