Intermediaries and Migration in the United States

The dissertation first develops theoretical perspectives of migration intermediaries and presents them in a form of typology. Migration intermediaries are segmentedly embedded in immigration process, which occurs as a result of decentralizing, disassembling, reassembling, and recentralizing processes at local, subnational, and national levels. The degree of segmented embeddedness is highly ethnicized and gendered. Second, the dissertation examines whether the typology of migration intermediaries can be used as an analytical instrument in empirical settings. Through ethnographic studies of a Chicago Workers' Center, the Interfaith Worker Justice, and the Interfaith Workers' Rights Center, the dissertation finds that several key actors in each organization played an important role in building networks in multiple fields. Furthermore, these organizations faced different outcomes despite they worked on the same agenda. A Chicago Workers' Center generated a space where powers of democratic governance were deployed. The Interfaith Workers Justice secured its structural hole's position by translating the cores values held by actors in religious and labor fields. The Interfaith Workers' Rights Center restructured itself through feedback of the clientele. Thus the dissertation concludes that the typology of migration intermediaries could be employed as an analytical lens that enable us to examine interstitial dynamics occurring in the (im)migration process.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Sociology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Yamamoto, Satomi

Contributors dc:contributor

• Jan Nederveen Pieterse

• Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3337969

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/86228