In my dissertation, I connect two areas of research within migration scholarship – family and the state –, and use both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine how immigrants navigate transnational lives and sociopolitical institutions in their new home societies. This dissertation compiles three projects on this theme: (1) contextualizing family migration; (2) restrictive visas and inequality; and (3) cross-nativity partnering and political participation. Overall, this dissertation research highlights the significance of family and relationships, in research and policy, in connecting people and the state.
Immigration policy in the US and elsewhere produces a complex hierarchy of legal and visa statuses that grant different rights, freedoms, and protections to immigrants. Even though these distinctions between immigrants based on visa status significantly shape their experiences, opportunities, and outcomes in their new home countries, visa status is an understudied dimension of inequality. In this research project, I use both quantitative and qualitative approaches to examine how visa policies impact immigrants and their families.
In my dissertation, I use in-depth interviews with immigrants on restrictive visa statuses (such as the F2 and H4 visas, which allow spouses and children of immigrant students and workers to enter the US but restrict spouses from pursuing higher education and paid work) to understand how these immigrants engage in strategies, decision-, and meaning-making around work, family, and future migration trajectories given the restrictions and precarity of their status.
As an extension of this project, I am compiling and visualizing data on visas issued within the US immigration system. This research was supported by the University of Iowa Digital Scholarship and Publishing Studio Summer Fellowship in 2020. You can read more about this ongoing digital project in this blogpost → .
In this project, I use survey data from the Current Population Survey (CPS 2000-2018, N>100,000) to examine how cross-nativity relationships - that is relationships between those of immigrant and non-immigrant backgrounds - shape political participation. I use generalized linear models (logistic regression) to predict voting based on the individual’s and their partner’s immigration background, utilizing the CPS survey design to link information about married and cohabiting couples.
In this project, I ask how the covid-19 pandemic is shaping patterns of return migration and highlight the need to examine social and political consequences of these migration patterns during this global crisis.
Munasinghe, Hansini. 2020. “Return Migration During a Pandemic.” In Contexts special issue on Inequality during the Coronavirus Pandemic edited by Rashawn Ray and Fabio Rojas. Article →