Oliver Bakewell
Biographic Data
| ID | 177224 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Oliver Bakewell |
| GIVEN NAMES | Oliver |
| FAMILY NAME | Bakewell |
| SIGNATURE | BAKEWELL O |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Manchester |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0904-7134 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 698 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Reshaping the Intersection Between Development and Migration Studies
This essay argues that our understanding of the relationship between development and migration is distorted by a focus on areas of greatest policy concern. It calls for more research into broader processes of mobility, which may be of little interest to policy but play a critical role in the lives of poor people. It develops the argument in three points. First, in the last 20 years there has been a marked shift from interest in how migration may …
Diaspora Formations in the Horn of Africa
This article explores the nature of the diasporic connections that are emerging among Ethiopians and Eritreans in Nairobi and Khartoum and Eritreans in Addis Ababa. The article looks at their daily lives and interactions within these cities and how they are shaped by the different political and economic conditions. It adds a new dimension to the literature on refugee diasporas, which tends to focus on the political engagement of diasporic populat…
Extreme Risk Makes the Journey Feasible: Decision-Making amongst Migrants in the Horn of Africa
This article explores how some potential migrants in the Horn of Africa incorporate the prospects of extreme danger into their journeys. It draws on evidence from qualitative interviews and focus group discussions with over 400 respondents, mainly from Ethiopian and Somali communities. It shows that the risks of migration within the Horn of Africa are often well known, thanks to strong migrant networks and improved mobile communications. Indeed, …
Humanizing Refugee Research in a Turbulent World
This essay adopts a critical perspective of the idea of humanizing refugee research. It argues that much social scientific research is intrinsically dehumanizing, as it simplifies and reduces human experience to categories and models that are amenable to analysis. Attempts to humanize research may productively challenge and unsettle powerful and dominant hegemonic structures that frame policy and research on forced migration. However, it may repl…
Covid-19 and the case for global development
Introduction: Forging a Study of Mobility, Integration and Belonging in Africa
This is an era in which varied forms of human mobility are redefining the meanings of home, community and belonging across the world, giving rise to novel forms of membership. This chapter argues that the experiences of Africans moving within the continent provide valuable insights into these memberships and the practical and ethical foundations on which they rest. It outlines the volume’s various case studies and highlights their contributions t…
Negotiating a Space of Belonging: A Case Study from the Zambia-Angolan Borderlands
Through a case study of Angolans settled in north-west Zambia, this chapter explores the gap between the formal regulatory environment that prohibits the integration of refugees and its local articulation that delivers precisely the opposite. Those who arrived as Angolan refugees have established a durable space of belonging, with a sustained welcome from local villagers, which has proved robust in the face of the government’s repatriation progra…
Push-pull plus: Reconsidering the Drivers of Migration
Drivers can be understood as forces leading to the inception of migration and the perpetuation of movement. This article considers key drivers of migration and explores different ways that they may be configured. We modify existing explanations of migration to generate a framework which we call push-pull plus. To understand migration flows better, analysts could usefully distinguish between predisposing, proximate, precipitating and mediating dri…
Forging African Communities
This book draws renewed attention to migration into and within Africa, and to the socio-political consequences of these movements. In doing so, it complements vibrant scholarly and political discussio
Beyond Networks: Feedback in International Migration
This edited volume asks how the arrival of migrants at one time influences the decisions of those considering migration later. Through a set of case studies of migration in twelve 'corridors', it shows how different forms of feedback by different actors and through different channels contribute to our understanding of diverging migration flows
Tracing diasporic identifications in Africa's urban landscapes: Evidence from Lusaka and Kampala
The transnational movements of Africans within the continent are seldom conceptualised as leading to diasporic identifications and relationships. In stark contrast, the migration of Africans beyond the continent, which occurs on a smaller scale, is routinely associated with diaspora formation. Drawing on fieldwork with migrants from Anglophone and Francophone West Africa and the Horn of Africa living in Lusaka and Kampala, this paper explores whe…
Encampment and Self-Settlement
This chapter looks at the international community’s interest in fixing refugee populations in camps and how it conflicts with refugees’ own practices of (often irregular) encampment and self-settlement in towns and cities. It first provides a brief overview of the many different forms of encampment before turning to a discussion of the emergence of the international refugee regime and how states could respond to the need for international protect…
Migrants and strangers in an African city: Exile, Dignity, Belonging
Oliver BakewellDepartment of International Development, International Migration Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, [email protected](c) 2014, Oliver Bakewell
Relaunching migration systems
