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The Andalucia-Hawaii-Calitornia Migration: A Study in Macrostructure and Microhistory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2009
Extract
The development of world-systems theory enables us to explain human migration without resorting to the theoretically barren lists of “push-pull” factors and personal motivations that characterize previous studies. Although individuals still make private decisions to move, the patterned movement of groups is better understood as an essential component in a global economic order with shifting demands for labor. National migration policies can also be interpreted within this global context. Since migration plays a central role in moving workers to regions where their labor is needed, governmental legislation regulating these movements has reflected capitalists' needs for a free labor force. It is with this in mind that Aristide Zolberg summarizes the behavior of one nation-state in the world-system as “an element in the interest-calculus of others.”
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- Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1984
References
I am deeply grateful to Gary Hamilton for his generous comments on an earlier version of this paper. My thanks also go to John Walton, who provided several critical insights.
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