Migration as Freedom

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Migration as freedom.

A case study of four Polish migrants to Norway.

Kristin Prøitz Narum

Department of International Environment and Development Studies Master Thesis 30 credits 2008

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Migration as Freedom

Freedom has a thousand charms to show that slaves, how’ er contended, never know

William Cowper, 1782 “Table Talk”

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Abstract

This thesis explores the connections between migration, freedom and development through the theoretical framework of the capability approach and the case study of four female Polish migrants to Norway. The central questions I ask are -Can migration lead to freedom? And -Can development be conceptualized as freedom? Capability scholar Amartya Sen argues that development is freedom, a perspective with far-reaching implications, which has yielded many interesting strands of critique. I scrutinize the freedom migrants can achieve from five distinct areas of life: the migrants’ choice to migrate; the properties of their work and their attachment to the legal work sphere; their financial situation and the emphasis they put on money; their health and how it has been affected by the migration; and finally how gender has influenced on their migratory experience and their view of gender in a normative sense. I find that migration has indeed enhanced their freedoms in various areas of life, and discuss the conceptualization of development as freedom, drawing on Marxist perspectives to argue the centrality of social structures and processes in development.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to my supervisor Knut Nustad for good feedback and encouragement and to Poul Wisborg at Noragric for reading my proposal and theory chapter and guiding me in the right direction.

Great thanks to the Centre for Gender Research at the University of Oslo for granting me a student seat; it has made all the difference during my thesis work! Thanks to my co students and the other employees at the Centre for good discussions and sociability throughout the period. I also wish to thank Yngvil and the rest of my family for patience and support throughout my masters’ degree and thesis work especially.

Thanks to Aase and Axel who have read the thesis and made critical comments to it.

Last but not least thanks to my informants, who were welcoming and engaged during our conversations, and who made many interesting comments and made the basis for my analysis. All of them made substantial contributions.

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Introduction

What are the connections between migration, freedom and development? Much has been written about the developmental effects of migration, the dynamics between migration, remittances and development, or more often, lack of developmental effects from remittances; and about the migrant as a developmental resource.

The goal of my research is to analyze migration from a freedom-centered

perspective, scrutinizing the idea that development can be conceptualized as expansion of freedom; that development can be measured from what people are actually able to and be:

their capabilities. The overarching questions I wish to illuminate through my research are thereby:

Can migration lead to freedom? Can development be conceptualized as freedom?

My question is whether the migrants I have interviewed, exercised freedom when migrating; freedom of choice, freedom to move, freedom to live the life that they, on reflection, found valuable; or whether it was the only option available; hence not a choice, and hence not an expression of freedom, but of necessity.

This thesis offers an alternative understanding of the connection between

migration and development, and its freedom focus and individual approach differs from much conventional migrational theory, which focuses on instrumental value of migration and generally on societal and individual problems related to migration, such as brain drain, dependence, forced migration and loss of identity and community, alternatively the creation of new ones.

The argument of central capability approach scholar Amartya Sen is that this freedom constitutes development and that freedom is the only viable conceptualization of development. Other scholars within the field contest this insistence on freedom, holding that it is not sufficient for all capabilities. The capability approach has been subjected to several valuable criticisms, some of which I will present and use to add perspectives to my data.

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Also scholars adhering to completely different views of development have contested the capability approach. Questions of brain drain are not easily dismissed, but rather pose serious problems for many countries; it can hardly be called development when students leave their third world home country when ready to join the professions, in stead of using their sorely needed competence at home? Or can it? Also, the question of democracy, civil and political rights as conducive to economic development, is highly contested. Is it not of higher necessity to provide for economic and material needs, than the right to vote? I will discuss these questions briefly, and present and discuss the

capability approach’s answers to three standardized critiques. I will limit the investigation of contesting theories to two “background theories”: John Rawls’ theory of justice and utilitarianism.

The cases I use to discuss the potential for liberation from migration are four Polish women who have migrated to Oslo, Norway. The cases are very different from each other, in terms of integration into the Norwegian society, the length of their stay in Norway, and their perspective for the future. Helena is 23 years old, newlywed and works as a nanny: “We saw no sense in staying when there were no job possibilities”. Beata is 43, and couldn’t bear the separation from her migrant husband, and the mounting

economic pressure at home: “But you know, I don’t dream of black job!” Malgorzata is a forty something, successful business woman who ventured out from communist Poland in her early twenties. Agnieszka has been in Norway for over thirty years, has a Norwegian education on top of her Polish one, belongs to the intelligentsia and fled from the

suppressive communist regime: “Freedom has always been very important to me”.

I use five aspects of their migration and their lives in Norway, operationalized into themes, to discuss their freedom and development, and the applicability of the capability approach. I will argue that the “cases”, the people suffering from deprivation, or in my case: the migrants, themselves must be at the centre stage when discussing and

concluding about empowerment, liberation and development.

The thesis consists of four major chapters: literature review, in which I will sketch three relevant areas of research: migrational theory, gender and moral philosophy; theory chapter; in which I will present the capability approach, discuss its usefulness in the context of my thesis, and make substantial counterarguments; methods chapter, in which

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I will give an outline of the data gathering process and ethical issues; and finally the data chapter “Four migrants’ stories”; where I will present my findings and discuss them with the tools of the capability approach. Finally I will conclude and make some policy recommendations.

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Literature review

In this chapter I will give a brief overview of the bodies of existing academic literature that I view to be especially relevant for my thesis. As I research female migrants in a development context, applying the capability approach, I focus on three areas of extra importance. There are many interesting frameworks for analysis of this type of data, and many areas of research that would put my research in perspective. However, in the vast field of research, I have chosen to sum up the field of earlier migrational theories, and focus on one school of thought dominant in understanding migration in a multicultural society: transnationalism.

Furthermore, I give a brief outline of gender in migration, looking also into women’s position in Poland after communism.

Finally, I sketch the moral philosophical context in terms of looking into John Rawls’ Theory of Justice and Utilitarianism, respectively, as they are theories that

Amartya Sen positions himself in relation to, and he pioneered the capability approach as an answer to these frameworks, arguing that they were inadequate and focussing on the means rather than the goals of development.