The concept of the migration system, first popularized in the 1970s, has remained a staple component of any review of migration theory. Since then, it has been cast somewhat adrift from its conceptual moorings; today in the literature migration systems are generally either conflated with migrant networks or elevated to the heights of macro-level abstraction which divorces them from any empirical basis. At the same time, by taking on board more so…
Theory and the Study of Migration in Africa
This special issue presents a series of articles that examine different aspects of migration, drawing on evidence from the African continent. Their aim is not simply to provide new empirical material but also to offer fresh theoretical insights that can unsettle, challenge and refine existing theories that frame the emerging field of migration studies. By bringing together this collection of papers from Africa, our intention is to help redress th…
Migration and Development
To what extent does development influence migration? How does migration affect development? In recent years, there has been a huge amount of research into such questions about what has come to be known as the migration–development nexus. In this important collection, Oliver Bakewell draws together key articles by leading scholars which investigate past and current thinking on the complex linkages between migration and development. The volume stud…
Migration Systems, Pioneer Migrants and the Role of Agency
The notion of a migration system is often invoked but it is rarely clearly defined or conceptualized. De Haas recently provided a powerful critique of the current literature highlighting some important flaws that recur through it. In particular, migration systems tend to be identified as fully formed entities, and there is no theorization as to how they come into being and how they break down. The internal dynamics which drive such changes are no…
Some Reflections on Structure and Agency in Migration Theory
This paper explores the complex relationship between structure and agency and the way it has been incorporated into migration theory. It argues that attempts to develop a coherent and robust body of migration theory have been thwarted by a structure–agency impasse: some approaches lean too close to functionalism while others veer into structuralism. Those who search for middle ground have tended to draw on Giddens' notion of structuration as a wa…
Research Beyond the Categories: The Importance of Policy Irrelevant Research into Forced Migration
Given that research into forced migration is looking at processes of enormous human suffering and often involves working with people who are extremely vulnerable to exploitation and physical harm, it seems difficult to justify if it has no relevance for policy. This article argues that the search for policy relevance has encouraged researchers to take the categories, concepts and priorities of policy makers and practitioners as their initial fram…
In Search of the Diasporas within Africa A la recherche des diasporas à l'intérieur de l'Afrique
In the last twenty years, the term diaspora has moved out of its specialist corner, where it referred to a select set of peoples. Today it often appears to be used to refer to any group of migrants and their descendants who maintain a link with their place of origin. African diasporas are now being identified all over the world and they have become the object of considerable academic interest. While the term diaspora is now in vogue for such grou…
Keeping Them in Their Place: The ambivalent relationship between development and migration in Africa
While there has been an explosion of academic and practitioner interest in the relationship between migration and development in the past decade, this article poses the neglected question of what is meant by development in this literature. It focuses on the ideas of development underpinning development interventions across Africa and shows how they have sedentary roots which are focused on the control of mobility and tend to cast migration as a s…
African Migrations: Continuities, Discontinuities And Recent Transformations
Africa is often portrayed in both contemporary and historical accounts as a continent of people on the move. This chapter gives a more balanced overview of migrations within and beyond the African continent. This is a risky and perhaps pretentious endeavour, given the huge size of the continent and the complexity and diversity of migrations found there. The chapter highlights some general migration trends. It briefly summarizes the evolution of m…
Refugees and the transformation of societies: Agency, policies, ethics and politics
The refusal or reception of refugees has had serious implications for the social policies and social realities of numerous countries in east and west. Exploring experiences, interpretations and practices of 'refugees,' 'the internally displaced' and 'returnees' in or emerging from societies in violent conflict, this volume challenges prevailing orthodoxies and encourages new developments in refugee studies. It also addresses the ethics and politi…
Document. Returning refugees or migrating villagers? Voluntary repatriation programmes in Africa reconsidered
Journal Article Document. Returning refugees or migrating villagers? Voluntary repatriation programmes in Africa reconsidered Get access O Bakewell O Bakewell Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Refugee Survey Quarterly, Volume 21, Issue 1_and_2, April 2002, Pages 42–73, https://doi.org/10.1093/rsq/21.1_and_2.42 Published: 01 April 2002
Document. Refugee aid and protection in rural Africa: Working in parallel or cross-purposes
Keeping Them in Their Place: The ambivalent relationship between development and migration in Africa
While there has been an explosion of academic and practitioner interest in the relationship between migration and development in the past decade, this article poses the neglected question of what is meant by development in this literature. It focuses on the ideas of development underpinning development interventions across Africa and shows how they have sedentary roots which are focused on the control of mobility and tend to cast migration as a s…
