Adugna Comparative Migration Studies (2019) 7:5 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-018-0107-1 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Open Access Migration patterns and emigrants’ transnational activities: comparative findings from two migrant origin areas in Ethiopia Girmachew Adugna Correspondence: [email protected] Abstract Seefar, Better Migration Management (BMM) Ethiopia, Growing literature, including those published in this journal, provide important P.O.Box – 3096 code 1250, Africa insights into the complex dynamics of immigrants’ transnational engagement by Avenue, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia comparing different migrant populations residing in the same host society. However, extant research that provides an in-depth investigation of the interplay and dynamics that exist within the same ethnic origin is either sketchy or non-existent. It is therefore imperative to collect as detail and as relevant empirical data digging deeper into the individual nuances and cultural subtleties that exist within a group of migrant populations originating from a single country. Taking the case of Ethiopian immigrants, this research aims to fill a gap by examining the various overarching different migration regimes that shape immigrants’ transnational activities including return visits, non-direct family contacts and several features of remittances, including amounts, roles, directionality and intermediaries. A comparison of the two migration trajectories does not only reflect the dynamics of the configuration of migrant societies within Ethiopia but also the specific labour market demands of different countries/regions in terms of the profile of migrants, mainly their skills (low-skilled, unskilled, high-skilled) and genders (male-labour, female-labour)aswellasthesocialtransformations associated with migration and remittances. The legal status of migrants during travel, and upon reaching destination and associated mobility and immobility factors are increasingly affecting the migration outcome of these migrants. Keywords: Comparative migration, Transnational activities, Remittances, Hometown associations, Social networks, Ethiopia, USA, South Africa Introduction Owing to various socio-economic and political factors, over a number of decades Ethiopia is one of the major sending countries in migration. The routes and destina- tions of these migrations are as diverse as that of the causes of it. This is often dictated by the circumstances present at the time of migration. Over the years, a pattern emerged as to where in the country, why and where Ethiopians migrate. It is important to note that social class, resources, gender, and poverty are key variables along which migration from Ethiopia is being stratified, and there is also important sub-national variation. This has grown more visible since the late-1990s with an influx of both © The Author(s). 2019 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Adugna Comparative Migration Studies (2019) 7:5 Page 2 of 28 skilled and unskilled migrants from Ethiopia migrating to different destinations. Not all Ethiopian migrants have the same experiences, and this has a lot to do with the re- gional organisation of migration. Different histories locally, and transnationally, gener- ate different outcomes. There exists a growing volume of literature (Button & Vega, 2008; Glick Schiller, Basch, & Blanc, 1992; Lacroix, Levitt, & Vari-Lavoisier, 2016; Massey et al., 1999; Verto- vec, 2004) providing an important insight into the complex dynamics of immigrants’ transnational engagement. Most of these studies tend to compare migrant populations who originated from different countries but currently residing in the same host society. However, extant research that provides an in-depth investigation of the interplay and dynamics that exist within the same ethnic origin is either sketchy or non-existent (Torres & Gioconda Herrera, 2014). There is a tendency to lump all migrant popula- tions into one category and jump to conclusions, resulting in superficial data analysis. It is therefore imperative to collect as detail and as relevant empirical data digging dee- per into the individual nuances and cultural subtleties that exist within a group of mi- grant populations originating from a single country. Taking the case of Ethiopian immigrants, this research aims to fill a gap by examining the various overarching different migration regimes that shape immigrants’ trans- national activities including return visits, non-direct family contacts and several fea- tures of remittances, including amounts, roles, directionality and intermediaries. In what follows, this paper looks at two migrant origins in Ethiopia, namely Gondar, a northern Ethiopia where it saw early migration to North America, Australia and Eur- ope; and Hadiya and Kembata-Tembaro villages, in Southern Ethiopia, an emergent area of migration to South Africa, largely on an irregular basis. The migration from Gondar could be characterised as irregular at first but through the years a pattern has emerged due partly to a green card and sponsorship system whereby early migrants, predominantly those who fled the military government’s polit- ical persecution through the Sudan, began to take their families who left behind. It could also partly due to those who remain locally were motivated by those who left. One could not for instance find a similar pattern from other parts of Ethiopia, say Goj- jam, North West Ethiopia, indicating thus the causes and process of migration in Ethiopia varies due to various driving forces. This is also true for the variation in char- acteristics of the contexts of reception. This suggests the importance of time and tem- poralities in discussing migration dichotomies and patterns in general and a migrant’s life course in particular. Time is what allows us to see change or transition from being an undocumented immigrant to having a legal residence. This approach highlights the “temporalization of presence,” (Coutin, 2000), whereby the qualification of individuals for different legal dispensations is based on the paperwork they can produce to docu- ment their presence (Menjivar, 2011, p. 379). Empirical data shows that migration from Gondar and Hadiya and Kembata regions are driven due to various causes, indicating the fact that there exists no single theory to account for migration from a given country, given that most exhibit some level of dis- tinct regional histories. The different processes have been at work in the histories of migration from these two regions to these two specific destinations; the US and Israel, vs. to South Africa. As this study reveals, in the Ethiopian context, there is important sub-national variation. The paper places this in a historical perspective and shows how Adugna Comparative Migration Studies (2019) 7:5 Page 3 of 28 and why migration in these two areas has become so prominent taking into account the social dynamics of the context of departure. This paper also shows how those who are poor as well as those who are economically better-off migrate. It demonstrates the cause of migration is not always money, even though economic migration accounts to a significant majority. However, apart from be- ing poor, there are other factors that need closer consideration. Unfortunately, the re- search on migration gives no particular attention to these factors. As a result, there lacks a comparative empirical data on the intra-national differences that shape migra- tion flows and many of the characteristics and changes of these differences are still un- known. This is also the case in the broader migration literature (Goldring & Landolt, 2014; Rivera-Sánchez & Lozano-Ascencio, 2014). Although the field of migration studies vastly expanded in the last decade, there has been abroader‘receiving country bias’ which obscures not only the role of origin states (Vezzoli, 2014) but also intra-national variations within sending countries. There is also a tendency to put all migrant “groups” or populations mainly from developing countries into a single box (Goldring & Landolt, 2014), which was considered to be a valid “container” or basis for generating identities, practices and organizations (Rivera-Sánchez & Lozano-Ascencio, 2014, p. 13). Arguably, the role of contexts of departure in influencing the processes of mi- gration flows and variation in the types, scope and dynamics of transnational engagements has been little studied. Theoretically, this paper argues for the utility of taking sub-national variation in migrant origin countries by interrogating intra-national differences in migration flows. This enables us not only to avoid a broader receiving country biases in migration re- searchbutalsotoavoidmethodological nationalism. In comparative migration research, typical research designs build on the comparison of two or more groups in a given destination or one or more groups in more than one place of settlement and expand this to include their transnational social fields (Goldring & Landolt, 2012, p. 104). Interrogating migration flows from within a sending country is crucial. Contexts of departure and reception are operationalised as geographic loca- tions (Goldring & Landolt, 2012).