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Chameleon brokers: A translocal take on migration industries in the Thai-Swedish wild berry business
Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Department of Geography, Media and Communication (from 2013).ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1592-6079
Umea University.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-7888-780X
2021 (English)In: Migration Studies, ISSN 2049-5838, E-ISSN 2049-5846, Vol. 9, no 3, p. 830-851Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Migrant brokers constitute a substantial node in the industries that underpin contemporary global migration processes, including seasonal labour migrants in agri-food businesses. This article adds a translocal perspective to the role of migrant brokers, while emphasising the multi-sited embeddedness of brokers in sending and receiving countries, and their role in sustaining transnational migration flows. The example of the Swedish wild berry industry shows how two groups of translocal brokers operate in multi-sited space, first, Thai women brokers residing in rural Sweden, and second, local brokers, residing in rural Thailand. This article emphasises how translocal brokers are giving migration industries access to multi-sited embeddedness, both at the site of recruitment in Thai villages and at the site of work in Sweden. The translocal embeddedness is noticed in how moral economies and trust are at play in recruitment processes, and how moral economies are then transferred across space to the site of work. Also, it accentuates how translocal brokers are main subjects, in how their biographical histories are creating translocal relations across space. Lastly, we show how spatial divisions of labour are creating social hierarchies among workers, where the brokers themselves incorporate shifting, 'chameleon' roles in multi-sited space. The analysis brings the moral complexity of brokers to the surface, while showing how the social relations of their 'moral economies' are commodified within profit-seeking migration industries.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Oxford University Press, 2021. Vol. 9, no 3, p. 830-851
Keywords [en]
migrant brokers, translocality, spatial divisions of labour, moral economy, biographical embeddedness, seasonal migration
National Category
Human Geography
Research subject
Human Geography
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-88758DOI: 10.1093/migration/mnab030ISI: 000744541600023Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85132729732OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kau-88758DiVA, id: diva2:1640597
Available from: 2022-02-25 Created: 2022-02-25 Last updated: 2022-08-30Bibliographically approved

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van Eerbeek, Peter

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