Centre for Migration Studieshttp://ugspace.ug.edu.gh:8080/handle/123456789/50132024-03-28T09:02:45Z2024-03-28T09:02:45ZTranslocal Activities And Rural-Urban Migrants’ Integration Processes In AccraBoateng, E.http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh:8080/handle/123456789/404652023-11-01T11:59:38Z2021-09-01T00:00:00ZTranslocal Activities And Rural-Urban Migrants’ Integration Processes In Accra
Boateng, E.
Several studies have primarily examined migrants’ integration in western countries or immigrants from the other African countries. In sub-Sahara Africa and Ghana, there is existing evidence on rural-urban migration but the focus of these studies has not been on how rural-urban migrants engage in translocal activities and integration. Hence, there is paucity of research in Ghana on how rural-urban migrants engage in translocal activities and how they integrate in their destination communities.
To understand this nuance and fill the gap, this study adopted a mixed method approach to examine the translocal activities and factors that influence the integration processes of rural-urban migrants. Primary data was collected from rural-urban migrants in Accra. A total of 409 rural-urban migrants were surveyed and 29 interviewees (including 26 rural-urban migrants and 3 key informants) were interviewed for the study.
The study revealed that nine in every ten (95.4%) of the migrants have engaged in many translocal activities in their current place of residence, with 76.5 per cent engaged in economic translocal activities, but 90.5% of the migrants do not engage in political translocal activities. Also, about 86.8% migrants socially engage with people in their hometown. About half (50.9%) of rural-urban migrants were totally integrated in their place of destination. The results further showed that more than two-thirds (69.2%) of the respondents who were engaged in political translocal activities were integrated, however, there is no association between social translocal activities and integration among rural-urban migrants. Also, more than half (58.9%) of the respondents who were engaged in cultural translocal activities were integrated into their current place of residence. The results showed that the respondents reported high prices of food, high cost of utility bills, high cost of rent, difficulty in learning the local language at the destination area and difficulty in making friends as factors affecting them to integrate. In addition, dominant strategies adopted by respondents were joining religious bodies, making friends and acquaintances. Others were learning local language, engaging in translocal activities and joining social/cultural clubs.
The study, therefore, concludes that the rural-urban migrants get support from family and friends who have already migrated to Accra. They still maintain ties and engage in translocal activities. These activities, coupled with challenges make it difficult for the migrants to fully integrate in their new destination
PhD. Migration Studies
2021-09-01T00:00:00ZThe Dynamics Of Immigration Policymaking In GhanaAyisi, F.http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh:8080/handle/123456789/403322023-10-09T10:48:33Z2021-12-01T00:00:00ZThe Dynamics Of Immigration Policymaking In Ghana
Ayisi, F.
The number of international migrants has been increasing in real terms, reaching 281 million by mid-2020, even amid the COVID-19 pandemic but is still estimated to be 3.5% of the world's population. Out of this figure, Africa is estimated to host about 14%, the third largest after Europe and North America. Ghana, a traditional migration country in West Africa, s019, has been designated as a net-emigration and transit country. As an intermistic phenomenon, international migration has increased the interest in global and regional migration governance, which was a preserve of the nation-state. Although the twenty-first century has been described as 'the age of migration', only 3.5% of the world's population is moving, with 96.5% remaining in their countries of birth. Studying immigration policy, a dual-purpose strategy has, as a result, gained currency recently but is skewed toward the Global North. Coming from policy diffusion, domestic political economy and institutional theories, this qualitative study examined the dynamics of immigration policymaking in Ghana. The findings indicate that immigration policymaking in Ghana though progressive has been bureaucratic, involving state and international actors. Secondly, immigration policies during the colonial era were less restrictive, became restrictive during the early independence era and more complex in this contemporary era. Thirdly, immigration policy in Ghana is driven mainly by security and economic considerations with diverse effects. The study, therefore, recommends the de-securitisation of migration, improvement of the linkage of immigration to skills, investment and a composite national immigration policy.
