Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
1
Valeria Ottonelli
Universit
a di Genova
Tiziana Torresi
University of Adelaide
In this paper we critically evaluate the role that the notion of volun-
tariness plays in the normative theory of migration. We argue that the
notion is currently underdefined and works to undermine migrants’
claims to see their migratory projects properly recognized. We argue
that it is nevertheless important to be able to define when migration
can be said to be voluntary if we are to theorize appropriate norma-
tive and policy responses to migrants’ claims. We propose therefore a
series of sufficient and necessary conditions to the definition of volun-
tary migration. We use the case of temporary migration to illustrate
our argument.
INTRODUCTION
1
We would like to thank Enrico Biale, Paul Bou-Habib, Elisabetta Galeotti, Serena Olsaretti,
Christian Schemmel, Chiara Testino, as well as three anonymous referees for their insightful
written comments on earlier versions of this paper. We also benefitted from comments and
discussions with Ian Carter, Emanuela Ceva, Elijah Millgram, and Pamela Pansardi.
2
The relevance of such notion is evident also when the distinction between voluntary and
“forced migration” becomes blurred or is challenged by the multiplicity of the causes and
institutional factors at play, like in recent discussions on “environmental refugees” (on this,
see Castles, 2002 and Hugo, 1996).
© 2013 by the Center for Migration Studies of New York. All rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1111/imre.12048
migrants on the other. Political theorists have also often employed the
notion of voluntariness in discussing the phenomenon of migration and,
specifically, as contributing to defining what duties states may have toward
migrants, and, correspondingly, the extent of migrants’ justified claims
against receiving and sending states.
In this paper, we argue that the way the notion of voluntariness
operates in the normative theory of migration is problematic at two lev-
els. First, the notion of voluntariness is often under-defined, especially
when one considers the significant normative work it is meant to per-
form. Second, the use of the notion of voluntariness is often vitiated
and burdened by the normative conclusions that it is put to serve.
Those who want to downplay the duties toward migrants tend to pic-
ture voluntary migration as matter of mere preference, which, as such,
does not deserve any special concern by institutions. On the opposite
side, those who want to press the case for migrants’ rights tend to clas-
sify all current migration as forced or non-voluntary and therefore call-
ing for remedial measures. Thus, the normative stakes involved in the
debate on migration tend to bend the notion of voluntariness toward
directions it would never take in more familiar cases, with the ironical
upshot that in these exchanges, centered on voluntariness as they are, no
conceptual room seems to be left where migration can even be con-
ceived as what normally counts as a central and genuine instance of
agency, that is, a voluntary choice that concerns, nevertheless, important
goals in people’s lives.
We argue that it is important to redefine and rethink the notion
of voluntariness to create such conceptual space and to recognize
migrants’ agency in choosing migration as part of their life plans. In
this paper, we will not attempt to build a full-blown normative theory
of what is due to migrants in response to the recognition of their
agency and of the worthiness of their life projects. In fact, although we
will insist that any liberal theory of migration needs to take into
account migrants’ agency as a main dimension of the normative assess-
ment of migration policies, this does not imply in any way that volun-
tariness should be made to do all the normative work in establishing
which policies are appropriate. One of our tasks, indeed, will be pre-
cisely to unburden the notion of voluntariness from the normative load
that it is often made to carry, to devise a definition that is more in line
with the standards that we usually apply in the ordinary life of our
political institutions.
WHEN IS M IGRATION V OLUNTARY? 785
3
Think, for example, of the literature on voluntariness and consent in fields like medical
ethics, sexual rights and sexual offenses, market transactions, or political obligation.
4
Once admitted, migrants are thought to be entitled to many rights, but this is because of
their being effectively members of the community; however, also in defining what is due
to migrants once admitted voluntariness is significant, as we show in this paper.
