Frontier, Migrations, Social Rights and Social Work

Abstract

According to the World Migration Report 2018 (WMR 2018) of the International Organization for Migration, migratory movements are complex phenomena involving several different situations, including both international movements of population, and the movements occurring within different nation-states (MCAULIFFE; RUHS, 2017). In times of capital-imperialism (using the category proposed by Virginia Fontes), hundreds of millions of people have been forced to leave their places of origin because, as Pietro Basso (2004) asserts, migration never has a voluntary nature; it is always forced, due to structural economic, social, political, cultural or environmental causes. The numbers released by the WMR 2018 are overwhelming, and we know that statistics do not tell the whole story. By 2015 there were 243.7 million emigrants, which amounted to 3.3% of the total population of the planet and represented an increase of 71 million people (41.1%) compared to the beginning of the millennium and about 159 million (188.5%) compared to 1970. It should be noted that the number of emigrants in 2015 already exceeded the 230 million people that projections made in 2003 expected for 2050 (MCAULIFFE; RUHS, 2017). However, this number is not the largest contingent of population in movement. The largest part of it is internal, reaching 740 million in 2009, according to the United Nations Development Program data cited by WMR 2018 (MCAULIFFE; RUHS, 2017). This refers to the 40.3 million people internally displaced, identified in 2016 by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center and the 22.5 million refugees estimated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. These two categories experienced a significant increase in the last decades due to conflicts happening worldwide (MCAULIFFE; RUHS, 2017). The WMR 2018 says, in addition, that the majority of those moving to destinations outside their country of origin are men (52%) and the overwhelming majority are of working age (72% are aged between 20 and 64). Data on the countries of origin and destination show that half of the growing number of workers forced to emigrate comes mainly from Asia, with particular relevance to the Indian subcontinent (India-around 15 million people-, Pakistan, Bangladesh), but also China. It is important to mention Mexico, which is the second largest exporter of workforce, after India. Migratory flows are mainly directed towards the central countries of capitalism, with the United States and Germany leading the way, as well as regions such as the Arabian Peninsula or certain parts of Asia (MCAULIFFE; RUHS, 2017). Notwithstanding the important migratory flows observed in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, this theme is far from being a primary object of study in the period of foundation and consolidation of the social sciences, and in particular of sociology. In fact, the classical authors paid little attention to it, even though they laid the groundwork for future interpretations of the phenomenon of migration. Émile Durkheim addressed the issu...