1932

Abstract

Systems of labor mobility across borders in which states assign a fixed duration to workers’ sojourn—temporary labor migration schemes (TLMSs)—have enabled employers to recruit workers while claiming to avoid the presumed negative consequences of settlement and integration. While existing explanations of TLMSs focus primarily on structural determinants, this article introduces a cumulative contextual model. It begins with a political-economic analysis of labor migration and addresses its gaps by adding an analysis of the ideological legitimations of TLMSs, as well as a consideration of the complex of rules and organizations that implement and regulate state-managed temporary migration. Building on this approach, I propose a typology of TLMSs according to dominant actors, rules that govern the labor relationship, and the gap between discourse about the goals of TLMSs and outcomes. The analysis has implications for immigration and citizenship regimes, for their assumptions of permanence, and for the nature of work.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-091523-035824
2024-08-12
2025-02-10
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/soc/50/1/annurev-soc-091523-035824.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-091523-035824&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Agarwala R. 2022.. The Migration-Development Regime: How Class Shapes Indian Emigration. Oxford, UK:: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Auyero J. 2012.. Patients of the State: The Politics of Waiting in Argentina. Durham, NC:: Duke Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Bada X, Gleeson S. 2023.. Scaling Migrant Worker Rights: How Advocates Collaborate and Contest State Power. Los Angeles, CA:: Univ. Calif. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Berg L, Farbenblum B. 2017.. Wage theft in Australia: findings of the National Temporary Migrant Work Survey. Rep. , Migr. Justice Inst., Sydney
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Boucher AK, Gest J. 2018.. Crossroads: Comparative Immigration Regimes in a World of Demographic Change. Cambridge, UK:: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Bowman C. 2019.. Flexible workers, fissured workplaces: cultural exchange for hire in an era of precarious labor. PhD Thesis , Dep. Sociol., Univ. Colo., Boulder:
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Bowman C, Bair J. 2017.. From cultural sojourner to guestworker? The historical transformation and contemporary significance of the J-1 visa Summer Work Travel program. . Labor Hist. 58:(1):125
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  8. Brown W. 2015.. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution. Cambridge, MA:: MIT Press
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Burciaga EM, Malone A. 2021.. Intensified liminal legality: the impact of the DACA rescission for undocumented young adults in Colorado. . Law Soc. Inq. 46:(4):1092114
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  10. Calavita K. 1992.. Inside the State: The Bracero Program, Immigration, and the I.N.S., Vol. 27. London:: Routledge
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Calavita K. 2006.. Braceros and guestworkers in the United States and Spain: a political and contextual analysis of difference. . Éndoxa 21::197215
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Çalışkan K, Callon M. 2009.. Economization, part 1: shifting attention from the economy towards processes of economization. . Econ. Soc. 38:(3):36998
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  13. Castles S, Kosack G. 1973.. Immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Europe. London, New York:: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Castles S. 1986.. The guest-worker in Western Europe: an obituary. . Int. Migr. Rev. 20:(4):76178
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Castles S. 2006.. Guestworkers in Europe: a resurrection?. Int. Migr. Rev. 40:(4):74166
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  16. Centeno MA, Cohen JN. 2012.. The arc of neoliberalism. . Annu. Rev. Sociol. 38::31740
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  17. Cohen D. 2011.. Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico. Chapel Hill, NC:: Univ. N. C. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Cohen EF. 2018.. The Political Value of Time: Citizenship, Duration, and Democratic Justice. Cambridge, UK:: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Constable N. 1997.. Maid to Order in Hong Kong: Stories of Filipina Workers. Ithaca, NY:: Cornell Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Cook-Martín D. n.d.. Temporary Migrants: Making Workers Without Rights Since Abolition. New York, NY:: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Cook-Martín D. 2008.. Rules, red tape, and paperwork: the archeology of state control over migrants. . J. Hist. Sociol. 21:(1):82119
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  22. Cook-Martín D. 2019.. Temp nations? A research agenda on migration, temporariness, and membership. . Am. Behav. Sci. 63:(9):1389403
