2021/11/15 Sussex Conference “New Dynamics of East–West Migration and Migrant Integration Within Europe and Beyond”

This paper will present a dialogical-relational approach in the field of citizenship studies, based on relational sociology of Pierre Bourdieu and dialogical conceptualization of culture of Mikhail Bakhtin. In addition, a short comparative case study will illustrate the approach. In the meta-theoretical section, the following relational authors in the field of citizenship studies will be discussed: Somers (1993), Wallerstein (1997), Bhambra (2012) and Schinkel (2017). It will be argued that, while all these authors have made important contributions in the field, they represent the process-relationalist and ‘resistance turn’ type of approaches, which tend to be one-sided and monological both ontologically and politically. The dialogical-relational approach will be outlined next, building on Engin Isin’s Bourdieusian type of conceptualization of citizenship (Isin 2002), and aiming to find a balance between different voices both in the social and academic fields. Dialogical-relational approach conceptualizes citizenship in terms of positioning in asymmetrical social fields, which highlights the issues of group formation and recognition/misrecognition in creating subject positions with strong and weak identities (Harre and Langenhove 2002, Vetik 2019). A short illustrative case study will analyze current statelessness issue in Estonia by comparing three theoretical discourses representing substantialist, process-relationalist (resistance turn) and dialectical-relationalist accounts of the issue.

This paper offers insights on how a synthesis between Bourdieu’s relationalism and Lefebvre’s sociology can pave the way for ‘critical dialectic geography’. Through synthesizing the locus of fields and habitus in the multi-dimensional production of space, the peculiar dynamics of how spatiality is produced, experienced and contested within urban centers can be explored. This opens up the possibility to understand different ethnic experiences within a ‘place’ that not only draw in or exclude, but frame and reframe multi-focal orientations (of identity, groups and belonging). This approach thus moves beyond traditional approaches of ‘us’/ ‘them’ by incorporating Isin’s approach to citizenship as political subjectivity within the context of Bourdieusian asymmetrical fields. The paper exemplifies these nuances by means of a case study of the Lasnamäe neighborhood in Estonia (largely populated by the Russian language minority), where historical legacy, ethnic identity and representations of ethnicity shape diverse orientations to Lasnamae’s urban environment for both Russian-speaking and Estonian speaking population of Tallinn, Estonia.

This paper responds to both papers presented in this session by revisiting some of the premises of Being Political (2002) from the perspective of dialogical or relational formation of social groups. I will discuss how this perspective has challenged citizenship studies in the last twenty years and how it has been taken up. I will then focus on theoretical arguments and case studies of the papers above to address the key question of the session: under what conditions the distribution of power in some social groups would be preferable to others?

Although a lot has been discussed about refugee integration during the last decades and about asylum due to sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) during the last years, just a few works, particularly in Canada, have come out about SOGI refugee integration. Drawing on my 20-month doctoral ethnographic research in London – in which I interviewed asylum claimants, refugees, immigration lawyers and NGOs, as well as conducted participant observation and social media analysis – the purpose of this paper is to contribute to this still incipient debate through focusing on the case of the UK. To do so, I firstly present the concept of a multidimensional perspective of integration, which includes both legal and social aspects. Secondly, I analyse what are expected from asylum claimants by British decision makers in order to be granted refugee status. They commonly have to conform to Western stereotypes of non-heterosexual sexualities, such as being ‘out and pride’, socialising in gay bars, going to pride marches, not having children, etc. I therefore conclude indicating that this goes towards a politics of assimilation, instead of integration. My argument is that this is made through the ‘domestication’ and the ‘infantilisation’ of non-Western subjects’ sexualities.

Keywords: integration; refugee; sexual orientation; UK

How do Yugoslav labor migrants and refugees define and negotiate integration? Although labor migrants and refugees arrived in Switzerland from the same sending region, these are very distinct groups: labor migrants came ‘voluntarily’, though coerced one might argue, mainly between the 1960s and 70s, whereas refugees were expelled from their homes during the 1990s. The project  examines how labor migrants and refugees from the same sending state position themselves within narratives of integration in Switzerland. Crucially, I investigate integration from the perspective of the circumstances under which migrants come to Switzerland. By emphasizing the rationale of migration as a point of departure, I demonstrate that contextual categories that led to migration affect and influence perceived inclusion in the receiving state, as opposed to ethnic and/or confessional affiliation, respectively. More than that, the project lays bare the discursive construction of supposedly neat migratory categories, as introduced above.