My thesis is thereby situated in the crossing point of migration, gender, freedom and development, and applying the freedom-centered perspective on migration

contributes with a new perspective on development and freedom also.

Migrational theory

During the past two decades, the academic literature and research on migration, and its development generating effects, has turned away from a purely economic understanding, to encompass other aspects that influence the migrant’s choice and behaviour, and the effects of migration. In earlier thinking, the migrant was understood as a homo

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oeconomicus, a rational actor maximizing his own gain¹. Migration was understood as a rational response to an imbalance in economic development in sending and receiving countries, labelled push and pull factors. However, newer theories view economic disparities as a necessary but not sufficient condition for migration (Massey et al, 1998).

Factors such as moral economy, household diversification of risk and the wish for a better life have, to a varying degree, been included in the study of migration.

Anthropologists and ethnographers, sociologists and political scientists have entered the field and challenged the economic hegemony and provided alternative perspective.

The understanding of the individual rational actor as the principal unit for analysis was challenged by the so called New Economics of Migration, emerging in the 1980s (Massey et al, 2006).This school of thought, staying within the economic

paradigm, added the perspective of the household (and other culturally defined units) as an important decision-making and productive unit, understanding migration as household diversification of risk. During the 1990s, several studies were published showing the importance of induced or demand-driven migration (Basch, Glick-Schiller and Blanc- Szanton 1994) These studies tended to put less emphasis on the individual decision done by potential migrants and on the push factors of the sending country, and rather focus on what is seen as a built-in demand for foreign labour in the pull countries. These studies draw on the so called Dual Labour Market Theory (Massey et al, 2006), which argues that migration takes place first and foremost because of a constant demand for man power in the capitalist economies of the so called developed world, and the labour market

dynamics between the developed and developing world. The developing world is in this view reduced to a labour market reserve for the economies of countries in the North and West. Yet other theories add alternative perspectives to migration, such as the Network Theory, (Massey et al, 2006) focusing on the importance of an existing network of

migrants and institutions for the individual migrant, emphasizing that streams of migrants often go from and to the same destinations. This is because, so the argument goes, it is

1 I write “his” because there was a male bias in conventional research, as female migrants were assumed to migrate only to “accompany or to reunite with their breadwinner migrant husbands”

(Mahler and Pessar, 2006: 27).

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easier to migrate to a place where you have family or a community than it is to break new ground. Institutional Theory focuses on the increase in institutions that facilitate

migration, such as migration agencies transmitting contact between individual would-be employees and employers in foreign countries or regions; official programs facilitating exchange of human resources, as for example is the case in the Philippines with various types of personnel, most notably nurses. The perpetual and increased migration seen on a global scale is explained by these institutions functioning as engines; in them selves inducing migration.

There is no clear hegemony in the field at present, rather the different theories, and adaptations and versions of them, contribute to diversifying the field and open up to a range of different explanatory models. One trend in newer migration theory is that focus has shifted somewhat away from only explaining the reasons for migration, and now also includes theories explaining migration as an ongoing, social process. The conventional understanding focused on the economic aspects of migration, or rather on the financial consequences migration had for the community that the migrant had left behind, rather than focus on the lives of migrants in their “host” country. A range of frameworks for understanding of migration and multiculturalism have been launched, one of which I will now look into.

Transnationalism

Even though international migration has taken place for centuries, it is now more

commonplace than ever. Higher numbers of people live and work outside their countries of birth now than during even the periods of high migration from the old world, Europe, to the new world, America and Australia (Ibid, Smith and Guarnizo 1998). In the face of this unprecedented scale of migration, researchers within fields of cultural and identity studies, alongside with migration researchers, work to develop theories that can explain how migrants conduct their lives in the new society, while keeping close the family, community and culture of “home”. Taking the opposite position of the economistic rational-actor view, the literature on transnationalism argues that it is more fruitful to understand migration as a continuing process than as a cycle, structured by national and

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immigration policies, class, gender, ethnicity and religion and by networks of kinship and household. Ideas and theory formation about transnationalism emerged in the late 1980s, to comprehend how migrants build and sustain ties with “home”, rather than to

comprehend their incorporation and assimilation into the new society, which had been the perspective of generations of scholars prior to this time (Mahler and Pessar 2006).

Researchers within the school have focused on a wide range of issues related to migration, spanning from international politics to individual identity formation.

Migration and the social practices of migrant groups have been viewed by some as “a counternarrative to the nation” (Bhabha 1990:300), with embedded resistance towards majority society, culture and state’s policies. This euphoric approach to

international migration has been contested by other scholars within the field, who point to how migration is shaped within asymmetric power structures of family, race, class, ethnicity and gender. Indeed, argue Smith and Guarnizo, “transnational practices

sometimes even perpetuate the asymmetry in which it is embedded” (1998: 6). Thus, the result of migration might be that instead of creating a radically new ‘resistant’ and liberating hybrid identity, the migrants idealize the culture and values of the homeland, and become ‘more catholic than the Pope’. The group identity of an ethnic minority group might then incorporate traditionalistic ideas that typically have very different implications for men and women. Formation of identity is a highly gendered space, and the expected characteristics, values and practices of, say, a Polish woman in Norway might be different from the expectations towards a Polish woman in Poland. And they would surely be different from the expectations towards men in either country.

Gender in Migration

Gender was long an ignored factor in migrant studies (Mahler and Pessar 2006). In the 1970s, some researchers sought to make up for this skewed focus by including sex as one of many variables into their quantitative research. In the following, I will argue that research doesn’t become gendered just by adding a variable. Increasingly towards the turn of the millennium, researchers have sought to incorporate gender by conceptualizing it as relational and situational, meaning that the significance of sex is seen as dependent

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on various societal structures, and that sex has influence on those structures in a reciprocal way. In order to not just study men’s lives, it is necessary to appreciate that gender has bearings on most aspects of the lives of women and men. The aim is to see migrants and the structures shaping migration as gendered from the outset of the research, not simply “add women and stir” (Peet 1999: 169).