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  23. Cook-Martín D. 2024.. Temporary migration and middle class nation building in Canada. . J. Ethnic Migr. Stud. 50:(7):182242
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  24. Cook-Martín D, FitzGerald DS. 2019.. How their laws affect our laws: mechanisms of immigration policy diffusion in the Americas, 1790–2010. . Law Soc. Rev. 53:(1):4176
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  25. Costa D, Martin P. 2018.. Temporary labor migration programs: governance, migrant worker rights, and recommendations for the UN Global Compact for Migration. Rep. , Econ. Policy Inst., Washington, DC
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Craig RB. 1976.. The Bracero Program: Interest Groups and Foreign Policy. Austin, TX:: Univ. Tex. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Dauvergne C. 2016.. The New Politics of Immigration and the End of Settler Societies. Cambridge, UK:: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Dauvergne C, Marsden S. 2014a.. Beyond numbers versus rights: shifting the parameters of debate on temporary labour migration. . Int. Migr. Integr. 15:(3):52545
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  29. Dauvergne C, Marsden S. 2014b.. The ideology of temporary labour migration in the post-global era. . Citizsh. Stud. 18:(2):22442
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  30. de Haas H, Czaika M, Flahaux M, Mahendra E, Natter K, et al. 2019.. International migration: trends, determinants, and policy effects. . Popul. Dev. Rev. 45:(4):885922
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  31. Del Real D. 2024.. Gradations of migrant legality: the impact of states’ legal structures and bureaucracies on immigrant legalization and livelihoods. . Int. Migr. Rev. https://doi.org/10.1177/01979183241226635
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  32. Durand J. 2007.. El programa bracero (1942–1964). Un balance crítico. . Migr. Desarro. 9::2743
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  33. Favell A. 2022.. Immigration, integration and citizenship: elements of a new political demography. . J. Ethnic Migr. Stud. 48:(1):332
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  34. FitzGerald D. 2009.. A Nation of Emigrants: How Mexico Manages Its Migration. Berkeley, CA:: Univ. Calif. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  35. FitzGerald DS, Cook-Martín D. 2014.. Culling the Masses: The Democratic Origins of Racist Immigration Policy in the Americas. Cambridge, MA:: Harvard Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Fourcade M. 2016.. Undoing the undoing of the demos: Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos. Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution (New York, Zone Books, 2015). . Eur. J. Sociol. 57:(3):45359
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  37. Gammeltoft-Hansen T, Sørensen NN. 2013.. The Migration Industry and the Commercialization of International Migration. London:: Routledge
    [Google Scholar]
  38. García y Griego L. 1988.. The bracero policy experiment: US-Mexican responses to Mexican labor migration, 1942–1955. Doct. Diss., Dep. Hist., UCLA
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Gerstle G. 2022.. The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era. Oxford, UK:: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Gonzales RG. 2016.. Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America. Berkeley, CA:: Univ. Calif. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  41. Goodman A. 2020.. The Deportation Machine: America's Long History of Expelling Immigrants. Princeton, NJ:: Princeton Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Griffith D. 2022.. Guest workers in US history. . In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, ed. J Butler . New York:: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  43. Gutiérrez DG. 1995.. Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity. Berkeley, CA:: Univ. Calif. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  44. Hagan J, Hernández-León R, Demonsant J-L. 2015.. Skills of the Unskilled: Work and Mobility Among Mexican Migrants. Oakland, CA:: Univ. Calif. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Hahamovitch C. 2003.. Creating perfect immigrants: guestworkers of the world in historical perspective 1. . Labor Hist. 44:(1):6994
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  46. Hahamovitch C. 2011.. No Man's Land: Jamaican Guestworkers in America and the Global History of Deportable Labor. Princeton, NJ:: Princeton Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Hernández-León R. 2012.. Conceptualizing the migration industry. . In The Migration Industry and the Commercialization of International Migration, ed. R Hernández-León , pp. 2441. London:: Routledge
    [Google Scholar]
  48. Hernández-León R, Hernández ES, Paniagua LM. 2022.. Bringing back the bracero program: the migration industry in the recruitment of H-2 visa workers. . In Race, Gender and Contemporary International Labor Migration Regimes: 21st Century Coolies, ed. L Saucedo, RM Rodriguez , pp. 3562. Northampton, MA:: Edward Elgar
