The Invisibility Bargain: Governance Networks and Migrant Human Security

by Jeffrey D. Pugh

Migrants fleeing economic hardship or violence are entitled to a range of protections and rights under domestic and international law, yet they are often denied such protections in practice. In an era of mass migration and restrictive responses, migrant acceptance is often contingent on the expectation that they contribute economically to the host country while remaining politically and socially invisible. These unwritten expectations, which Jeffrey D. Pugh calls the invisibility bargain, produce a precarious status in which migrants' visible differences or overt political demands on the state may be met with hostile backlash from the host society. In this context, governance networks of state and non-state actors form an institutional web that can provide indirect access to rights, resources, and protection, but simultaneously help migrants avoid negative backlash against visible political activism.

The Invisibility Bargain seeks to understand how migrants negotiate their place in receiving societies and adapt innovative strategies to integrate, participate, and access protection. Specifically, the book examines Ecuador, the largest recipient of refugees in Latin America, and assesses how it achieved migrant human security gains despite weak state presence in peripheral areas. Pugh deploys evidence from 15 months of fieldwork spanning ten years in Ecuador, including 170 interviews, an original survey of Colombian migrants in six provinces, network analysis, and discourse analysis of hundreds of presidential speeches and news media articles. He argues that localities with more dense networks composed of more diverse actors tend to produce greater human security for migrants and their neighbors. The book challenges the conventional understanding of migration and security, providing a new approach to the negotiation of authority between state and society. By examining the informal pathways to human security, Pugh dismantles the false dichotomy between international and national politics, and exposes the micro politics of institutional innovation.

296 pages, Paperback

Published February 10, 2021

About the author

Jeffrey D. Pugh is Associate Professor in the Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security, & Global Governance at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He is also the executive director of the Center for Mediation, Peace, and Resolution of Conflict (CEMPROC). His PhD in political science is from the Johns Hopkins University, with undergraduate degrees from the University of Georgia, where he was a Foundation Fellow. Pugh's research focuses on the role of non-state actors and international institutions influencing governance and peacebuilding in the Global South, especially in migrant-receiving areas of Ecuador. His book, The Invisibility Bargain: Governance Networks and Migrant Human Security (Oxford University Press 2021), focuses on non-state actors and governance networks providing peace and security for Colombian migrants in Ecuador. It is the winner of the 2021 Arthur P. Whitaker Prize for best book by the Middle Atlantic Council of Latin American Studies.

Pugh's other work has received awards from the International Studies Association, the American Political Science Association (APSA), the Middle Atlantic Council of Latin American Studies (MACLAS), the New England Council of Latin American Studies, and the Peace and Justice Studies Association, among others. He was a 2014-2015 Fulbright Scholar in Ecuador and is a past president of the Middle Atlantic Council on Latin American Studies (MACLAS). He lives with his family alternating between Cambridge, MA and Washington, DC, and enjoys music, cooking, the outdoors, and playing with his precocious toddler.

Reviews

[LA]

SECOLAS Thomas Book Award entry 2021-22