Refugees or Labor Migrants: The Anthropology of South-North Migration

Millions of people from low-income countries are moving to high-income countries without work visas. If they seek to escape poverty and government corruption, do they deserve to be classified as refugees with a human right to cross international borders? Heightened border enforcement has led to thousands of deaths in the American Southwest and the Mediterranean, and now anxious voters are electing politicians who promise even harsher crackdowns. Based on research with international migration streams, this course will explore debates over asylum rights, border enforcement, the deportation industry, the migration industry, low-wage labor markets and remittance economies, with a focus on Latin American and Chinese migration to the U.S., as well as African and Mideastern migration to Western Europe (Not open to students who have taken SOAN 1021 or SOAN 329)