Yet, despite this development, gender is not readily included in the vast majority of research on migration, on the contrary, “gender has encountered resistance and indifference in immigration scholarship” (Hondagneu-Sotelo and Cranford, 1999: 106).

These scholars argue that the background for this resistance can be found in multiple sources of marginalization: disciplinary, methodological and ideological. One difficulty with incorporating gender is that it is such a slippery concept, deeply embedded in all our everyday practices and in our identities, and therefore, perhaps, difficult to distinguish.

Gender is dynamic, meaning it has different importance depending on the situation, and it is “entwined with other structures of difference, such as race, class, generation and sexual orientation” (Mahler and Pessar, 2006: 37). Thus gender cross-cuts other structures and demands a specific approach and a central positioning.

One ideological challenge emerging in the later years is that virtually all research labelled “gender” is only about women. There was a time when the all-male focus of conventional research demanded a corrective, but those days are gone, argue Mahler and Pessar. “Our points is that scholarship on gender has moved much beyond male versus female analysis” (Ibid: 51), and thus the time has come to recognize men as gendered objects, and subject the gendered structures shaping their migration to research.

This imbalance in the research body is part of the background for why my thesis is about female migrants only: because the academic literature and frameworks are in one sense adjusted to women’s realities, and not to men’s.

Women in post-communist Poland

In the study of post-communist societies, some have taken gender as their starting point in analysing the transformatory processes in the new capitalist democracies of Eastern Europe, scrutinizing gender as a shaping factor in the economies (Gal and Kligman

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2000); and the difficulties experienced by women in particular after 1989, in terms of unemployment and sinking real income rates (Ibid, World Bank 2004). Research has been produced to document the backlash against women’s human rights in the post- communist era (Ibid, Einhorn 2000, Coyle 2007).

This body of research is relevant to my thesis because it gives an understanding of the structures shaping the lives of the informants and the contexts in which their choices to migrate was made.

There can be little doubt that the pulling back of the communist welfare state has affected women more severely than it has men. Women are harder hit by the crumbling of systems such as maternity leave, health services for children and other care dependent members of society, day care facilities, etc (Coyle 2007). In addition, it is generally agreed (Gal and Kligman, 2000) that women were harder hit by unemployment and financial insecurity after the societal structure ruptured than were men. This can partly be explained by the highly gender segregated labour market of communist Poland, where women and men held different types of jobs when working within the same sectors, and statistically most men and women worked in sectors separate from each other. The unemployment sky rocketed in the early 1990s till it reached 17% for women (14 %for the total population) in 1993. Fluctuations were small during the 1990s, and in 1999 the unemployment rate was at 11 %. It then soared to 20 % in the years between 2002 and 2004, but has been sinking since then, and has now sunk again and is currently at 11 % (GUS 2008). The unemployment rate has in general been two to three percent higher for women than for men in the post-communist era. The Central Statistical Office of Poland states: “the economically inactive part of the population is highly feminized as over two thirds of it constitutes women” (GUS 2008).

The gendered development of life in the post socialist society, has prepared the ground for a mass emigration. While Polish women migrate to a great extent to Great Britain and other European countries, the Polish migrants to Norway constitutes of around 70% men (SSB 2005). This can be explained by the employment opportunities for men being much better than for women, and recruitment agencies in male dominated sectors such as construction work have been very active in inducing Polish Norwegian migration over the last years.

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Feminism in Poland

As I will analyze migration in a gendered perspective, discussing the gendered

experience of migration with the informants, and also their views on gender roles on a normative level, a little background knowledge on current view of gender equity and feminism in Poland is necessary. The development in post socialist Poland seen

exclusively through the lens of Western feminist discourse might fail to recognize aspects of society that work for the advancement of women in Poland. Eastern European

feminism has its own set of historically shaping structures, which makes impossible a direct “translation” from Western European feminism to Eastern European feminism (Gal and Kligman, 2000).

Feminism is a whole range of ideas and ideologies, ranging from the

constructionist idea that “you are not born a woman, you become one” (de Beauvoir, 1949), to the eco-feminist essentialist idea “if women ruled the world, there would be no war”, advocating that women are naturally more peaceful/caring/cooperative. This range of different, and mutually opposing, ideas can be found within Western countries and cultural sphere. The experience of state socialism in Eastern Europe, have resulted in a different range of feminisms to manifest there, different from Western variants. The dichotomies of public-private, individual-family and the concepts of hegemony and resistance carry different meanings in Eastern Europe, where the experience of totalitarianism is rather fresh.

For Western middle class women, gaining access to paid employment in the 1970s was the result of an empowering process and organized struggle; for Eastern European women, it was a centrally made ideological decision forced upon them, when paid work became compulsory in the 1930s (Gal and Kligman, 2000)². In light of these different experiences, it should not come as a surprise that organizations under the banner of Feminism are rare in all formerly socialist Eastern European countries. However, this

2 There are many other examples, related to the public-private dichotomy and more. For further reading, see Gal and Kligman 2000.

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does not mean that there are not feminist undercurrents in the conservative wave washing over Poland at the moment.

Moral philosophy

The capability approach was developed in a certain academic context, in the field of moral philosophy, and in the following I wish to give a short outline of this context, looking at two distinct and in many ways opposing theories of justice: Utilitarianism, pioneered by Jeremy Bentham in late 18^th century Britain³, later modified and adapted;

and the liberal theory of John Rawls and his concept primary goods. The capability approach to some extent draws on and relates to these two, and in part, Amartya Sen developed the concept of capabilities (and eventually freedoms) as an answer and an alternative to utilities and primary goods.

But how are theories of justice relevant to the development – migration aspect of this thesis? Theories of justice can be, and currently are, used as justification for types of development policies that the international society carries out, and different theories have bearings on the kind of evaluation made of development schemes. In a sense, they are grand theories, about what kind of society we should aim for, what is just, and what is good. And, admittedly, this thesis will focus on philosophical sizes such as freedom and choice, indeed, freedom is the centre point of the analysis of migration, as we shall see, and therefore, a short introduction of this academic realm is necessary.

