hide
Free keywords:
migration industry, global city, transnational migration, superdiversity, Tokyo.
移民产业, 全球城市, 跨国移民, 超级多样性, 东京
Abstract:
Recently, increasing migrant-led diversity of urban spaces can be expected to be especially
observed in global cities, where global flows of capital, goods and people are concentrated.
Although this connection between the global phenomenon of transnational migration and the
local socio-spatial impacts on the cities appears evident, empirical research on the ‘relationship of
migrants and cities’ remains underexplored. Discussions on global city makers have focused pri-
marily on global economic actors, and have paid little attention to actors involved in shaping these
global cities locally. This paper sheds new light on the role of migration industries in shaping global
cities on the local level, being based empirically on qualitative interviews with transnational
migrants and service providers in Tokyo. It discusses how the novel constellation of service firms
for the transnational migration from above and below, that is, corporate migration industry in
contrast to the conventional migration industry of labour migration, not only contributes to the
global flow of transnational migrations into specific cities, but also draws them into specific socio-
spatial patterns within the local urban space. By bringing these different types of migration indus-
tries conceptually together, it illustrates how socio-spatial diversification processes within global
cities are embedded in the global economy (global city makers) but also locally directed by inter-
mediary actors of migration industries (global city shapers). Embedding migration industries into
the global cities perspective, it bridges the gap on urban transformation from the global to the
local.
