The Repugnant Other: Soldiers, Missionaries, and Aid Workers as Organizational Migrants

Abstract

Most people do not consider diplomats, corporate expatriates, missionaries, scholars, or soldiers to be migrants. Even migration scholars often pay little attention to people whose migratory behavior is primarily determined by the interests of the organization they work for. The reason for this blind spot is not the lack of analytical tools. In his landmark 1971 paper on the mobility transition, the geographer Wilbur Zelinsky already acknowledged the importance of such—often highly skilled—migrants. Five years later, Charles Tilly made a similar point in his migration typology, which was adopted in the overview of migration in Western Europe by Leslie Page Moch, by explicitly distinguishing “career migrants.” Notwithstanding the inclusion of what we label “organizational migrants” by leading scholars, in the mainstream migration historiography attention to their mobility is conspicuously lacking.

How repatriates forge social change in the metropole: a cross-cultural migration perspective

“…An important, but often neglected, role is played by what I have termed "organizational migrants"people whose migratory pattern is largely determined by the organization that they have joinedbureaucrats, soldiers, missionaries, posted skilled workers in international companies or NGOs, for example (Lesger et al 2002;Lucassen and Smit 2015). Many of them moved through imperial networks and circuits and left their mother country only temporarily.…”

Risk entrepreneurship and the construction of healthcare deservingness for ‘desirable’, ‘acceptable’ and ‘disposable’ migrants in Malaysia

“…Migration scholars have generally focused on populations considered to be more vulnerable and at risk of marginalisation (Lucassen and Smit 2016). This has resulted in comparably little attention being paid to migrant groups thought to possess greater social, economic and political capital and privilege, producing a somewhat skewed and limiting picture of who migrants are (Fechter and Walsh 2010).…”

Working together: new directions in global labour history

“…96 These workers can be soldiers, diplomats, missionaries, or corporate expatriates, all having in common the fact that their migration patterns are primarily determined by the interests of the organization for which they work, and therefore limiting whether and to where they migrate. 97 Although these migrants are almost always wage-earners, there are important differences in their income and bargaining power. A similar observation, which again shows why the status dimension is important (and not only for self-employed and wageearners but also for forced labour), has been made with respect to elite soldiers recruited as slaves.…”