Research Beyond the Categories: The Importance of Policy Irrelevant Research into Forced Migration
Given that research into forced migration is looking at processes of enormous human suffering and often involves working with people who are extremely vulnerable to exploitation and physical harm, it seems difficult to justify if it has no relevance for policy. This article argues that the search for policy relevance has encouraged researchers to take the categories, concepts and priorities of policy makers and practitioners as their initial fram…
Push-pull plus: Reconsidering the Drivers of Migration
Drivers can be understood as forces leading to the inception of migration and the perpetuation of movement. This article considers key drivers of migration and explores different ways that they may be configured. We modify existing explanations of migration to generate a framework which we call push-pull plus. To understand migration flows better, analysts could usefully distinguish between predisposing, proximate, precipitating and mediating dri…
Some Reflections on Structure and Agency in Migration Theory
This paper explores the complex relationship between structure and agency and the way it has been incorporated into migration theory. It argues that attempts to develop a coherent and robust body of migration theory have been thwarted by a structure–agency impasse: some approaches lean too close to functionalism while others veer into structuralism. Those who search for middle ground have tended to draw on Giddens' notion of structuration as a wa…
Covid-19 and the case for global development
Relaunching migration systems
The concept of the migration system, first popularized in the 1970s, has remained a staple component of any review of migration theory. Since then, it has been cast somewhat adrift from its conceptual moorings; today in the literature migration systems are generally either conflated with migrant networks or elevated to the heights of macro-level abstraction which divorces them from any empirical basis. At the same time, by taking on board more so…
Repatriation and Self-Settled Refugees in Zambia: Bringing Solutions to the Wrong Problems
Journal Article Repatriation and Self-Settled Refugees in Zambia: Bringing Solutions to the Wrong Problems Get access OLIVER BAKEWELL OLIVER BAKEWELL Freelance Consultant/Researcher Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Refugee Studies, Volume 13, Issue 4, December 2000, Pages 356–373, https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/13.4.356 Published: 01 December 2000 Article history Received: 01 October 1999 Revision r…
Uncovering Local Perspectives on Humanitarian Assistance and Its Outcomes
This paper draws on a study of Angolan refugees in Zambia to suggest ways that the perspectives and interests of the local population can be included in the assessment of relief interventions. Taking an actor‐oriented approach, the paper suggests stepping back from the categorisation of the situation as an emergency and particular groups of people as the beneficiaries. Such categories are imposed from outside and may not reflect local people's ou…
In Search of the Diasporas within Africa A la recherche des diasporas à l'intérieur de l'Afrique
In the last twenty years, the term diaspora has moved out of its specialist corner, where it referred to a select set of peoples. Today it often appears to be used to refer to any group of migrants and their descendants who maintain a link with their place of origin. African diasporas are now being identified all over the world and they have become the object of considerable academic interest. While the term diaspora is now in vogue for such grou…
Forging African Communities
This book draws renewed attention to migration into and within Africa, and to the socio-political consequences of these movements. In doing so, it complements vibrant scholarly and political discussio
Theory and the Study of Migration in Africa
This special issue presents a series of articles that examine different aspects of migration, drawing on evidence from the African continent. Their aim is not simply to provide new empirical material but also to offer fresh theoretical insights that can unsettle, challenge and refine existing theories that frame the emerging field of migration studies. By bringing together this collection of papers from Africa, our intention is to help redress th…
Document. Returning refugees or migrating villagers? Voluntary repatriation programmes in Africa reconsidered
Journal Article Document. Returning refugees or migrating villagers? Voluntary repatriation programmes in Africa reconsidered Get access O Bakewell O Bakewell Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Refugee Survey Quarterly, Volume 21, Issue 1_and_2, April 2002, Pages 42–73, https://doi.org/10.1093/rsq/21.1_and_2.42 Published: 01 April 2002
Extreme Risk Makes the Journey Feasible: Decision-Making amongst Migrants in the Horn of Africa
This article explores how some potential migrants in the Horn of Africa incorporate the prospects of extreme danger into their journeys. It draws on evidence from qualitative interviews and focus group discussions with over 400 respondents, mainly from Ethiopian and Somali communities. It shows that the risks of migration within the Horn of Africa are often well known, thanks to strong migrant networks and improved mobile communications. Indeed, …
Tracing diasporic identifications in Africa's urban landscapes: Evidence from Lusaka and Kampala
The transnational movements of Africans within the continent are seldom conceptualised as leading to diasporic identifications and relationships. In stark contrast, the migration of Africans beyond the continent, which occurs on a smaller scale, is routinely associated with diaspora formation. Drawing on fieldwork with migrants from Anglophone and Francophone West Africa and the Horn of Africa living in Lusaka and Kampala, this paper explores whe…
