Day 225, Year of #Mygration: Changing the migration narrative

Growing up in East Africa, I was familiar with the presence of "Westerners" working in education, health, international development, mining, agriculture and horticulture and so forth. I also recall many of them working as advisors in government offices. They were highly regarded, had big houses and nice vehicles with chauffeurs. They lived in a good neighbourhood and frequented beaches and posh hotels. They were called expatriates. I was aware of the presence of refugees from various neighbouring countries and further afield. These were treated differently and called refugees. The United Nations agencies looked after their needs once they met the refugee status tests. Some even went on resettlement programmes overseas. As a young person, I never asked myself why we had hierarchies among the migrant population and why some were privileged while others could hardly survive and their access to the labour market restricted. I started getting inquisitive especially after realising that most of the expatriates were “white” and refugees mainly “brown”. I would at a later stage come across the concept of ‘white privilege’ which some social scientists might use in explaining my observations.   

As I grew up and benefited from a Western education that was available for a selected few of us, I continued to ask myself the reason behind the migrants' hierarchy. Joining the labour market enabled me to work closely with the expatriates, especially international development workers and missionaries. I quickly realised that there were also hierarchies among those commonly known as expatriates. Although on the surface missionaries fitted the bill of expatriate, they were not as rewarded for their work financially as were the conventional expatriates. Volunteers, including the Peace Corps deployed by the American government to work in the "Majority" world as young volunteers would have been rewarded financially in similar ways with missionaries. The professional world also allowed me to get to know expatriates personally and gain an insight into their universe. This exercise was not that of a social research per se, but rather as a mere observer.  

The situation would change when I worked in relief and emergency and proximity to expatriates working in relief. Unlike the other expatriates I had known previously, the relief workers were on short-term contracts; some were interculturally competent while others were not, most of them were single and those who had families left their spouses and children behind. Unlike the expatriates I had met before, they tended to share houses with their peers and indeed most drove themselves. They were working in a challenging environment ‘apparently' and were well-rewarded for it. Having said that, among the cohort, there were volunteers who did not have the perks enjoyed by others.  Meeting and working with expatriates before migrating to Europe gave me a blurred view of the “West” and reinforced some of the images I saw in movies. Hollywood by and large portrays the “West” in the same way as some of the extravagant expatriates portray its image in the developing world. It is fair to say that this does not mean that the elites in the developing countries are well behaved. The elites themselves in some situations emulate the expatriates in more ways than one.  

The awakening moment when I moved to Europe was the realisation that the broader western population did not share expatriates' lifestyles. I spent the first few years demystifying some of the stereotypes I formed based on my encounters with expatriates in East Africa. I noted among other things that migrants from the South, even those who are highly skilled, don't enjoy similar status with the expatriates in East Africa. Unless they are diplomats or very wealthy investors, they had to join the immigration queues along with other migrants.  They didn't have a particular name although words like "highly skilled" migrants used.  They lived in regular houses and are not given special number plates for their vehicles unlike what I observed when I was growing up when their number plates started with IT (Immatriculation Temporaire in French meaning temporary registration). 

We have to go back to the origin of the word expatriate to understand what is going on and wonder why it is not used to describe all migrants. In Latin, ex stands for out of, and patria stands for the native country (sometimes terms like fatherland or motherland are used).  In a piece exploring the terminology, Jason Wordie suggests that expatriate refers “to residents of European descent and cultural tradition". As to the origin of the word migrant, etymologists indicated that the word migrant originates from Latin word migrantem. Used as far back as the 1670s, synonyms of migrant include emigrant, émigré (also emigré), immigrant, settler. The antonym is non-immigrant. The dictionary suggests that a migrant is a person who attempts to relocate to a new country permanently, but who may be subject to removal by the government of that country. The same dictionary defines an expatriate as an expatriated person. Looking at the origin of the two words in theory they should be synonymous. I will let the linguists enlighten us on the difference between the two. My take is that one was coined by those with the power of the master narrative (expatriate) to refer to their emigrants. There is no doubt that the same people developed the term migrant but this time to categorise their immigrants.   

The question that is often asked in debates on immigration is the terminology used and how the definition of words affect how the society treats the bearers of the labels in the receiving country. Changing the narrative underpins civil society's usage of terms like irregular or undocumented migrant instead of illegal migrant used by migration officials and some of the politicians and other opinion formers. In the same vein, terms like migrants or immigrants are preferred by civil society in situations where terms like 'alien' can still to the present day, be seen in primary migration legislation. The civil society also prefers usage of words such as foreigner as opposed to non-national, often used in public reports and discourses in some western countries. 

Changing the discourse used in migration might help in dispelling some of the myths about immigration. It is common to hear in the west, people saying that when their people went abroad, they went and fended for themselves while the migrants present in the country are milking the system. This situation is not surprising bearing in mind the fact that their emigrants are referred to as expatriates while the migrants are called asylum seekers, refugees, illegals and so forth. Even when there is evidence to suggest that migrants in the UK contribute more to the treasury than they take, the sense that migrants are milking the system prevails. A recent report highlighted the fact that an average EU migrant contributed £2,300 per annum more than the average British citizen. The general perception does not match this fact.  

We need to revisit the migration terminology and maybe come up with inclusive language. This process should be inclusive and not the confine of those who set the narrative. There is no doubt that the terminology we use set the direction on how we treat those who bear the labels that we ascribe to them. Those at the receiving end often have no power to self-define themselves. The categorisation in the migration context is a challenging phenomenon and should not go unchallenged.