Global Migration beyond Limits

Global Migration beyond Limits provides a citique of mainstream economic accounts of migration, environment, and inequality. Obeng-Odoom argues that migration is an expression of an unequal political-economic system rather than principally driven by regional and environmental factors.

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Global Migration beyond Limits takes a critical approach to mainstream economic accounts of migration, environment, and inequality. Drawing on a range of case studies from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Americas, Obeng-Odoom argues that much of the crisis of migration can be understood as a reflection of cumulative stratification at different scales in the global system, though the form of migration is conditioned by more than economic forces. Examining the experiences of migrant farmers, street workers, refugees, international students, and many more, this book shows that the so-called migration crisis is an expression of a political-economic system in which socially created value is privately appropriated as rents by a privileged few who use institutions such as land and property rights, race, ethnicity, class, and gender to keep others in their place.