WHEN IS M IGRATION V OLUNTARY? 787
5
This does not mean that migrants have no right to express their culture – Kymlicka is clear
on this point – but the rights are different from those of national minorities because of the
fact of voluntariness. For a thorough, critical discussion of the idea that by voluntarily choos-
ing to migrate, one can give up cultural rights see Baub€ock, 1996. See also, for objections to
Kymlicka’s use of voluntariness, Kukathas (1997), Choudhry (2002) and Quong (2006).
788 INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW
6
Kymlicka has not substantially altered his argument in his more recent work. See, for example,
Kymlicka (2001:55). We would also like to note here that we do not necessarily disagree with
Kymlicka’s conclusions about the appropriateness of differential treatment of migrants and
national minorities; we just take issue with the use of voluntariness to reach those conclusions.
WHEN IS M IGRATION V OLUNTARY? 789
7
David Miller, for example, argues that individuals do not possess a right to free move-
ment across borders if they have, in their home country, an “adequate range of options to
choose from.” Given this adequate range – which is to be understood in terms of generic
basic human needs – the absence of other, specific options in the home country, even if
they are central to an individual’s life plan, does not give rise to a right to migrate. These
options, above the threshold of the “adequate range,” are more like an interest in “having
an Aston Martin” (Miller, 2008a:208). Miller frames his discussion in terms of needs and
interests of migrants, without explicitly addressing what role, if any, the voluntariness of
the migratory experience may play in his argument and therefore also failing to adequately
address migrants’ agency. Elsewhere, Miller (2008b) further suggests that in assessing what
is due to migrants, we should adopt a quasi-contractual point of view, by looking at the
fairness of the conditions imposed on migrants, rather than at whether they actually con-
sented to them. However, interestingly for our discussion, elsewhere Miller suggests that
the reason why we are entitled to disregard migrants’ needs above the threshold of basic
needs does have to do with responsibility for choices freely made. In his theory of global
justice, Miller argues that while all human beings are entitled to a basic minimum as a
matter of justice, they also should be considered responsible for the outcome of choices
they have freely made. When this wider framework is considered, duties to migrants in
Miller’s work are defined according to a similar dichotomous structure as the one we have
been discussing.
8
This is not to say that it plays a foundational role in all liberal theories. Individual agency,
for example, may play an instrumental role in bringing about preference satisfaction. Still,
the central importance of individual agency is among the defining traits of liberal theories
of justice.
790 INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW
enhance the area of their agency and their power to steer the course of
their lives.
The notion of voluntariness is important, in this respect, because it
plays a fundamental role in the recognition of people’s agency: It is volun-
tary choices that need to be respected and taken into consideration by lib-
eral institutions; otherwise, we might end up honoring as instances of self-
determination and agency choices made by people who are simply pushed
or forced to act by overpowering circumstances, or, worse, by threats and
coercion by other agents.9 Identifying criteria for voluntariness is necessary
to insure that people are actually choosers of their own fate.
Establishing standards of voluntariness is important also in the case
of migrants, and failing to do so, or disregarding the issue of when migra-
tion can be said to be voluntary, implies that migrants should not be
taken into account by liberal institutions as purposeful agents, but only as
passive recipients of policies that do not factor in their agency. It should
be noted that the same happens also when the standards of voluntariness
applied to their case are so demanding that by the same standards any-
body’s actions and choices would count as non-voluntary. In this case, all
choices of migrants, unlike those of other people, are unjustly discounted
as by-products of circumstances that should not even be there in the first
place.
Second, and relatedly, failing to consider whether migrants’ choices
are voluntary or non-voluntary may lead to inadequate institutional
responses. This obviously holds in the most patent cases of forced migra-
tion, for example, when people are abducted or escape from their coun-
try of origin because they are being persecuted or otherwise in danger.
In these cases, the institutional responses should take into account the
fact that the people affected never intended migration as part of their life
plan, and their permanence in a foreign country is considered by
migrants themselves only remedial and as far as possible temporary. Of
course, also someone who is forced to move to a foreign country can
eventually develop a desire to settle permanently. However, in devising
9
Given our interest in the recognition of migrants’ agency, it might be asked why we do
not simply insist that all migration, banned extreme cases of physical coercion, is volun-
tary. Otherwise, are we not denying the agency of those who are compelled to migrate?