Migrants and strangers in an African city: Exile, Dignity, Belonging
Oliver BakewellDepartment of International Development, International Migration Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, [email protected](c) 2014, Oliver Bakewell
Repatriation and Self-Settled Refugees in Zambia: Bringing Solutions to the Wrong Problems
Journal Article Repatriation and Self-Settled Refugees in Zambia: Bringing Solutions to the Wrong Problems Get access OLIVER BAKEWELL OLIVER BAKEWELL Freelance Consultant/Researcher Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Refugee Studies, Volume 13, Issue 4, December 2000, Pages 356–373, https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/13.4.356 Published: 01 December 2000 Article history Received: 01 October 1999 Revision r…
Uncovering Local Perspectives on Humanitarian Assistance and Its Outcomes
This paper draws on a study of Angolan refugees in Zambia to suggest ways that the perspectives and interests of the local population can be included in the assessment of relief interventions. Taking an actor‐oriented approach, the paper suggests stepping back from the categorisation of the situation as an emergency and particular groups of people as the beneficiaries. Such categories are imposed from outside and may not reflect local people's ou…
Document. Returning refugees or migrating villagers? Voluntary repatriation programmes in Africa reconsidered
Journal Article Document. Returning refugees or migrating villagers? Voluntary repatriation programmes in Africa reconsidered Get access O Bakewell O Bakewell Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Refugee Survey Quarterly, Volume 21, Issue 1_and_2, April 2002, Pages 42–73, https://doi.org/10.1093/rsq/21.1_and_2.42 Published: 01 April 2002
Document. Refugee aid and protection in rural Africa: Working in parallel or cross-purposes
Refugees and the transformation of societies: Agency, policies, ethics and politics
The refusal or reception of refugees has had serious implications for the social policies and social realities of numerous countries in east and west. Exploring experiences, interpretations and practices of 'refugees,' 'the internally displaced' and 'returnees' in or emerging from societies in violent conflict, this volume challenges prevailing orthodoxies and encourages new developments in refugee studies. It also addresses the ethics and politi…
African Migrations: Continuities, Discontinuities And Recent Transformations
Africa is often portrayed in both contemporary and historical accounts as a continent of people on the move. This chapter gives a more balanced overview of migrations within and beyond the African continent. This is a risky and perhaps pretentious endeavour, given the huge size of the continent and the complexity and diversity of migrations found there. The chapter highlights some general migration trends. It briefly summarizes the evolution of m…
Research Beyond the Categories: The Importance of Policy Irrelevant Research into Forced Migration
Given that research into forced migration is looking at processes of enormous human suffering and often involves working with people who are extremely vulnerable to exploitation and physical harm, it seems difficult to justify if it has no relevance for policy. This article argues that the search for policy relevance has encouraged researchers to take the categories, concepts and priorities of policy makers and practitioners as their initial fram…
In Search of the Diasporas within Africa A la recherche des diasporas à l'intérieur de l'Afrique
In the last twenty years, the term diaspora has moved out of its specialist corner, where it referred to a select set of peoples. Today it often appears to be used to refer to any group of migrants and their descendants who maintain a link with their place of origin. African diasporas are now being identified all over the world and they have become the object of considerable academic interest. While the term diaspora is now in vogue for such grou…
Keeping Them in Their Place: The ambivalent relationship between development and migration in Africa
While there has been an explosion of academic and practitioner interest in the relationship between migration and development in the past decade, this article poses the neglected question of what is meant by development in this literature. It focuses on the ideas of development underpinning development interventions across Africa and shows how they have sedentary roots which are focused on the control of mobility and tend to cast migration as a s…
Some Reflections on Structure and Agency in Migration Theory
This paper explores the complex relationship between structure and agency and the way it has been incorporated into migration theory. It argues that attempts to develop a coherent and robust body of migration theory have been thwarted by a structure–agency impasse: some approaches lean too close to functionalism while others veer into structuralism. Those who search for middle ground have tended to draw on Giddens' notion of structuration as a wa…
Migration and Development
To what extent does development influence migration? How does migration affect development? In recent years, there has been a huge amount of research into such questions about what has come to be known as the migration–development nexus. In this important collection, Oliver Bakewell draws together key articles by leading scholars which investigate past and current thinking on the complex linkages between migration and development. The volume stud…
Migration Systems, Pioneer Migrants and the Role of Agency
The notion of a migration system is often invoked but it is rarely clearly defined or conceptualized. De Haas recently provided a powerful critique of the current literature highlighting some important flaws that recur through it. In particular, migration systems tend to be identified as fully formed entities, and there is no theorization as to how they come into being and how they break down. The internal dynamics which drive such changes are no…
