Discourse analysis methods in the study of social processes

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Kharkiv State Academy of Culture

UDC 314.112(100)

Discourse analysis methods in the study of social processes

V.M. Sheyko

Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor

Kharkiv

Анотація

В.М. Шейко, доктор історичних наук, професор, Харківська державна академія культури, м. Харьков.

Методи дискурс-аналізу під час вивчення соціальних процесів.

Визначаються провідні трансформаційні тенденції демографічних процесів у світовому співтоваристві. Основна увага приділяється даним дискурс-аналізу наратології сучасних тенденцій міжнародної міграції та методам її регулювання на міжнародному рівні в умовах цивілізаційної глобалізації. При цьому акцентовано, що демографічний процес пов'язаний з глобальною екологією, культурою, релігією, освітою тощо.

Ключові слова: дискурс-аналіз, демографія, світове співтовариство, народжуваність, чисельність населення, сучасна міжнародна міграція.

Аннотация

В.Н. Шейко, доктор исторических наук, профессор, Харьковская государственная академия культуры, г. Харьков

Методы дискурс-анализа при изучении социальных процессов.

Определяются ведущие трансформационные тенденции демографических процессов в мировом сообществе. Основное внимание уделяется дискурс-анализу наратологии современных тенденций международной миграции и методам ее урегулирования на международном уровне в условиях цивилизационной глобализации. При этом показано, что демографический процесс связан с глобальной экологией, культурой, религией, образованием и т. д.

Ключевые слова: дискурс-анализ, демография, мировое сообщество, рождаемость, численность населения, современная международная миграция.

Abstract

V. M. Sheyko, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Kharkiv State Academy of Culture, Kharkiv.

Discourse analysis methods in the study of social processes.

The key transformation trends of demographic processes in the world community are presented using discourse analysis of these processes. Special attention is paid to discourse analysis of narratology of current trends of international migration and methods of its regulation at the international level under conditions of civilization globalization. It is proved that the demographic processes are connected with global environment, culture, religion, education and so on.

Key words: discourse-analysis, demography, world community, birth rate, population, current international migration.

narratology globalization civilization demographic

The aim of this paper is to study the transformation trends of demographic processes of modern global civilization with the help of discourse analysis.

Migration is a significant aspect of global demography process. It is a well-known global process, since migration to the United States from Latin America and other parts of the world has continued for several decades. One of the recent phenomen is migration from Africa to Western Europe, from Eastern and Central Europe to Western Europe, from Asia - to Australia and North America, from various African countries - to Nigeria and Kenya, from Central America - to Mexico, from Japan - to Australia. Thus, large masses of population possessing different values and religions get mixed, and this contributes to emergence of mulicultural and multiethnic societies.

History has always described the past as a sequence of past events and processes; scientists have been interested, first of all, in the qualitative aspects (accumulation of facts and concepts), whereas quantitative characteristics were considered to be of secondary importance. However, factual information is of paramount importance for understanding the historical processes. This is why we consider history as a process of system development.

Over the last decades the system approach has become very popular. It emerged first in physics to describe the behavior of systems with many components, then in chemistry and biology, and later it came to be used in the study of social and economic phenomena.

There is one parameter, as universal as the parameter of time, and it can be applied to all epochs. It is population size. It is directly linked to mankind's economic, social and cultural activities. We can say that demographic quantitative data offer a universal key to understanding the past.

It is obvious that negative consequences of spontaneous demographic processes have to regulated. The only acceptable form is birth control.

There are programs aimed at developing effective measures to reduce the excess birth rate. It is important that these programs are adopted in the countries with the highest population size - India and China.

In the economically developed countries of the Northern region there is no evidence of a comprehensive, coordinated demographic policy, including family planning programs. However, the indigenous population decline in the early 1990s (depopulation) in some European countries caused an appropriate reaction. Actions like propaganda campaigns, moral or material incentives, etc., aimed at a birth rate increase are taking place in some countries (France, Germany and others)

Modern international migration. The most important center of international labor migration is Europe. Here there are 20 million legal migrants i members of their families, among them 13 million in the

European Union. Young people are mostly involved in the inter-state migration, usually, people aged under 25. Research data show that the share of young people in foreign manpower is rather impressive: in France - 40,2%, the Netherlands - 40,2%, Belgium - 49,8% of the total number of foreign employees.

The majority of immigrants choose Germany, France, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden, the Netherlands. In Luxembourg the percentage of foreigners was in 1995 as high as 33,5% of the total population.

The North American labor market traditionally belongs to the US, the labour resources of which has was historically been formed by immigrants. Post-war migration to the US consisted of two phases: the first stage with more than 6.6 million people from Western Europe; the second stage began in 1965, when a law creating favorable conditions for immigrants from Asia and Latin America was adopted. Preference if given to highly skilled workers, engineers, doctors, managers, scientists.

Australia is the classical country of immigration in the Asian-Pacific region. The share of foreigners in the total workforce of this country is 24%. The policy of the USA and Australia is aimed at assimilating the immigrants.

Over the last decades the forms and destinations of migration flows have changed. In the late 20^th century and till the First World War nonreturn migration prevailed. Migrates from Europe (over 19 million people) moved to the US, Canada, Australia moved seeking a permanent place of residence. The return migration process did not exist. At the same Europe witnessed the rise of intra-continental migration from one country to another. In 1950-60s intra-continental temporary labor migration became very popular.

- Modern migration processes are quite different from those in the 19^thand the first half of the 20^th century. Their main features are the following. Migration spread to all continents and became global. By the end of the 20th century there had been over 45 million labor migrants in the world. The mass scale migration is one of the characteristic features of our time.