    [Google Scholar]
  49. Iskander N. 2021.. Does Skill Make Us Human? Migrant Workers in 21st-Century Qatar and Beyond. Princeton, NJ:: Princeton Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  50. Jensen K. 2023.. The Color of Asylum: The Racial Politics of Safe Haven in Brazil. Chicago, IL:: Univ. Chicago Press
    [Google Scholar]
  51. Joppke C. 2021.. Neoliberal Nationalism: Immigration and the Rise of the Populist Right. Cambridge, UK:: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  52. Kahn E. 1975.. The pass laws. . In Handbook on Race Relations in South Africa, ed. E Hellmann, L Abrahams , pp. 27591. New York:: Octagon
    [Google Scholar]
  53. Kalleberg AL, Vallas SP. 2017.. Probing precarious work: theory, research, and politics. . In Research in the Sociology of Work, Vol. 31, ed. SP Vallas , pp. 130. Leeds, UK:: Emerald
    [Google Scholar]
  54. Kim J. 2018.. Migration-facilitating capital: a Bourdieusian theory of international migration. . Sociol. Theory 36:(3):26288
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  55. Liu-Farrer G, Yeoh BS, Baas M. 2021.. Social construction of skill: an analytical approach toward the question of skill in cross-border labour mobilities. . J. Ethnic Migr. Stud. 47:(10):223751
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  56. Lowe L. 2015.. The Intimacies of Four Continents. Durham, NC:: Duke Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  57. Loza M. 2016.. Defiant Braceros: How Migrant Workers Fought for Racial, Sexual, and Political Freedom. Chapel Hill, NC:: Univ. N. C. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  58. Lucassen L, Lucassen J. 2015.. The strange death of Dutch tolerance: the timing and nature of the pessimist turn in the Dutch migration debate. . J. Modern Hist. 87:(1):72101
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  59. Mann M. 1993.. The Sources of Social Power: A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760. Cambridge, UK:: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  60. Martin P. 2001.. There is nothing more permanent than temporary foreign workers. Rep. , Cent. Immigr. Stud., Washington, DC:
    [Google Scholar]
  61. Martin P, Abella M, Kuptsch C. 2006.. Managing Labor Migration in the Twenty-First Century. New Haven, CT:: Yale Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  62. Martin PL. 1981.. Germany's guestworkers. . Challenge 24:(3):3442
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  63. Martin PL. 2017.. Merchants of Labor: Recruiters and International Labor Migration. Oxford, UK:: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  64. Martin PL, Miller MJ. 1980.. Guestworkers: lessons from Western Europe. . ILR Rev. 33:(3):31530
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  65. Martin PL, Teitelbaum MS. 2001.. The mirage of Mexican guest workers. . Foreign Aff. 80:(6):11731
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  66. Massey DS. 1999.. International migration at the dawn of the twenty-first century: the role of the state. . Popul. Dev. Rev. 25:(2):30322
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  67. Massey DS, Arango J, Hugo G, Kouaouci A, Pellegrino A, Taylor JE. 1993.. Theories of international migration: a review and appraisal. . Popul. Dev. Rev. 19:(3):43166
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  68. Massey DS, Liang Z. 1989.. The long-term consequences of a temporary worker program: the US bracero experience. . Popul. Res. Policy Rev. 8:(3):199226
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  69. McKeown AM. 2008.. Melancholy Order: Asian Migration and the Globalization of Borders. New York, NY:: Columbia Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  70. Menjívar C. 2006.. Liminal legality: Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants’ lives in the United States. . Am. J. Sociol. 111:(4):9991037
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  71. Menjívar C. 2023.. State categories, bureaucracies of displacement, and possibilities from the margins. . Am. Sociol. Rev. 88:(1):123
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  72. Menjívar C, Agadjanian V, Oh B. 2022.. The contradictions of liminal legality: economic attainment and civic engagement of Central American immigrants on temporary protected status. . Soc. Probl. 69:(3):67898
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  73. Mize RL. 2016.. The Invisible Workers of the US-Mexico Bracero Program: Obreros Olvidados. Lanham, MD:: Lexington Books
    [Google Scholar]
  74. Molina N. 2014.. How Race Is Made in America: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Historical Power of Racial Scripts. Berkeley, CA:: Univ. Calif. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  75. Mongia R. 2018.. Indian Migration and Empire: A Colonial Genealogy of the Modern State. Durham, NC:: Duke Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  76. Moya JC, McKeown A. 2011.. World Migration in the Long Twentieth Century. Washington, DC:: Am. Hist. Assoc.
