Globalizing forces on migration? A dual process

Abstract

The impact of globalization on migration has been somewhat studied in recent years: the acceleration of flows and its longer reach; the role of advancement in transport and communications and its role on migrations; the linking of migrant diasporas with their home countries culturally or economically (or both); and the rise of transnationalism to explain some migratory movements. Yet, it is both unclear how globalization theory, with different elements and thus, different perspectives, has explained the relationship between globalization and migration. Moreover, this has been mostly seen as a one-directional interaction, without proper consideration of its consequences. This chapter aims to address this issue in two main streams: first, how globalization theory has studied and proposed (implicitly or explicitly) the relationship between globalization, migration, and the nation-state; second, and drawing on concrete cases (namely, Spain, Italy, Greece and Libya), how migration is retrieved in political terms, as an issue that was traditionally part of foreign policy agenda and strategies has transformed into domestic politics, of border and migration management. In other words, globalization reorganizes a foreign policy vector that causes it to be part of internal politics - thus, forming a dual process of action and interaction between globalization and migration, mediated by the nation-state. The selected cases aim to consider African migration within the specific context of two political areas: EU and Mediterranean Sea. Within these two areas, foreign policy, migration, globalization and regionalization processes, merge together. Libya is the terminal of a continental African route, which thus connects directly with both the origin countries and, eventually, Europe as a final destination; and Spain, Italy, and Greece were considered in this study due to their role as points of entry. According to this consideration, we study the relation between migration and globalization, as multiple geographies, within which the border between internal and foreign policy is unclear. We argue that globalization as a process creates resistance to itself, and that we can see the manifestations of that resistance in the issue of migration.