The theories I have chosen to look at, aim to explain and argue for a certain focus in the evaluation of a good or just society (in many ways paralleling a developed society).

The issues evaluated when assessing society, the “informational basis”, in the words of Sen (1999: 56), are quite different, and crucial to the evaluations and outcomes of the theories. I shall present the theories and their properties briefly, but first stress the grounds for their differences; the platform they stand on when judging society, and incidentally, development. In the words of Sen:

3 J. Bentham 1789: An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, see also John Stuart Mill, 1861: Utilitarianism.

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[Utilitarianism and Rawlsian theory] go in different directions, largely driven by what information they respectively take as being central to judging the justice or acceptability of different social scenarios. The

informational basis of normative theories in general, and theories of justice in particular, is of decisive significance, and can be the crucial point of focus on many debates on practical policies (…). (Sen 1999: 57).

In sum, the two theories hold radically different aspects to be important when evaluating society, and this influences on what kind of society they recommend.

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism has been a very influential ethical theory, and the dominant theory of justice for much over a century, admits Sen, and is therefore substantial for anyone who wishes to challenge hegemony on the area (which Sen indeed does). The informational basis of Utilitarianism is utility. In its classical form, utility was understood as happiness, pleasure or satisfaction (Troyer 2003). In modern variants, utility has been understood as fulfilment of desire, or the results of a person’s choice behaviour; the focal point is the person’s well-being. (REFEREANSE) The crucial point is thereby whether a certain policy or choice or whatever the object of evaluation is, results in the greatest amount of happiness or pleasure, or welfare, for the largest number of people. An unjust policy is one which doesn’t amount to the greatest possible utility for the largest number of people.

All choices must be evaluated by the consequences, by the results that they generate. This implies that no principle is inherently right, no principle (such as basic, political or civil rights or liberties) has precedence; consequence is everything, and the only important evaluative perspective is the result of these principles. This has a clear opposite in libertarianism, where a smaller or (usually) larger number of rights are held to have precedence no matter what the consequences are⁴. Rawls as we shall see, is not of the most radical theorists, and is better placed in the liberal than libertarian category.

4 For a radical libertarian approach, see Robert Nozick 1974: Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Basic Books

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In addition to being result oriented, the results are judged from their contribution to the well-being of people: arguably an attractive merit in the area of development.

Three problems are pressing with Utilitarianism, according to Sen (1999: 62); the distributional indifference: that the sum total of utility is what is regarded to be

important, but that there is indifference to distribution of the utilities among the people.

Also with comparing utilities, when utilities are understood as are mental states of mind (how to compare fulfilment of desire?). Furthermore, rights and freedoms are neglected:

we might as well be slaves, so long as we’re happy, argues Sen. Finally, resting the whole evaluation on pleasure of fulfilment of desire, does not take into account that different people desire very different things, and highly variable amounts of different things. If you are born and raised in poverty and neglect, your desire will be shaped from that, Sen says.

It might not be just that poor people get less than rich people, even if all parties are satisfied. Sen touches upon this with his principle of adaptive preferences, to which I will return in the Theory chapter.

John Rawls

If Utilitarianism can be said to be a preference-based approach, holding people’s utilities to be the ultimate measure of justice and goodness, then Rawls’ theory is arguably a resource-based approach, in which goods (admittedly of both material and immaterial nature) are the things by which we measure a just society. John Rawls’ paradigmatic work A Theory of Justice⁵, where Rawls coined the term primary goods was published in 1971. These primary goods were the perspective in which equality should be measured and aimed for, argued Rawls. In his 1979 lecture Equality of What?⁶ Sen objected to this resource-based view, and gave his argument for capabilities being the relevant and primary site for measuring equality. I will explore the capability approach in the Theory

5 John Rawls, 1971. A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, Harvard University Press. A Theory of Justice is arguably a very influential work within the rights literature, and an inspiration and yardstick for both Sen and Nussbaum.

6Amartya Sen, 1979. “Equality of What?” The Tanner Lecture on Human Values delivered at Stanford University, US, 22. May, 1979

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chapter. The primary goods include “rights, liberties and opportunities, income and wealth, and the social bases of self-respect” (Rawls, 1971: 60), but priority is given to basic rights and liberties.

Rawls’ theory is placed within the liberal theory, visible in his principle of the priority of liberty, holding that there are certain basic civil and political rights, which simply cannot be violated, and which have complete precedence over economic or social demands or needs. If we contemplate this principle in the context of very poor countries, where stark poverty cripples the lives of the inhabitants, then we need a strong

justification for saying that a starving woman cannot trade the freedom of speech for a meal. She most likely would, given the chance, but that doesn’t make the trade-off just or good, argues Rawls. Sen has a similar argumentation when defending political and civil rights against attacks from so called Asian values, to which I shall return. The argument is that the importance of these liberties for society, on a general plane, is much higher than the importance that the individual would attach to these rights, in her personal calculus of advantages. The liberties should have precedence due to their asymmetrical importance for society.

Other prominent features of Rawls’ theory is the veil of ignorance, a proposed inherent situation, in which the rules of society; for rights and distribution would be laid down, in which we would not know the position we would hold in the society for which we were making rules. Rawls’ proposal is that when sitting behind this veil, the rules laid down would be just, and would be for the benefit of those who would come to be worst off (the Difference Principle).

Sen has criticized the Rawlsian framework for incorporating “an element of

‘fetishism’, [as] Rawls takes primary goods as the embodiment of advantage, rather than taking advantage to be the relationship between persons and goods.” (Sen 1979, in Gooding and Pettit, 1997: 216) It is this focus on goods that Sen wishes to abandon, and argues for focusing on capabilities in stead; people’s ability to use the goods in ways that betters their lives; gives them freedom.