Keywords: Immigration policymaking, intermistic phenomenon, dual purpose strategy, bureaucratic
PhD. Migration Studies Degree
2021-12-01T00:00:00Z(Im)Mobility, Cognitive Migration and Return in GhanaBekoe, A.Ahttp://ugspace.ug.edu.gh:8080/handle/123456789/401332023-10-02T15:45:40Z2021-12-01T00:00:00Z(Im)Mobility, Cognitive Migration and Return in Ghana
Bekoe, A.A
The study explores cognitive migration and return using in-depth biographical interviews of 21 failed migrants in Accra and Kumasi to understand the role of the mind in imagining a future away from home; how the mind travels ahead of the body to the imagined destination, the different trajectories of failure encountered and their effects as well as the process by which the mind returns to the origin in pursuit of a homeward future. The study finds evidence for cognitive migration in Ghana. Secondly, the study establishes the salience of imagination as the true essence of cognitive migration and not necessarily the intense planning and preparation that migrant aspirants undertake. The study shows that the effects of failing a migration project in situ, transcends monetary and temporal losses; cognitive migrants see failure as a disruptive event with life-altering implication for their wellbeing. To this end, psychology’s understanding of migrants’ social integration and psychological well-being can no longer be consigned to destination countries. Thirdly, the study finds the reconfiguration of imaginations not to be only a spatio-temporal process but a spatio-temporal-cognitive process. By clarifying how cognitive migrants return their minds to invest in a homeward future in the wake of failure, the study extends the current concept of cognitive migration to cognitive return migration and delineates the cognitive return migrant or the immobile cognitive returnee as a new immobility category. The study recommends the incorporation of immobile cognitive returnees into migration praxis to make migration an intrinsic part of broader social processes of development, social transformation and globalisation. Migration statistics, it is strongly recommended, must make cognitive return migrants or immobile cognitive returnees visible by counting them. Other policy implications have been fully discussed.
Doctor In Migration Studies
2021-12-01T00:00:00ZNegotiating Return: Experiences of Ghanaian ‘Trapped’ Migrants in Libya, Qatar and Saudi ArabiaGyasi-Mensah, A.http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh:8080/handle/123456789/382242022-08-02T09:00:49Z2020-10-01T00:00:00ZNegotiating Return: Experiences of Ghanaian ‘Trapped’ Migrants in Libya, Qatar and Saudi Arabia
Gyasi-Mensah, A.
There is widespread concern about the number of Ghanaians who risk their lives by embarking on migration processes with the intention to enhance their economic outlook. Many of these migrants are often met with difficulties of return due to prevailing conditions at the place of location. Studies in the migration discipline have examined several aspects of the process of return migration. However, many of these studies have overlooked the aspect of migrants who are unable to return because they are heavily ‘trapped’. This study attempts to bridge this gap in literature through a qualitative study of ‘trapped migrants’ of Ghanaian origin. This study sought to examine the phenomenon of ‘trapped migration’ from Ghana to Libya, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to bring out the nuances of the experiences of ‘trapped migrants’ and their struggle to return. The study employed a purely qualitative methodology obtaining samples of migrants to the said areas who were ‘trapped’ by using purposive and snowball sampling techniques. A total sample of 30 ‘trapped migrants’ and information from GIS, IOM, as well as related studies were utilized constructively and interpretively in a thematic analysis. The study found that, data supports the existence of ‘trapped migration’ distinguished by the fact that ‘trapped migrants’ face extreme difficulties that thwart their every little effort to return. The characteristics of ‘trapped migrants’ showed that these were youthful individuals who were bidding their time for improved economic circumstances. The information they received about the prospects of the migration laid traps for their credulity because what they experienced when they migrated was not as palatable as the foreknowledge they received. They met episodes of undignified, dehumanizing, and abusive treatment, treatment essentially flouting fundamental human rights – just for wanting to work and make money as immigrant workers. The journey by road from Ghana to Libya is clearly too risky for the kind of prospects that awaits successful travellers – if they succeed. But at the crucial point where they wish to return, the conditions – financial incapability, arrest and detention, seizure of travel documents, and so on – would simply not let them. At the time of this study there were 9 out of the 30 ‘trapped migrants’ who were still ‘trapped’. Institutional effort to facilitate the return of the ‘trapped migrant’ was extremely limited. The study recommends the need for government to beware of the potential threat that ‘trapped migration’ presents to Ghanaians and demonstrate concern to address it. Ghanaian citizens abroad should be accorded the dignity, protection, and safety they deserve as citizens. Also, the government of Ghana should take steps towards bilateral and inter-regional agreements to protect Ghanaian migrants. Future studies should give objective and generalized accounts of the experiences of Ghanaians who are ‘trapped’ in migration using a more quantitative approach to find out the proportion of migrants who were assisted to return by other institutional efforts compared to those who returned by their own effort.
PhD. Migration Studies
2020-10-01T00:00:00Z