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ISIS is getting stronger, and promises nothing good to the educated. An extreme case of middle class squeeze.

For comparison, there is this study by an Albanian author, mainly about the migration from Eastern Europe in the 90s:

International Migration, Social Demotion, and Imagined Advancement

Contemporary migration involves a dramatic paradox. Although much of what is considered international or transnational migration today transforms people of a wide range of social standings in the emigration countries into laborers at the bottom social and economic ranks of the immigration countries, millions of individuals worldwide seek to migrate internationally. [The book] argues that this paradox cannot be explained for as long as common preconceptions about immigrants' economic betterment thwart even questioning why individuals who are not threatened by famine or war willingly pursue their demotion abroad. Recognizing immigrants' decline as such, this book proposes viewing contemporary migration as socioglobal mobility. Revolving around an ethnographic study of the Albanian "emigration" in Greece, [the book] finds that imaginaries of the world as a social hierarchy might lie at the roots of much of the contemporary international migration. As would-be emigrants perceive different countries in terms of distinct social stations in a global order, they resolve to put up with numerous social and material deprivations in the hope of advancing internationally. Immigrants are typically thought of as aliens in their de facto home societies, however, and that makes genuine advancement all but impossible.
by das monde on Tue Sep 1st, 2015 at 11:24:50 AM EST
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