    [Google Scholar]
  77. Ngai MM. 2004.. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton, NJ:: Princeton Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  78. Piore MJ. 1979.. Birds of Passage: Migrant Labor and Industrial Societies. Cambridge, UK:: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  79. Piper N. 2023.. The global governance of labour mobility: the role of the International Labour Organization. . In Research Handbook on the Institutions of Global Migration Governance, ed. A Pécoud, H Thiollet , pp. 6375. Cheltenham, UK:: Edward Elgar
    [Google Scholar]
  80. Portes A. 2015.. The sociology of development from modernization to the “institutional turn. .” Sociol. Dev. 1:(1):2042
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  81. Rass C. 2012.. Temporary labour migration and state-run recruitment of foreign workers in Europe, 1919–1975: a new migration regime?. Int. Rev. Soc. Hist. 57:(Suppl. 20):191224
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  82. Reichert JS, Massey DS. 1982.. Guestworker programs: evidence from Europe and the United States and some implications for US policy. . Popul. Res. Policy Rev. 1:(1):117
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  83. Riosmena F. 2023.. Worlds in motion redux: international labor migration theories, typologies, interconnections, and integration with other types of mobility. Work. Pap. , Dep. Sociol. Demogr., Univ. Tex., San Antonio:
    [Google Scholar]
  84. Rogers R. 1985.. Guests Come to Stay: The Effects of European Labor Migration on Sending and Receiving Countries. Boulder, CO:: Westview Press
    [Google Scholar]
  85. Rosas AE. 2014.. Abrazando el Espíritu: Bracero Families Confront the US-Mexico Border. Berkeley, CA:: Univ. Calif. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  86. Ruhs M. 2013.. The Price of Rights: Regulating International Labor Migration. Princeton, NJ:: Princeton Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  87. Ruhs M, Martin P. 2008.. Numbers versus rights: trade-offs and guest worker programs. . Int. Migr. Rev. 42:(1):24965
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  88. Salazar Parreñas R. 2015.. Servants of Globalization: Migration and Domestic Work. Stanford, CA:: Stanford Univ. Press. , 2nd ed..
    [Google Scholar]
  89. Salazar Parreñas R. 2021.. Discipline and empower: the state governance of migrant domestic workers. . Am. Sociol. Rev. 86:(6):104365
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  90. Salazar Parreñas R, Silvey R. 2021.. The governance of the Kafala system and the punitive control of migrant domestic workers. . Popul. Space Place 27:(5):e2487
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  91. Sayad A. 2004.. The Suffering of the Immigrant. Malden, MA:: Polity Press
    [Google Scholar]
  92. Schewel K. 2019.. Understanding immobility: moving beyond the mobility bias in migration studies. . Int. Migr. Rev. 54:(2):32855
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  93. Schmitter-Heisler B. 2008.. The bracero program and Mexican migration to the United States. . J. West 47:(3):6572
    [Google Scholar]
  94. Snodgrass M. 2011.. Patronage and progress: the bracero program from the perspective of Mexico. . In Workers Across the Americas: The Transnational Turn in Labor History, ed. L Fink , pp. 24566. New York:: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  95. Surak K. 2013.. Guestworkers: a taxonomy. . New Left Rev. 2013:(84):84102
    [Google Scholar]
  96. Surak K. 2017.. Migration industries and the state: guestwork programs in East Asia. . Int. Migr. Rev. 52:(2):487523
    [Google Scholar]
  97. Trouille D. 2023.. Isolation and interaction in temporary agricultural labor. . Qual. Sociol. 46::32947
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  98. Vallas S, Schor JB. 2020.. What do platforms do? Understanding the gig economy. . Annu. Rev. Sociol. 46::27394
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  99. Vézina C. 2017.. Diplomacia migratoria: una historia transnacional del Programa Bracero, 1947–1952. Ciudad Méx.:: CIDE
    [Google Scholar]
  100. Vlieger A. 2012.. Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates: A Socio-Legal Study on Conflicts. New Orleans:: Quid Pro
    [Google Scholar]
  101. Waldinger R, Lichter MI. 2003.. How the Other Half Works: Immigration and the Social Organization of Labor. Berkeley, CA:: Univ. Calif. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  102. Wassink J, Massey DS. 2022.. The new system of Mexican migration: the role of entry mode–specific human and social capital. . Demography 59:(3):107192
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  103. Weber M. 1979.. Developmental tendencies in the situation of East Elbian rural labourers. . Econ. Soc. 8:(2):177205
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  104. Wright A. 2021.. Between Dreams and Ghosts: Indian Migration and Middle Eastern Oil. Stanford, CA:: Stanford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  105. Xiang B, Lindquist J. 2014.. Migration infrastructure. . Int. Migr. Rev. 48:(Suppl. 1):12248
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  106. Yeoh BSA. 2020.. Temporary migration regimes and their sustainability in times of COVID-19. Pap. , Int. Organ. Migr., Geneva
    [Google Scholar]
  107. Zlotnik H. 2015.. Book review: The Price of Rights: Regulating International Labor Migration. . Int. Migr. Rev. 49:(4):e3536
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  108. Zolberg AR. 1999.. Matters of State: Theorizing Immigration Policy. New York:: Russell Sage Found.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-091523-035824
Loading
  • Article Type: Review Article
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error