Our reply to this concern is that, although it is true that agency is possible and needs to
be recognized even in circumstances in which people are acting under coercion or duress,
this is not the notion of agency and voluntariness that is relevant for assessing when people
are choosing freely and voluntarily the course of their life.
WHEN IS M IGRATION V OLUNTARY? 791
ON METHODOLOGY
10
For a discussion of this requirement, see Dworkin (2010:248ff).
WHEN IS M IGRATION V OLUNTARY? 793
plans of action, within these general fields, which are deemed in general to
be voluntarily undertaken.11
The second methodological point is precisely that we should indeed
apply our “usual” standards in judging the voluntariness of actions in the
political realm to the choice to migrate and thus avoid applying double
standards when judging respectively of the voluntariness of the choices of
our fellow citizens and those of migrants. The list of criteria for voluntary
migration that will be presented in the next section should then be seen
as the application to this specific field of more general criteria that are
usually employed in other spheres of human action. In this respect, there
is nothing specific in migration that sets it apart from other kinds of
choices people can make.
As we explained, in fact, all too often theorists apply impossibly
demanding standards to the choices of migrants, defining as non-
voluntary choices taken in circumstances – for example, conditions of
background injustice – that would not be deemed as invalidating volun-
tariness in other contexts. This demandingness might be inspired by a
well-meant desire to strengthen the urgency of migrants’ claims, by broad-
ening the category of what counts as a forced or needed move. However,
as we have seen, this strategy fails to account for the claims of migrants
qua migrants, and it suggests that they should be best addressed by
removing the causes that lead them to migrate. Moreover, it tends to con-
fine the notion of voluntary migration to those choices that are left open
to people once they have received all that is due to them under ideal con-
ditions of justice; such choices, therefore, come to be identified with mere
whimsical preferences. There is no reason, however, why in the case of
migrants we should work within this dichotomy, by which migrants’
choice to migrate is either non-voluntary and therefore worthy of consid-
eration but best addressed other than by granting migrants admission into
other states, or voluntary and therefore not so normatively relevant. What
gets completely overlooked, in this picture, is a third and common cate-
gory of choices, that is, those choices that are voluntary but nevertheless
concern important and meaningful goals and goods.
11
The political character of these standards also means that they will need to work by con-
sidering choices either as voluntary or as non-voluntary, although from a metaphysical
point of view or for explanatory purposes it might be more useful or sensible to talk of
degrees of voluntariness (see, e.g., Richmond, 1994:61; Van Hear, 1998:42).
794 INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW
12
We do not mean to claim here that the analogy between temporary migration and
maternity is a perfect one; they are clearly different issues where different factors have an
impact in deciding the appropriate policy outcome. We use the analogy to underline how
the consequences of a voluntary choices are not defined by voluntariness alone.
13
Which is not to say that voluntariness has no normative weight, but rather that a defini-
tion of voluntariness should not be burdened by assumed normative consequences.
WHEN IS M IGRATION V OLUNTARY? 795
14
This is not to say that paternalistic policies are never enacted by liberal governments,
but these refer normally to cases aimed at reducing collective costs – for example cam-
paigns against smoking – or for cases involving extreme individual harm – for example the
prohibition to consent to assault.
15
Galeotti (2007) applies her insightful analysis of double standards to discussions on
autonomy, but the same considerations can be extended to the treatment of voluntariness.
796 INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW
What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for migration to be vol-
untary? We list here four of them. Before considering these conditions in
detail, it might be useful to recall what their nature and purpose is in the
context of our discussion.
