Author Identifier (ORCID)
Catriona Turnbull: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2207-687X
Abstract
This paper explores how constrained informational capital makes migrants dependent upon commercial intermediaries to facilitate their migration. It proposes migration literacy as a critical dimension of mobility capital and as a way to articulate the dependencies engendered through low information capital in relation to the regulatory regimes of the immigration state. These ideas are illustrated with reference to a cohort of working-class labour migrants to Australia whose experiences are shaped by their low migration literacy. Trade skilled migrants from China paid high fees to chains of brokers to secure sponsored employment in Australian workshops. Their low migration literacy, the result of their social class and educational backgrounds, conditioned these experiences, increasing the risk of financial hardship and unpredictable outcomes. Yet despite these dependencies and risks, commercial intermediaries are recognised by these capital constrained migrants as critical mechanisms for capital conversion that play an essential role in facilitating international mobility that would otherwise prove unattainable.
Keywords
Cultural capital, labour migration, migration agents, social class
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
1-1-2026
Publication Title
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
School
School of Arts and Humanities
RAS ID
94259
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Comments
Turnbull, C. (2026). Migration literacy and commercial intermediaries: The debt financed labour migrations of Chinese working-class tradesmen in boomtime Australia. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2026.2630306