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Summing up

In this chapter I have given an outline of the relevant academic areas for my thesis:

migrational theory, its development from a strictly economic discipline, through diversifying processes where ideas of rational individualism was challenged, towards a focus on migration as a ongoing, social process, opening up transnational arenas. I have given a brief introduction to gender theory and questions connected to gender in

migration. I have also given some background information on Poland, the transition from communism to capitalism, and the gendered aspects of this transition. Finally, I have provided some background on the context which Amartya Sen has situated himself, and the ideas of justice and goodness which he has contested. Although this may not be developmental theory in the strictest sense, it provides a theoretical resource from which to draw inspiration and valuable perspectives. Moral philosophy discusses what the virtues of a good and just society should be, and to a certain extent, how we can work towards such a society. The discussion of what justice and goodness is, is fundamental to developmental thought and work.

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Theory Chapter

In this chapter I will give an outline of a theoretic approach highly relevant for my thesis;

the Capability Approach, and its two most prominent representatives (although there are many others): Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. The capability approach is “a broad normative framework for the evaluation and assessment of individual well-being and social arrangements, the design of policies, and proposals about social change in society”

(Robeyns, 2005: 94). It does not primarily explain poverty, but it is a tool and a framework within which to conceptualize and analyze poverty and its consequences. I will discuss the focus on people’s capabilities; what people are able to do and to be, and the insistence on freedom as both the means and end to development, and how this is relevant to my work on female, Polish migration to Norway. I will sketch the differences between Sen and Nussbaum, and the ways in which Nussbaum adds to the gendered perspective already present in Sen’s work, and contributes to politicizing it. Towards the end of the chapter, I will deal with some of the most relevant criticisms to the approach, and point to important shortcomings.

The Capability Approach

Development has been understood to mean a range of different things through the ages, but in the 20^th century it became firmly linked to economic growth and technological innovation. Though it is hard to argue that economic growth is irrelevant to development, it is equally easy to argue that growth of the gross national product is a very limited perspective in which to understand development.

Many alternative frameworks for assessing development has been suggested and used by policy makers and others from around 1970, from traditions such as

anthropology, law and demography, to contrast the traditional economic approach. The Indian economist Amartya Sen has pioneered what has come to be called “the Capability Approach”, arguing for a broader perspective than utility or resources when talking about what development is. This approach came as a response to the question about what is the appropriate dimension to focus on when assessing human well being, rights and

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development. In what respect, on what area is it important to be equal? Is it sufficient to have access to the same amount and types of goods? “Equality of what?” asked Sen in his 1979 lecture at Stanford University, and argued for an extended focus on what people are actually able to do and be, not on their resources (by ownership or access), as in Rawlsian perspectives or on their “happiness”, as in utilitarian approaches.

The Capability Approach argues for an alternative focus: not on goods, but on people’s capability to utilize these goods. In Sen’s mind, Rawls and his followers focus on the means of development, in stead of the goals: they focus on money or goods, in stead of whether or not these can be put to use. The approach has been criticized from a Rawlsian perspective, arguing that society cannot take responsibility for what people do with resources, and for being too broad, meaning that it is very difficult to ensure, and measure, equality of capability. Equality of resources is a more operationalized concept, it has been argued. These and other criticisms will be dealt with towards the end of this chapter.

While Sen’s theory makes up the backbone of the approach, and he was the pioneer theorist, US philosopher Martha Nussbaum has made substantial contributions to it. Her aim is to develop a normative philosophical theory with practical, political value (Nussbaum, 2000). Specifically, she has developed a list of 10 categories of capabilities that she argues provides the approach with the necessary “bite” in respect to justice, in that citizens can use it as a tool to justify their demands towards their governments. The list has been much debated and I will return to it towards the end of this chapter.

However, I will presently give an overview of the basic features of Sen’s theory, generally in relation to his argumentation for freedom as the goal of development and the most appropriate conceptualization of development, more specifically the relationship between two distinct aspects of freedom, as means and goal of development, the interrelation between the different types of freedom and that they tend to enhance each other, and on the importance of agency. Furthermore, what is the methodological link between “freedom” and “capability”, two terms that are used in close relation to each other in Sen’s work?

But before Sen is given full attention, one question is pressing: How is this related and relevant to my research quest, understanding migration as liberation, as exercising

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and searching for freedom? My question is whether the migrants I have interviewed, exercised freedom when migrating; freedom of choice, freedom to move, freedom to live the life that they, on reflection, found valuable, and that they had reason to value? My aim is to investigate how their choices were made, to what degree they felt that this was indeed a choice, and to what degree it was the only option available; hence not a choice.

The ability to choose, regardless of what the individual actually chooses, has crucial importance in Sen’s thinking: “Indeed, “choosing” itself can be a valuable functioning, and having an x when there is no alternative may be sensibly distinguished from choosing x when substantial alternatives exist. Fasting is not the same thing as being forced to starve.” (Sen, 1999: 76).

Also, my analysis will scrutinize the potential for freedom that life in Norway holds for the four informants, specifically with regards to work, money, health and gender questions.

Furthermore, it is my argument that contrary to one conventional idea within migrational theory; that migration is conducive to development only with regard to the remittances and their effects on economies and livelihoods ‘back home’; or that migration should first and foremost be analyzed in a brain-drain perspective; I argue that migration is development in that the migrant exercises freedom to live the life that he or she finds reason to value. The migrants are exercising freedom in that they seize opportunities that they have reason to value, and their migration can be conceptualized as freedom and development without regard to the instrumental value, or lack thereof, of their migration.

This thesis offers an alternative understanding of the migrational-development nexus, and its freedom focus and individual approach differs from much conventional migrational theory, which focuses on remittances, and their effect (or lack thereof) on development in the receiving country, and generally on societal and individual problems related to migration (brain drain, dependence, induced/forced migration etc).

Furthermore, can it really be called development if people migrate because they have to? Is it freedom when people migrate to work in the black economy, for example cleaning houses when they hold university degrees? But before applying the Capability Approach to my data and discussing it, a theoretical foundation is necessary.

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Development as Freedom

The foundation of Sen’s theory of development is the freedom of each individual person.