First of all, most of these conditions will sound quite obvious and
familiar. This is a consequence of our compliance with the methodological
veto on double standards; these conditions are simply extrapolated from our
assessments about what makes a choice non-voluntary in usual domestic
contexts. Second, it should be clear that the purpose of listing these condi-
tions is not to provide fixed and ready-made criteria for policy-making. The
immediate relevance of this list is theoretical: It is meant to dispel the ambi-
guities of the current use of the notion by specifying the conditions under
which migration can be said to be voluntary. As we will see, on the definition
offered here, it will appear that some migration plans are voluntary. This is
a preliminary and necessary step to treating them as true expressions of
migrants’ agency, rather than mere symptoms of injustices or problems that
would be best removed in other ways than by allowing migration.
Non-coercion
The first, obvious, condition that must be met for migration to be volun-
tary is that it must not be caused by physical or psychological coercion. A
good definition of what counts as coercion in this context is contained in
the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons
adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2000. Here, trafficking is
defined as “recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of
persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion,
of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a posi-
tion of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits
to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for
the purpose of exploitation.” Although the language of the Protocol is lia-
ble to interpretations and qualifications (Fredette, 2009), the list of activi-
ties encompassed is quite clear and is broad enough to comprise not only
the use of physical violence, but also the use of threats, intimidations, or
deception (Logan, Walker and Hunt, 2009). No matter what the condi-
tions in the receiving countries will be, migration occurring under these
circumstances cannot be considered voluntary.
WHEN IS M IGRATION V OLUNTARY? 797
Sufficiency
16
In principle, this statement is not completely accurate. The rationale of the sufficiency
requirement is to disqualify as non-voluntary those choices that are caused by the lack of
acceptable alternatives (Olsaretti, 1998:71–2). Accordingly, a choice that is made because
the chosen option is very much liked, even when no acceptable alternatives are available,
should count as voluntary. However, we are not considering this important qualification
here, because, in this context, it is unworkable as a public and verifiable criterion for vol-
untariness. This presumption of non-voluntariness whenever there are no acceptable alter-
natives holds in many familiar cases and is therefore in line with our veto on double
standards.
WHEN IS M IGRATION V OLUNTARY? 799
17
It is important to point out that clearly distinguishing the conditions for voluntari-
ness from the requirement of full justice in no way detracts from the importance or
urgency of the latter. Keeping them separate, indeed, also serves to avoid the conclu-
sion that whenever people voluntarily choose what they have, the demands of full jus-
tice become less stringent or urgent. It is also important to stress that this discussion
of what makes a choice voluntary must be distinguished from the discussion on what
forms of voluntary choice legitimize the underlying social structure (Peter, 2004; Fried,
2003).
18
This assumption may or may not come with the further assumption that under full jus-
tice conditions, no migration would take place (barring a few cases due to exceptional and
idiosyncratic reasons), because migration is necessarily caused by injustice. Such an assump-
tion is highly implausible, although it is arguably endorsed by Rawls and others. On this,
see Benhabib (2004:85–92).
800 INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW
19
We are aware that the language of “choice” and voluntariness has often been considered
suspect in some feminist circles. The contention is that it has been used to conceal the real
– societal – constraints imposed on women in their decision-making and to revert the
responsibility of any resulting disadvantage on the supposedly free choice made by individ-
ual women. However, this would be an unfair objection to level at the argument we are
advancing here, which aims precisely at scrutinizing and challenging the use of voluntari-
ness to justify conditions of disadvantage.
20
For an account based on the capability approach, see Widerquist (2010). David Miller
points out that talking of “basic needs,” rather than capabilities, is more appropriate when
we are focusing on minimal conditions for a decent life (Miller, 2008a:180).
WHEN IS M IGRATION V OLUNTARY? 801
Exit Options
21
This condition does not amount to saying that for migration to be voluntary, no viola-
tions of rights protecting basic human needs can occur in the country of origin. This
would not be in line with the fundamental assumption of this discussion, which is that
whether migration is voluntary depends on the structure of the options actually available
to the migrants themselves.
802 INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW
Information
22
For an insightful discussion of the exit condition in the context of indentured servitude,
see Steinfeld (2009).
