Dr Meiyun Meng, Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the MIGMOBS project at University College Cork, has published “Organisational bordering: Chinese professional women as ‘skilled support workers’ in Japan and South Korea”, co-authored with project PI Adrian Favell.  It is the first major publication from the East Asian sub-project, Migration and Mobilities in East Asia: the Chinese in Japan and Korea, and a flagship output of MIGMOBS. The photo above shows Mei presenting the work at the annual IMISCOE conference in Girona, in July 2026.

De- and re-centering migration studies calls for the development of new empirical studies that take seriously the changing contexts and forms of mobility  in different world regions. The MIGMOBS project is well placed to address this task, in terms of its ambitious programme of work on South America, co-led by Ana Paula Penchaszadeh and Adrian Favell.

Attending the IMISCOE Spring Conference 2026, which took place from March 16 to 18, 2026, hosted by the Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies (CEDEM) at the University of Liège, Belgium, offered a timely opportunity to reflect on how migration research itself is evolving in response to increasingly polarised political climates, restrictive migration regimes, and rising anti-immigrant discourses. 

MIGMOBS reached a significant landmark in February with the publishing online of the Global Transnational Mobility Dataset 2.0. This Dataset, produced by the Global Mobilities Project team in Florence, is a flagship output of the project.

Building on our commitment to mapping the complexities of global mobility, our team recently participated in the workshop "New Dynamics in Asia's Migration Regimes" on 15-16 January 2026 at the Asia Research Institute (ARI), National University of Singapore. The event aims to understand how demographic shifts and acute labor shortages in Asia are reconfiguring the way states manage migrant labor.

Walking through the streets of Cork, a recent mural by the artist Claire Coughlan reads:

“Let no Irishman throw a stone at the foreigner; he may hit his own clansman’’— James Connolly

It is a striking reminder of Connolly’s vision of solidarity – one that rejects the politics of exclusion and recognises the shared histories of displacement and oppression. Yet, beneath this powerful appeal lies a deeper tension: what does it mean for a postcolonial, now increasingly diverse Ireland, to memorialise Connolly’s words at a time when the anti-immigration far-right movement is fuelling hostility and discrimination against migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Ireland?

Dr Kheira Arrouche is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the MIGMOBS project at University College Cork, where she leads a study on African migration and mobility in Ireland. Her research focuses on four key African migrant communities: Nigerians, Somalis, Algerians, and South Africans, examining how these groups navigate Ireland’s evolving migration regime and transnational mobility networks.

https://www.peoplesrepublicofcork.com/articles/every-fela-is-welcome-in-cork

MIGMOBS post-doctoral researcher, Pamungkas A. Dewanto (Yudha), who is based in Waseda University is conducting research on Indonesian migrant workers in four countries: Malaysia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Taiwan under the Co-PI, Gracia Liu-Farrer, Professor of Sociology, at the Graduate School of Asia Pacific Studies, Waseda University. 

Dr Meiyun Meng, is the Postdoctoral Research Fellow for the MIGMOBS project at University College Cork. In this short news story, you will learn about Dr Meng's specifc role conducting research on migration and mobilities in East Asia, her PhD, and her research interests.