It is the building block on which his entire idea about development rests. Freedom is central for two reasons: the evaluative reason and the effectiveness reason. Sen argues that freedom is the most suitable standard by which to evaluate development, because it is the goal of development. The most sensible way to assess development is to take in the whole concept of freedom, or put in other words: on what people are actually able to do and to be, their capabilities. For these are two sides to the same coin: if we have

capabilities, we enjoy freedom from hunger, poverty, oppression, violence etc. Freedom and capabilities are so tightly intertwined that they are one in Sen’s understanding: the one presupposes the other. If you have the capability to read and write, you enjoy freedom from illiteracy. If you have the capability to vote and speak your mind, you enjoy freedom from oppression and invisibility. Capability is thereby a much broader concept than rights or resources: simply having the right to vote, won’t ensure the capability to vote: only if you can take time off from work and can afford to travel to the polling station, have the time and means to learn about politics and make an informed decision; then you have the capability to vote.

This understanding demands a positive definition of freedom, one that deviates from the more conventional philosophical definition. Freedom can be defined as a set of negative freedoms or rights; one that presupposes that authorities guarantees your personal safety, civil and political rights, transactions and your private property rights.

But freedom can also be defined as a set of positive freedoms or rights, which is what Sen does, where freedom is defined as the presence of a variety of factors: food, shelter, clothing, health care and educational facilities, civil and political rights, employment and the capability to enjoy cultural and religious or spiritual festivities. In short: the idea of freedom is incompatible with capability deprivation. If you starve you are not free, for the thought of food haunts you and you are unable to function properly, argues Sen.

Furthermore; the most appropriate and complete way to measure development, is to look at people’s capabilities: what they are able to do and be: what freedoms they have. It is highly limiting to focus only on the means of development; be it economic growth, industrialization or technological advances. For these are only means, he argues;

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we do not seek wealth for wealth it self, but because it allows us to lead more valuable lives, it can give us safety, good health and the ability to read and learn, and many other things that we have reason to value. Sen’s understanding of development is thereby a democratic, egalitarian one: development has not been accomplished merely by increased gross national product, even if distributed equally on the citizens in the country. The evaluation of development should take its starting point in the concept of freedom.

The other reason why the concept of freedom should be given centre stage is the effectiveness reason; that development is reached with more ease and efficiency by individuals that are free and empowered (incidentally two aspects that are closely interrelated, as we shall see). For freedoms not only make development more likely to happen, freedoms of different kinds enhance each other. Sen argues that “expanding the freedoms that we have reason to value not only makes our lives richer and more

unfettered, but also allows us to be fuller social persons, exercising our own volitions and interacting with – and influencing – the world in which we live.” (Sen, 1999: 14). And here we find the reciprocal character, the mutually enhancing quality of the concept of freedom: when individuals enjoy the freedom to make their own choices, according to what they have reason to value, they will also have the incentive, and the possibility, to influence their surroundings in the direction that will further enhance their freedoms, given that there is a free and democratic press. Social opportunities, like education and access to the labour market help promote economic security; freedom from violence enhances the freedom to move around, and take part in democratic organizations;

political freedoms can pressure public opinion and politicians to take their responsibilities seriously; and freedom to speak, write and agitate can change economic redistribution and thereby further enhance various freedoms.

Sen identifies five instrumental freedoms (…) “that contribute, directly or indirectly, to the overall freedom people have to live the way they would like to live.”

(Sen, 1999: 38). These are: political freedoms, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees and protective security. Political freedoms include (…) “the political entitlements associated with democracies in the broadest sense”(…) (Ibid), such as dissent and critique in addition to basics such as voting and freedom of speech.

Economic facilities point to people’s possibilities to (…) “utilize economic resources for

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the purpose of consumption, or production, or exchange.”(Ibid: 39). “Social opportunities refer to the arrangements that society makes for education, health care and so on, which influence the individual’s substantive freedom to live better.”(Ibid) Transparency guarantees refer to the necessity of safety and predictability in the rules of contract and exchange within society, and protective security focuses on the need for a social safety net, be it unemployment benefits or famine relief. Sen’s lack of emphasis on the social processes and political struggles that arguably will bring forth such instrumental freedoms will be criticized in the Critique section of this chapter.

In relation to the mutually enhancing freedoms, Sen argues that in a democracy, leaders must take action to ease the burdens of the voters, if they want to be re-elected, whereas in a dictatorship, there is no reason for the elite to, for example fight poverty.

Hence Sen’s thesis “[N]o famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy” (…) (Ibid: 16). (Which he defines as a society where people enjoy political and civil rights, and there is a free, functioning press). However, admits Sen (even thought the famine thesis is disputed), the same cannot be said to apply to poverty. India is an example of a democratic country, where a large proportion of the population live in stark poverty and are constantly under-nourished, illiterate and die prematurely.⁷

Sen argues his point by looking into relevant empirical connections, such as the connection between political and civil rights, and poverty. He argues that poverty cannot be alleviated without democracy, that freedom from political oppression and freedom from poverty are mutually enforcing freedoms, which will strengthen each other. This idea is disputed and opposed by among others officials from China and so called Asian tiger countries; among them former prime minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew, who has proposed what has been called the Lee thesis. It holds the message that “human

development (as the process of expanding education, health care and other conditions of human life is often called) is really a kind of luxury that only richer countries can afford”

7 For further reading on the dynamics between democracy and famines, see Sen, A. 1987. Food and freedom. Sir Crawford Memorial Lecture, October 29, 1987. Washington: CGIAR.

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(Sen 1999: 41). But health care and education are relatively low cost sectors, argues Sen.

They are employment intensive, and in so called developing countries man power is not costly. Also, basic health care and education are sectors that requires low input of resources in the form of buildings, material and infrastructure, hence not a luxury at all, and quite affordable even for poor countries.

