The role of recruitment agencies in imagining and producing the ‘good’ migrant

The making of the ‘precarious’: examining Indian immigrant IT workers in Canada and their transnational networks with body shops in India

“…Each professional becomes a productive terminal in a highly unstable and competitive field of activities where individual success, failure or survival depends on a relational context of staying ahead of the other competitors even while working through a network of collaborations. Anxious to fit into this flexible and competitive work culture of the agencies and the neoliberal market at large, workers thus remain absorbed in constant monitoring and modification of their attitude, appearance and behaviour (Findlay et al 2013). Such self-regulation is imperative to survive in this new economy; otherwise as Berardi (2009) points out, one will be eliminated and labelled as a failure.…”

“…However, in order to ensure the steady supply of a compliant, malleable, 'non-confrontational workforce' (Kelly 2001, 7-8) that is permanently on-call (Smith 2009, 11), these recruitment agencies impose stringent regimes of labour control and regulation (Aneesh 2006;Findlay et al 2013;Gottfried 1991;Kelly 2001Kelly , 2002Upadhya 2009;Xiang 2001Xiang , 2002Xiang , 2007. Such control is achieved not necessarily through overt coercive means but through implanting within workers hegemonic desires of opportunity and mobility.…”

Commercial migration intermediaries and the segmentation of skilled migrant employment

“…Skilled, and demand-driven mobility has particularly increased in areas of high demand, such as health and related care occupations where ethnic and gender segmentation can be extremely high (Bach, 2007;Dumont et al, 2007;Franck and Spehar, 2010;Connell, 2010). However, while our knowledge of migration flows in these in-demand occupations has improved (Urry, 2007;IOM, 2008;Castles et al, 2012), we know much less about how labour market intermediaries shape the labour market outcomes of such groups as compared to their less skilled counterparts (Forde and Mackenzie, 2010;Martin, 2011;Vosko, 2011;Mackenzie et al, 2012;Fudge, 2012;Lindquist, et al, 2012;Findlay et al, 2013;Groutsis et al, 2015).…”

Producing migrant encounter: Learning to be a British expatriate in Singapore through the Global Mobility Industry

“…This reflects recent calls in the geographies of labour markets that have highlighted the need to develop research on the role that labour market intermediaries play in the constitution of migration (Scott, 2013). For example, Findlay et al (2013) argue that the recent focus on individualised accounts of migration, for example those that seek to ground understandings of migrant identity, has meant that we have a poor understanding of the 'knowledge practices that govern who is selected to move by other actors who control access to international work opportunities' (146). This type of work then seeks to re-situate the sites in which we study migrant identities by looking at the 'in-between' spaces of migration, for example the production of an idealised 'good worker' in recruitment agencies (Findlay et al, 2013;Shubin et al, 2014).…”

“…For example, Findlay et al (2013) argue that the recent focus on individualised accounts of migration, for example those that seek to ground understandings of migrant identity, has meant that we have a poor understanding of the 'knowledge practices that govern who is selected to move by other actors who control access to international work opportunities' (146). This type of work then seeks to re-situate the sites in which we study migrant identities by looking at the 'in-between' spaces of migration, for example the production of an idealised 'good worker' in recruitment agencies (Findlay et al, 2013;Shubin et al, 2014). However, through this paper, I argue that there is a lacuna in the way in which we understand migration industries as a site in themselves, as work on the migration industries does not engage with the ways in which these industries function.…”