Relaunching migration systems
The concept of the migration system, first popularized in the 1970s, has remained a staple component of any review of migration theory. Since then, it has been cast somewhat adrift from its conceptual moorings; today in the literature migration systems are generally either conflated with migrant networks or elevated to the heights of macro-level abstraction which divorces them from any empirical basis. At the same time, by taking on board more so…
Theory and the Study of Migration in Africa
This special issue presents a series of articles that examine different aspects of migration, drawing on evidence from the African continent. Their aim is not simply to provide new empirical material but also to offer fresh theoretical insights that can unsettle, challenge and refine existing theories that frame the emerging field of migration studies. By bringing together this collection of papers from Africa, our intention is to help redress th…
Encampment and Self-Settlement
This chapter looks at the international community’s interest in fixing refugee populations in camps and how it conflicts with refugees’ own practices of (often irregular) encampment and self-settlement in towns and cities. It first provides a brief overview of the many different forms of encampment before turning to a discussion of the emergence of the international refugee regime and how states could respond to the need for international protect…
Migrants and strangers in an African city: Exile, Dignity, Belonging
Oliver BakewellDepartment of International Development, International Migration Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, [email protected](c) 2014, Oliver Bakewell
Beyond Networks: Feedback in International Migration
This edited volume asks how the arrival of migrants at one time influences the decisions of those considering migration later. Through a set of case studies of migration in twelve 'corridors', it shows how different forms of feedback by different actors and through different channels contribute to our understanding of diverging migration flows
Tracing diasporic identifications in Africa's urban landscapes: Evidence from Lusaka and Kampala
The transnational movements of Africans within the continent are seldom conceptualised as leading to diasporic identifications and relationships. In stark contrast, the migration of Africans beyond the continent, which occurs on a smaller scale, is routinely associated with diaspora formation. Drawing on fieldwork with migrants from Anglophone and Francophone West Africa and the Horn of Africa living in Lusaka and Kampala, this paper explores whe…
Forging African Communities
This book draws renewed attention to migration into and within Africa, and to the socio-political consequences of these movements. In doing so, it complements vibrant scholarly and political discussio
Introduction: Forging a Study of Mobility, Integration and Belonging in Africa
This is an era in which varied forms of human mobility are redefining the meanings of home, community and belonging across the world, giving rise to novel forms of membership. This chapter argues that the experiences of Africans moving within the continent provide valuable insights into these memberships and the practical and ethical foundations on which they rest. It outlines the volume’s various case studies and highlights their contributions t…
Negotiating a Space of Belonging: A Case Study from the Zambia-Angolan Borderlands
Through a case study of Angolans settled in north-west Zambia, this chapter explores the gap between the formal regulatory environment that prohibits the integration of refugees and its local articulation that delivers precisely the opposite. Those who arrived as Angolan refugees have established a durable space of belonging, with a sustained welcome from local villagers, which has proved robust in the face of the government’s repatriation progra…
Push-pull plus: Reconsidering the Drivers of Migration
Drivers can be understood as forces leading to the inception of migration and the perpetuation of movement. This article considers key drivers of migration and explores different ways that they may be configured. We modify existing explanations of migration to generate a framework which we call push-pull plus. To understand migration flows better, analysts could usefully distinguish between predisposing, proximate, precipitating and mediating dri…
Covid-19 and the case for global development
Extreme Risk Makes the Journey Feasible: Decision-Making amongst Migrants in the Horn of Africa
This article explores how some potential migrants in the Horn of Africa incorporate the prospects of extreme danger into their journeys. It draws on evidence from qualitative interviews and focus group discussions with over 400 respondents, mainly from Ethiopian and Somali communities. It shows that the risks of migration within the Horn of Africa are often well known, thanks to strong migrant networks and improved mobile communications. Indeed, …
Humanizing Refugee Research in a Turbulent World
This essay adopts a critical perspective of the idea of humanizing refugee research. It argues that much social scientific research is intrinsically dehumanizing, as it simplifies and reduces human experience to categories and models that are amenable to analysis. Attempts to humanize research may productively challenge and unsettle powerful and dominant hegemonic structures that frame policy and research on forced migration. However, it may repl…
Sociology (22 works) · Political science (21 works) · Migration and Labor Dynamics (19 works) · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity (15 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (14 works) · Law (13 works) · Economics (11 works) · Geography (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Gender Studies (9 works)