Lee further claimed that democracy is incompatible with so called Asian values, values that are apparently more in tune with hierarchy and respect for elders and

authorities. Here we touch upon two core values in the Capability Approach: the argument for universalism and the argument for individualism. The argument and discussion around individualism, and subsequent critique of the approach for being too individualistic will be dealt with in the Critique section of this chapter. The argument for universalism is strongly defended by Nussbaum especially, who opposes the idea that human rights (political and civil, but also social, economic and cultural rights) somehow clash with certain cultures, and she counters the well known criticism of human rights that they are a western invention, inherently imperialistic in their so called universalism.

She argues that it is indeed possible to find a framework for capabilities that can successfully be applied to all members of the human race, and she reveals the hidden agenda often present when universal assessment of quality of life is criticized: of course it is more convenient for the people holding the power in society if the citizens of their realm abide by ideas of hierarchy and dismiss democracy as western imperialism.

But how can Sen claim that democratic and civil rights are conducive to economic growth, when China is the fastest growing economy in the world? Isn’t it easier for the state to be efficient and create economic growth without hindrance from democratic institutions, which are arguably quite time consuming and inefficient? Sen argues that China experiences economic growth in spite of their repressive regime, not because of it.

Also, one might point to the fact that economic growth can be so many things, not necessarily benefiting the common man. Sen points to Japan and argues that their high level of economic affluence came as a result of their early priority of basic education and later health care for the entire population, and that “the so called East Asian miracle

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involving other countries in East Asia was, to a great extent, based on similar causal connections” (Ibid)⁸.

But surely, given the choice between food on the table and the right to vote, the world’s poor masses would surely chose food? Must we no prioritize what is more important? But the question holds a contradiction, argues Sen: if the people’s choice is the ultimate argument, all the more reason to introduce democracy. His thesis on

enhancing freedoms argue that political and civil rights is development, and will lead to a policy that puts food on the table.

Terms and definitions

I turn now to a short discussion and definitions that are important to Sen’s thesis, and how they are interrelated and related to the overall concept of freedom. They are:

capabilities, functionings, conversion factors, means, ends, agency and well-being.

There is no reason, argues Sen, to only take into account the resources which the person in question can access or has ownership to, or the ‘primary goods’ in the Rawlsian terminology (Rawls 1971), if the point is to assess the “individual’s real opportunity to pursue her objectives” (Sen 1999: 74). In order to understand that opportunity, we must also include “the personal characteristics that govern the conversion of primary goods into the person’s ability to promote her ends” (Ibid). For example, a disabled person might have less freedom to lead the life she has reason to value than an able bodied person, with the same or even more or better resources, because of her personal characteristics. The concept of capability includes both these aspects: both available resources (by access or ownership), and the person’s ability to make use of those resources, and is thus more receptive to the differences between people and their individuality, argues Sen.

8 On this see World Bank: “The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy”

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

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The concept of functionings reflects the various things a person may value doing or being, from simple things like being adequately nourished, to more complex issues such as being able to take part in community life or having self esteem.

“A person’s capability refers to the alternative combinations of functionings that are feasible for her to achieve. Capability is thus a kind of freedom: the substantive freedom to achieve alternative functioning combinations (or less formally put; the freedom to achieve various lifestyles)” (Ibid). Robeyns clarifies it thus: “The distinction between achieved functionings and capabilities is between the realized and the effectively possible; in other words, between achievements on the one hand, and freedoms or

valuable options from which one can choose on the other.” (2005:95).

An important distinction in Sen’s work is means (that is goods and services, and social institutions broadly defined, for example norms and traditions that form women’s preferences), and the capability to use those means. A good has certain characteristics that enable certain functionings. For example, a bicycle enables mobility. However, and this is crucial to Sen’s thesis, there are several conversion factors that influence on the functionings. In the bicycle example, conversion factors would typically be physical shape, social and gender norms in society, and climate or topography. Disabled people might not achieve the functioning of mobility from a bicycle. It is these conversion factors that are absent from more conventional approaches to development: the

realization that having access or ownership to resources is not enough, we must also look at the person’s ability to utilize the resource, if we want to assess their freedom.

Another important distinction is that of means and ends, or rather, how that distinction is often blurred. For example, good health is an important means to achieve employment and the capability to play and rest. But health is also an intrinsic end in itself, as health will give the person a better life than ill health would allow.

The agency aspect has a strong standing in Sen’s theory. “With adequate social opportunities, individuals can effectively shape their own destiny and help each other.”

(Sen 1999: 11), he argues. Free and sustainable agency is the engine of development, and is in itself a constitutive part of development, and it contributes to promoting its various aspects, such as economic growth and democracy. “Greater freedom enhance the ability of people to help themselves (…)” (Ibid: 18), and the freedom of individuals to be the

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driving force in their own life is valuable both because it will give good lives for the individual, but also because outcomes, both for the person and for the society, is likely to be better than if the same goals were sought accomplished by a top-down

implementation. But surely, agency operates within certain structures? The individual does not act in a vacuum, but within structures that impose power and have strong bearings on the outcomes of the individual’s agency. More on individualism and structures under the heading Critique.

Sen uses the term well-being to mean quality of life, and stresses how well-being to a large extent is dependent on agency. He exemplifies this by looking at the altered focus of the women’s movement: the women’s movement increasingly see women as agents of change, able to bring about change in their own situation, not as merely victims or protégées. Indeed, it is now recognized, claims Sen, opposed to earlier, that women are not only entities that have, or don’t have well-being, but that they act or refuse to act, and if they don’t, they have the capacity to. I shall return to the concept of well-being shortly.

Differences and similarities between Sen and Nussbaum

Nussbaum differs from Sen in some respects, but they are in overall agreement on the basic points of the Capability Approach. In the following I will give an outline of the similarities and differences.

