Migration, Media, and Global-Local Spaces

As the United Kingdom entered the 2015 election year, the national significance of international students became evident in public debate on migration. Theresa May, the political leader in charge of UK national security and a potential leader of the governing political party, proposed to cut net migration by requiring non-European Union (non-EU) university students to depart the United Kingdom once they graduate, and to apply for any further right to study or work from outside the United Kingdom. However, prominent political, business, and community leaders opposed this proposal. They expressed concerns that the United Kingdom could lose its competitiveness in the global market for international education because foreign students could view the United Kingdom as less attractive than other potential study destinations if it became harder for them to access poststudy opportunities there. In addition, restricting the right of non-EU citizens to work in the United Kingdom could reduce UK companies’ access to foreign talent and hurt the United Kingdom’s competitiveness in the global economy more generally.

On November 20,2014, US President Barack Obama used his authority as president to act toward a reform of the US immigration system. Through his actions, President Obama segmented the undocumented immigrant population and defined national priorities for the regulation of illegal immigration. Targeting potential and recent undocumented immigrants, the president directed more resources to the territorial border between the United States and Mexico to prevent illegal immigration and to deport illegal immigrants. In contrast, the president developed schemes to promote the authorization of undocumented immigrants who had lived continuously in the United States for the past five years and who had either migrated to the United States as a child or who had at least one child who is an American citizen or legal permanent resident. Through these schemes, eligible immigrants could obtain amnesty from deportation as well as permission to stay and work in the United States, for a renewable period of three years.

We have tended to view our experiences of migration and media with reference to “nation” and “state” spaces. With this focus in mind, we have not thought much about migration and media in the context of other social relations in the world.

In chapter 2, I encouraged us to develop a cosmopolitan approach to study our experiences of migration and media. I also introduced my approach of “glocal cosmopolitanism.” In designing this approach, my thinking has been greatly enriched by our advanced resources on cosmopolitanism. But although we have developed sophisticated concepts of cosmopolitanism, these concepts reflect predominantly Western views of a globalized “interconnected world,” views from the “old ‘core’ of the modern world system” (Calhoun, 2010, p. 597). To further cultivate our cosmopolitan thinking, we need to include a broader diversity of worldviews.

In this chapter, I draw on a comparative interpretation of interviews with 21 Singaporeans in Melbourne, Australia, to analyze constructions of “relational glocalities” in experiences of media and migration. This chapter reveals constructions of the self across interrelated spatial contexts (cf. Appadurai, 1996) of social relations. In particular, it identifies diverse configurations of the local in the global (Giulianotti and Robertson, 2007; Meyrowitz, 2005; R. Robertson, 1994, 1995, 2003) and the global in the local (de Block and Buckingham, 2007; Sassen, 2006).

In the comparative overview of subjective “geographies” in the previous chapter, I have mapped constructions of social spaces based on relatively objective macrostructural phenomena such as countries and cities of (first- and second-hand) migration experience, as well as perceptions of media environment, public communities, and public issues/events.

How do we experience migration and media? How do we view the world and its people? How do we create our own maps of the world, its spaces, and its people? How are migration and media relevant for our personal maps of the world?