The renowned “American Political Science Association” honors her dissertation titled Emigration from 'Destination': The Unfulfilled Migration Aspirations of the Precariat in the 'Global North', which she completed at the University of Kent in 2023. In this interview, our colleague Naiara reveals the results of her project that particularly surprised her and shares her advice for other early-stage researchers.
Dear Naiara,
congratulations on receiving the APSA Migration & Citizenship Section Best Dissertation Award 2024 for your research on migration aspirations in high-income countries. Can you tell us more about it?
The thesis explores how migration aspirations are formed in high-income countries, and how these aspirations are then converted (or not) into actual migration. From a macro-level perspective, the thesis aims to examine whether the drivers of migration aspirations are different in high-, moderate-, and low-income countries and how so.
It also offers a preliminary operationalization of migration capabilities worldwide – my aim was to explore where people have the capabilities to move, but also who has the capabilities to migrate. From a micro-level perspective, I zoomed into precarious regions of high-income countries.
I conducted mixed-method research in Laciana and El Bierzo in North-West Spain. These two regions were very dynamic and active in the second half of the 20th century due to a bourgeoning mining industry. For a variety of reasons – economic, environmental, political, etc.– this industry started collapsing in the early 2000s and since then both regions have experienced 3 socio-economic crises: the closure of the mines, the 2008 financial crisis, and the COVID-19 crisis. The repercussions of these crises are that many can’t have the ‘good life’ they aspire to in place. Under these circumstances, my PhD research asks how migration aspirations are formed in regions where migration is not the norm and how these aspirations – which have increased in the last decades – can be fulfilled when people have strong citizenship capital but lack migration networks, migration-related knowledge and skills, and economic resources.
What were the key findings of your research?
The need to rethink dichotomous categories that have crippled academic migration debates for a long time. Theoretically, my thesis relies very heavily on two-step migration approaches, which distinguish between the aspirations to migrate and the capability to do so. While most research has focused especially on migration aspirations in the so-called ‘Global South’, I focus on migration aspirations and capabilities in the ‘Global North’.
The thesis has four main contributions.
- Many researchers have previously shown that aspirations can be conflicting, as people sometimes wish to stay and migrate for different reasons. My thesis provides a framework to measure the strength of migration and stay aspirations.
- I engage with the concept of migration capabilities, which has received little attention in research, and I tried to further conceptualize and operationalize the abstract but theoretically rich concepts of migration and stay capabilities.
- Many –also in high-income countries– can’t fulfill their migration aspirations. This process is known in academia as involuntary immobility. We don’t know much about how people cope with unfulfilled migration aspirations. In my research I found that some involuntarily immobile individuals live vicariously through migration-related videos, photos, memories, and short holidays. They create transnational ties to experience migration in a non-corporeal manner, moving instead virtually and imaginatively. I found this unexpected connection between corporeal, virtual, and imaginative mobility very interesting, and I believe it calls to be more creative about how we think about im/mobilities.
- Finally, the main takeout of the thesis is that we shouldn’t make conceptual separations between migration aspirations and capabilities in the Global North and Global South. Over the past decades, inequality studies have paid attention to the figure of the ‘precariat’, which refers to people suffering from precarious, unstable livelihoods worldwide. Global capitalism generates important inequalities also within high-income countries. I feel these inequalities are often not researched enough, as we rather often focus on Global North/South dichotomies. These are of course crucial: we know how they impact the ability of many in low- and middle-income countries to move internationally and the ways in which power asymmetries affect governance and the opportunities to seek asylum safely, for instance. These are important aspects that I don’t want to downplay. Still, my thesis aims to highlight the need to look for inequalities past the South/North impasse to explore similarities and differences in lived experiences of im/mobility worldwide.
What advice would you give to other researchers working on their theses?
My go-to advice, which I still haven’t mastered myself, is to learn how to say ‘no’. Well, saying ‘no’ and not feeling guilty. As a junior researcher, every opportunity feels important. Declining an opportunity is…hard. These opportunities tend to be very exciting and involve collaborating with people with whom you share conceptual interests. But thinking in new and innovative ways is time-consuming. I don’t need to tell anybody that the to-do list is usually never-ending. Once you think you have read a lot and feel confident in your knowledge of the literature, another interesting article pops up, which often means adding 10 more to you to-read list as you discover different concepts, theories, or methods. There is simply not enough time to read, write, go to conferences, network, strengthen your skills, think about what will come after the PhD, and enjoy life. Saying no involves knowing that sometimes we need to let very interesting collaborations go. And that is ok.
Naiara, thank you for these exciting insights into your research and for sharing your ideas.