They both find that asking what people are actually able to be and to do;

evaluating their capabilities is the most relevant way to assess their quality of life. But whereas Sen uses this insight to make comparisons about quality of life and about equality and inequality, Nussbaum insists that the approach can be a political tool that citizens can use to influence their chosen representatives to listen to their demands. In addition, she has introduced the concept of a threshold level of capabilities, under which truly human functioning is not possible. This threshold level enables political demands with more ‘bite’ argue Nussbaum, claiming her focus on political and societal change is essentially different from Sen’s comparative focus, where inequalities and the relative distribution of capabilities holds the centre stage. Furthermore, Nussbaum distinguishes between basic, internal and combined capabilities. Basic capabilities are abilities that we

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are born with, innate abilities. “Internal capabilities are states of a person that enable him/ her to exercise a specific capability, if the circumstances and constraints allow this exercise. Combined capabilities are the internal capabilities together with the external provisions that effectively enable the person to exercise the capability” (Robeyns, 2005:

104). For example, a new born child has the basic capability for speech and language, all the child needs “[is] to hear it spoken enough during the critical period. More often however, internal capabilities develop only with the support from the surrounding environment, as when one learns to play with other, to love, to exercise political choice”

(Nussbaum, 2000a: 84). But even if children develop language and eventually become quite eloquent, there are societal, religious and gendered structures that might hinder them from “[f]unctioning in accordance with it. Finally, therefore, there are combined capabilities” (Ibid). However, even though the definitions differ from each other, both Nussbaum and Sen argue that the realm of politics should be combined functionings.

Furthermore, they agree on the importance of political and civil rights, and “both argue strenuously that economic needs should not be met by denying liberty” (Ibid: 12).

On the notion of each person as an end, Nussbaum claims she is somewhat more explicit than Sen, in articulating her principle of each person’s capability (Ibid), but holds that they are in agreement about the importance of the individual, and that in asking how nations are doing, development-wise, we should consider the capability of each citizen, and not make other units, such as the household or family, the central ones.

Also, they both deliver strong arguments for the universal character of human rights, and for the value and importance of a universal framework for human capabilities.

Nussbaum defends the universal framework for assessment of development against three standardized attacks: the argument from culture (‘feminism/ individualism/ development is a western invention, inherently imperialistic, and people from the South⁹ advocating it are arguing against their own culture’); the argument from the good of diversity (‘we are all different individuals and cannot agree on a single set of categories, or a single set of

9 By which I mean so called developing countries, often countries with colonial heritage, most often situated in Africa, Asia or Latin America.

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values’); and the argument from paternalism (‘if we tell people what is good for them, in stead of letting them chose and make democratic decisions, we treat them like children’).

Nussbaum claims that the strong stance on universalism distinguishes her from Sen, and that Sen has never “produced explicit arguments against relativism” (Ibid: 13), when in fact, Sen delivers an equally strong argument for universalism in his book

Development as Freedom, referring to his 1997 paper “Human Rights and Asian Values”, where he among other things argue against the so called Lee thesis (that democracy and human development is incompatible with Asian values and economic growth in Asia), against the idea that Asian values are more authoritarian and for the cross cultural quality of schools of thought such as tolerance, scepticism, agnosticism. “Indeed, the overriding value of freedom as the organizing principle of this work has this feature of a strong, universalist presumption” (Sen, 1999: 244).

Furthermore, Nussbaum has been criticized for leaving too little room for agency, because she does not endorse the agency - well-being distinction that Sen advocates but argues that all important aspects can be captured by the capabilities - functioning

distinction. Well-being has strong utilitarian associations, and leads the thought towards well- being that does not involve active doing and being, argues Nussbaum, who

therefore does not endorse this term.

But most importantly, Nussbaum differs from Sen in that she has set forth a list of basic capabilities. The list and the dispute around it will be examined further under heading “The List of Central Human Functioning Capabilities”, to which I shall shortly return.

Finally, Nussbaum is concerned with poverty, inequality and development as freedom in general, but her main focus is the inequalities that women experience because they are women. Women face greater obstacles than men whether they are poor or middleclass, black or white, high caste or low caste, she argues. They are “less well nourished than men, less healthy, more vulnerable to physical violence and sexual abuse”

(Nussbaum 2000a: 1), face greater obstacles in the work place, and generally receive less pay than men. In many countries they have poorer legal rights than men, be it property rights, rights of association, mobility and religious liberty. They are more often burdened with ‘double work’, combining paid employment with child rearing and housework, and

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less likely to “enjoy rewarding types of love- especially when, as often happens, they are married without choice in childhood and have no recourse from bad marriages” (Ibid).

Nussbaum’s cases are from India, a region where many women face particularly great obstacles, but even admitting that gender inequality is strongly correlated with poverty,

“(…) there is no country that treats its women as well as its men (….)” (Ibid: 2), she claims, referring to the UN Human Development Report of 1997. “Women, in short, lack essential support for leading lives that are fully human. This lack of support are

frequently caused by their being women.” (Ibid: 4). Nussbaum’s perspective is basically gendered: her theory is from the outset developed to respond to challenges particular for women’s development and human rights. It thereby communicates well with my thesis, which seeks to not only incorporate a gender component, but to employ a gendered perspective on all the chosen areas of the informants’ lives, and their migration, as well as include a section specifically devoted to gender roles and gender liberation.

Women and Human Development

In the following I will look into certain aspects of Nussbaum’s work that is relevant for my thesis, and my work on migration, development and freedom. The underlying reasoning for her principle of each person as an end, what she means by lives that are

“fully human”, her argument for universalism and her list of (basic) capabilities will be scrutinized successively.

Nussbaum argues that the capabilities need to be pursued as goals for each and every person, treating everyone as an end in their own right, and not a mere tool for others. The principle of each person’s capability is thereby based on the principle of each person as an end. This is an important specification with regard to women, who have often been treated as “reproducers, caregivers, sexual outlets, agents of the family’s general prosperity” (Ibid: 2) as undistinguished parts of the family in stead of as independent individuals. For example, the family is not an appropriate unit for the capability approach, argues Nussbaum, because that would allow the person(s) holding the relative power in the household, to define other members out of the household resource equation. The individual is the de facto unit of decision making, of experience

Migration as Freedom

Migration as freedom.

A case study of four Polish migrants to Norway.

Kristin Prøitz Narum

Migration as Freedom

Abstract

Acknowledgements

Table of contents

Introduction

Literature review

Migrational theory

Gender in Migration

Moral philosophy

Theory Chapter

The Capability Approach