23
It can be made impossible, for example, by imprisonment, the theft of the migrant’s
passport or the mere unaffordability of travel expenses.
WHEN IS M IGRATION V OLUNTARY? 803
The same holds for the case in which the migrant projects a false
image of himself both in the host society and at home. Here too, we can
imagine circumstances in which these mechanisms get out of control and
become dangerously delusional. But in many other instances – including
some of the most cited examples in the sociological literature – migrants are
perfectly aware of what is happening and of the deception involved; they
purposely take advantage of the chance to escape the social control by their
peers. Being in a situation in which one can count on a relative social ano-
nymity is among the reasons why migrating may open up more possibilities
of action than those available at home, where self-consciousness and social
control may limit the range of the possible work and life options.
To exemplify the kind of difficulties with the way the notion of voluntari-
ness is often currently employed by political theorists, and how this may
lead to poor normative analyses and policy-making, we want to consider
the case of temporary migration.
Voluntariness has been employed in the normative debate surround-
ing “temporary migration programs,” that is, admission policies by which
migrants are bound to return to their country of origin after a fixed time
and are, typically, subject to restrictions on the kind of employment they
can seek in the receiving country (Ruhs and Martin, 2008; Castles, 2006).
It has been argued that in so far as migrants are choosing from a condi-
tion of sufficiency, they are not coerced into migrating, and therefore,
those programs cannot be seen as an undue imposition on them. Indeed,
some argue, it would be a form of paternalism to insist that such pro-
grams should not be made available or that they should be profoundly
reformed granting greater rights to migrants – thereby making them less
attractive to receiving countries.24
From the perspective of the framework on voluntariness we are argu-
ing for here, there are two main points to be made about such arguments.
The first is a more obvious definitional one. It seems in fact, as we have
tried to show in this paper, that merely choosing from a condition of suf-
ficiency, while necessary, is not a sufficient standard for defining voluntari-
ness. The second point is to note that these arguments unduly assume
24
See, for example, Bell (2001) and Chang (2008). For a critical discussion, see also Lenard
and Straehle (2012).
WHEN IS M IGRATION V OLUNTARY? 805
25
We discuss the role of the social bases of self-respect in relation to these migration pro-
jects in our Ottonelli and Torresi (2012).
WHEN IS M IGRATION V OLUNTARY? 807
26
It is important to point out that in some cases naturalization constitutes the only accept-
able exit option from the condition of relative deprivation in which temporary migrants
have put themselves, even when their original intention was to return home.
808 INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW
migrants relieves the host society from the duty to provide for their well-
being and life plans, even if we granted that such a duty exists toward
those who intend to establish themselves permanently and eventually
become citizens. These concerns would need to be addressed by appealing
to principles of reciprocity and fair treatment of all the interests involved,
for example by pointing out that although temporary migrants are not
committed to permanent residence, they positively contribute to the local
economy and are bound to comply with the laws and regulations of the
host country during their permanence, which calls for reciprocity and fair-
ness in setting up institutions and programs that advance both the interest
of the host society and their interests and plans (Ottonelli and Torresi,
2013).
Still, even though the fact that some temporary migration projects
are voluntarily undertaken cannot constitute the sole ground for establishing
what is due to the migrants involved, it constitutes a highly relevant consid-
eration in devising how to address their claims. In many cases, there are rea-
sons to believe that treating temporary migration as a second-best as
compared to naturalization may not only presuppose a misrecognition of
migrants’ agency, but can also lead to inadequate policy responses.
CONCLUSION
theless concern important ends and goals in human lives; in this respect,
then, it departs significantly from the notion we employ in other contexts
of policy-making in liberal polities and of our everyday experience.
In this paper, we have tried to remedy to these shortcomings by
offering a definition of voluntary (and non-voluntary) migration that is
modeled on familiar cases and therefore avoids double standards. As illus-
trated by the case of temporary migration, such a definition can open the
conceptual space for recognizing many migration plans as belonging to
the range of those choices that are voluntary but concern important goals
and ends in people’s lives.