Keywords: Integration; Mobility, Labor migration; Coerced Migration, Forced migration; Deservingness

Several studies highlighted the role of social networks in providing refugee women with access to different resources and support that help them overcome the disadvantages of their situation. This is especially relevant in the case of Syrian refugee women in Milan. Previously relying on tight-knit networks of family and friends in their home and transit countries, they resettled in Milan which is lacking a substantial Syrian community.

This paper explores the ways in which Syrian women engage in the discourse of establishing networks in the host society and how these daily processes affect their settlement experience and their feeling of inclusion or exclusion. The research draws on in-depth interviews with eight Syrian refugee women during their first years of settlement in Milan. The results illustrate the neighborhood as a key spatial level in establishing social relationships. The participants emphasized the importance of having contact with local people such as neighbors as it builds language resources and cultural knowledge. Others engage in localized networks through their childcare responsibilities. The research concludes that while some of these networks provide valuable social capital and access to information, those who have less opportunities to get into contact with locals may feel excluded.

Keywords: Social capital –  Syrian refugee – Gender – exclusion – social interaction – neighborhood

A growing literature has accounted for experiences of racism among people from the East of the EU, particularly in pre- and post-Brexit Britain. Others have argued that concepts such as racism add little to our understanding of intra-European mobilities. These contributions, I suggest, suffer from a related shortcoming: they focus mainly on the attitudinal dimension of racism, as expressed in the media or personal encounters. Foregrounding racism’s structural features, I examine whether and how we can consider ‘Eastern Europeans’ as a racialized group. Specifically, I trace invocations of this category in public discourse and their institutional trajectories in Britain and Germany. Empirically, the analysis draws on data collected for the ‘Mobilisation against Migration’ (MAM) project, and includes statistical evidence, statements by political representatives, and interviews with activists who oppose immigration. The analysis points to the transnational features of this racist repertoire and shows how Brexit and the COVID-19 crisis have exacerbated the inequalities produced by its means. However, we should not analyse this form of racism in isolation from others. Rather, I argue that the categorization as ‘Eastern European’, and the attributes associated with it, operate analogously to, but are also embedded in and enabling of other repertoires of racism.

Keywords: East-West mobility, Europe, race and racism, Critical race theory, Britain, Germany

The aim of this paper is to examine how young CEE migrants, growing up in Sweden, experience and negotiate their relations to places post-migration and how they use memories of the past to create a sense of continuity and belonging in the present and future imaginaries of the self. This paper draws on the ongoing research project on Transnational childhoods. The project focuses on the experiences of re-defining and creating significant social relationships by young people, who moved to Sweden under the age of 18 from Poland and Romania as a result of their family’ mobility after the EU enlargements since 2004, which set in motion one of the most profound mobility flows between East and West Europe. In this context, children’ and youth’s translocal place-making is a growing field of research to which we aim to contribute. Drawing on the 2-steps qualitative interviews, combined with the visual methods of network maps, life lines and self-produced photos, allows us to elucidate how young people´s significant relationships are indicative of places in which they built a sense of belonging, retrospectively, at present and in the future. Building on the conceptualisations by Bennett (2011), Haikkola (2011) and May (2017), among others, we argue for a renewed attention to the translocal place-making post-migration among the young migrants, who through remembering and feelings, nurture the connections to the places of birth and develop new multiple attachments to places in which they live and want to belong.

Keywords: Central and Eastern European migrant children, Sweden, place-making, memory and feelings, local belonging

This paper presents the results of a doctoral research conducted in South Tyrol, an Italian border region, among second-generation youth. Nowadays in the region, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1919, three different historic ethno-linguistic groups (Italian-, Ladin-, and German-speakers) live together, but are institutionally separated. This separation provides challenges for newcomers, among which the Albanian community represents the largest migrant group. In this context by experiencing socialization and integration, second-generation children of migrants with Albanian-origin have to face an ambiguous situation. While the Second Autonomy Statute (1972) aims to guarantee a protection to the old minority groups preserving their languages and cultures, this produces a separation in the educational system and the daily experienced “divided society” (Zinn, 2018) sharp boundaries among people. Findings showed that albeit second-generation immigrant children successfully assimilate into the South Tyrolean-Italian society for ethnic affinity (Kosta, 2019), the institutional affiliation into the German ethno-linguistic group, considered as dominant, is recently increasing confirming an ‘anticipatory socialization’ (Merton, 1949/1968). Excerpts of interviews will be presented. Since migration in sub-nations is still under investigated, this paper aims to contribute to literature in border regions.