- In the 1950-70s the flow of migration was directed mainly from developing to developed countries, but as from 1980s an opposite process is taking place, namely the migration of workforce from developed countries to developing ones.

- Labor migration is mainly motivated by economic reasons.

- Modern technologies based on international work distribution contribute to labor resource migration. It is connected, first of all, with the activities of transnational companies.

- Illegal workforce migration has considerably increased and become a world problem (3 million illegal migrants in Europe, from 6 to 13 mln in the USA, mainly Mexicans working in the agricultural sector, 300,000 in Japan, 500,000 in Malaysia, 3 mln in Russia).

- Due to the impact of the scientific-technical revolution, qualitative changes are taking place in international migration: the share of highly skilled professional is constantly increasing.

A quite new phenomenon is worth mentioning: it is the movement of professionals not only “from the capital”, but “with the capital or following it” as well. It can be explained, first of all, by the activities of transnational corporations and the career prospects for professionals.

Nowadays, active processes of higher education integration are taking place all over the world. Thanks to these tendencies, students from many countries of the world can continue education abroad, e.g. Chinese students can study at US or Japaneses universities. Such way of getting education is very efficient for the sender countries, but many of these do not returned to their homeland.

One should also take into consideration the fact that the former metropolitan countries prefer importing manpower from former colonies and dependencies. Whereas in the 19^th century and in first half of the 20^th century the countries of traditional migration (USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa) received only Europeans, in the 1980-90s they constituted a small part of immigrants. Nowadays migrants from Asia, Latin America, Africa, the Caribbean countries dominate in the immigration flows to developed nations.

One of the characteristic features of the present stage of international labor migration is an increasingly active state intervention in the process. The government regulates agreements in the world job market, issues entry permits and oversees the immigrant departure terms, provides recruitment and creates favorable conditions for immigrants' employment.

The import of high-quality workforce affects the economy of host countries and saves money for training specialists. For instance, in the 1960s the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom saved 46 million US dollars on education. In most countries migrants are considered as a shock absorber in case of a crisis and unemployment. Countries with a low birth rate and low-level employment use immigration to maintain pensions and social programs at an appropriate level.

The differences in the level of technology, industrial structure and organization of the working place between the sending and host countries may also create problems for those wishing to return. If the business climate is incompatible with the new migrants' ideas or training, migrants may not achieve their goals.

The main directions of the state migration policy. Regulating migration processes is a specific area of state social policy implemented with the help of a series of legal, organizational, economical, information methods. Government regulation can be carried out with current tendencies in internal and external migration taken into consideration.

Particular attention is paid to regulating external labour migration. The system of measures aimed at regulating immigration includes government acts defining legal, political and professional status of immigrants; institutional services dealing with workforce immigration; intergovernmental agreements on workforce immigration.

Regulating immigration acts define the number of immigrants in the host country; determine professional, qualification, gender and age structure of labor immigration and duration of the stay in the host country. Direct implementation of immigration policy is assigned to special bodies - national immigration agencies created at the Ministry of Labor and Internal Affairs.

Immigration agencies control, according to the current legislation, the immigrants' entry into the country, issue residence and work permits. Permission to work in a definite certain industry or region of the country is coordinated with the employers' needs, who state the required quantity of workforce and its qualitative characteristics.

Measures aimed at protecting of migrants' interests include: facilitating the conditions of departure and return to the country of residence by making changes in the national legislation; overcoming the state monopoly in the field of organization of labor export; establishing the minimum requirements necessary to sign employment contracts (contract terms, size of wages, taxes, insurance); protectiing the rights of migrants (bilateral or multilateral agreements on relevant issues); facilitating effective migrants' adaptation to the new conditions in the host country and their readaptation on returning to the homeland.

Besides, there is illegal labor migration, when people leave their country having a guest visa, and then find a temporary job. When such illegal activities are discovered, the employer and the employee are fined.

The situation with the emigration of scientists and highly skilled professionals can be improved by radical measures such as: political and economic stability, finding resources for investments into science and innovations. This problem can be partly solved by expanding cooperation with thy world scientific community, e.g. by participating in international conferences (mainly to Germany, France, USA, Italy, Poland), study trips (mainly to Germany, USA, Poland, France, Great Britain), work by employment contract (preferably Germany, Poland), studying at PhD or doctoral courses.

Today, countries importing workforce and those exporting it agree on measures designed to provide mutual protection, among them:

- signing by- and multilateral agreements at government level according to which labor migration is carried out on a return basis. i.e. employees return to their home countries after their contract term has expired; taking joint actions aimed at minimizing illegal migration.

There are three ways of implementing external labor migration policy: a) external labor migration is almost entirely regulated by the state through sprcial national agencies; people wishing to work abroad are recruited mainly by private agencies; mixed schemes.

In order to regulate migration, world community can do the following. International trade, investments and economic aid programs should be aimed at refugees and migrants source countries.

The possibilities of legal migration should be increased.

- Legal and illegal migration flows should be analyzed in detail to foresee mass migration and take relevant steps.

- Basic education in donor countries should be accessible to all, which will help raise living standards. It may be appropriate to start internship programs in highly developed countries for experienced professionals. On their return home, such people could transfer know-how to their countries.

- Expand programs designed to support migrants wishing to return to their home countries.

Thus, the analysis of quantitative data concerning world demographic processes shows that a complex transformational evolution of migration from different regions is currently taking place. Opposite, reemigration processes should also be noted.

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