Dispelling the ambiguities and mistakes involved in the use of vol-
untariness in current debates on migration, per se, does not provide any
definite answer about what is due to migrants; however, it is an important
preliminary step toward a complete normative theory of migration. More-
over, it is essential if we want to bring to light what does the normative
work in assessing what is due to migrants: If other principles than the rec-
ognition of migrants’ agency must come into play, they need to do it
openly, rather than under the guise of an unorthodox and inconsistent
notion of voluntariness.
REFERENCES
Agunias, D. R., and K. Newland
2007 Circular Migration and Development. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.
Anderson, E.
1999 “What is the Point of Equality?” Ethics 109:287–337.
Arneson, R. J.
2006 “Luck Egalitarianism: An Interpretation and Defense.” Philosophical Topics 32:1–20.
Baub€ock, R.
1996 “Cultural Minority Rights for Migrants.” International Migration Review 30:203–
250.
Bell, D.
2001 “Equal Rights for Foreign Resident Workers?” Dissent 48:26–34.
Benhabib, S.
2004 The Rights of Others. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Black, R., G. Engbersen, M. Okolski and C. Pantiru (eds.)
2010 A Continent Moving West? EU Enlargement and Labour Migration from Central and
Eastern Europe. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Caney, S.
2001 “Cosmopolitan Justice and Equalizing Opportunities.” Metaphilosophy 32:113–134.
Carens, J.
2008 “Live-in Domestics, Seasonal Workers, and Other Hard to Locate on the Map of
Democracy.” Journal of Political Philosophy 16:371–496.
WHEN IS M IGRATION V OLUNTARY? 811
Kukathas, C.
1997 “Multiculturalism as Fairness: Will Kymlicka’s Multicultural Citizenship.” The Jour-
nal of Political Philosophy 5:406–427.
Kymlicka, W.
1995 Multicultural Citizenship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———
2001 Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Lenard, P., and C. Straehle
2012 “Temporary Labour Migration, Global Redistribution, and Democratic Justice.”
Politics, Philosophy and Economics 11:206–230.
Logan, T. K., R. Walker, and G. Hunt
2009 “Understanding Human Trafficking in the United States.” Trauma, Violence and
Abuse 10:3–30.
Look Lai, W.
2002 “Asian Contract and Free Migrations to the Americas.” In Coerced and Free Migra-
tion: Global Perspectives. Ed. D. Eltis. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Pp. 229–
258.
Lutz, H.
2004 “Life in the Twilight Zone: Migration, Transnationality and Gender in Private
Household.” Journal of Contemporary European Studies 12:47–55.
Mahler, S. J.
1995 American Dreaming: Immigrant Life on the Margins. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Mai, N.
2001 “Italy is Beautiful. The Role of Italian Television in Albanian Migration to Italy.”
In Media and Migration: Constructions of Mobility and Difference. Ed. R. King and
N. Wood. London: Routledge. Pp. 95–109.
Mayer, R.
2005 “Guestworkers and Exploitation.” The Review of Politics 67:311–334.
Miller, D.
2008a National Responsibility and Global Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———
2008b “Immigrants, Nations and Citizenship.” The Journal of Political Philosophy 16:371–
390.
Morokvasic, M.
2004 “Settled in Mobility’: Engendering Post-Wall Migration in Europe.” Feminist
Review 77:7–25.
Musto, J. L.
2009 “What’s in a name? Conflations and Contradictions in Contemporary U.S. Dis-
courses of Human Trafficking.” Women’s Studies International Forum 32:281–287.
OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development)
2008 International Migration Outlook Annual Report: SOPEMI 2008. Paris: Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Olsaretti, S.
1998 “Freedom, Force and Choice: Against the Right-Based Definition.” The Journal of
Political Philosophy 6:53–78.
———
2009 “Responsibility and the Consequences of Choice.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society 59:165–188.
WHEN IS M IGRATION V OLUNTARY? 813