Keywords: Second-generation children, sub-nations, socialization, integration, education

The proposed paper focuses on the migration movement from Turkey to Greece after the 2016 failed coup and on the negotiations of belonging of Turkish citizens living in Athens. This recent migration takes place within the broader context of the 2015 and 2016 refugee movement towards Europe that significantly impacted European politics and perceptions of migrants and whilst Greece was still affected by the financial/political crisis. Considering the broader socio-political context of the historically loaded Greek-Turkish relations that continue to oscillate between national stereotypes of ‘friends’ and/or ‘enemies’, this paper explores the imprint of these stereotypes upon the lives of newly settled Turkish nationals living in Athens. Turning the “geopolitical gaze” to the city, we explore the localization of international relations upon peoples’ lives within a context that enhances the circulation of historically-defined nationalist stereotypes about the Other. Furthermore, we explore the ‘border-crossing’ practices that take place at the level of everyday life and politics and transgress national(ist) constructions of borders, both symbolic and material. In this context, multiple and ambivalent new arrangements of belonging and conviviality are formed, which come to unsettle pre-established norms of spatial coexistence and perceptions of enmity and/or proximity.

Keywords: Other, friend-enemy, Turkish citizens, belonging.

The presentation investigates the impact the Brexit-related events had on the motivations, strategies and migration plans of Polish lifestyle migrants residing in the United Kingdom. The UK’s decision to leave the European Union on 23 June 2016 and its aftermath marked a ‘watershed’ moment in the lives of intra-European migrants in the UK, forcing hitherto ‘intentionally unpredictable’ young people to rethink their decisions and taking some action. Drawing on the qualitative study – in-depth interviews with Polish lifestyle migrants living in Brighton and London region, conducted a year after the Brexit referendum, potential changes in initially adapted strategies and migrants’ future plans were analysed. The research based on the theoretical notions of ‘social anchoring’ and ‘differentiated embedding’ – an alternative to the traditional concept of ‘integration’ is aiming to shed light on factors influencing migrants’ decision-making process. The results of the analysis indicate that political events related to Brexit had only a limited impact on the migration plans of individuals. Although the referendum undoubtedly prompted migrants to reflect and verify their plans, personal factors, marking various degrees of the integration process, seem to be of more importance than the political context and shape their future decisions.

Keywords: Poles in the UK, Brexit, lifestyle migration, social anchoring, differentiated embedding, migration strategies

Post-Brexit, UK migration rules treat ‘EU- and non-EU citizens equally’. Thus, a much larger number of working migrants have less access to social rights than before. This paper compares how the different welfare entitlements for working migrants and non-migrants affect the incomes of 18 hypothetical households; some workers are single, some have a child. Using micro-simulation, we assess the risk of poverty and the extent of inequality for migrants and non-migrants.  We show that the system excludes new migrants from the social contract which defines the rights of UK citizens as working parents, leading to significant poverty risks and inequality.

Keywords: Impact of UK post-Brexit immigration system; inequality between migrants and non-migrants; poverty risks; social rights; social exclusion

The aim of this article is examining how the concept of ‘safe third country’ (STC) reinforces the EU’s managerial approach to ‘irregular’ migration by merging legal analysis and Hannah Arendt’s thought. The article examines the STC concept through a theoretical approach that adds onto the Arendtian perspective. The STC concept triggers the practices of detention and encampment of migrants within the EU and deportation/expulsion beyond the Union frontiers. The instruments of the common asylum system spearhead such practices to determine a country responsible outside the EU through shifting the burden of migration management and protection towards the EU’s third-country neighbors. This article contributes to previous Arendtian scholarship on human rights by examining the identified externalization practices led by the STC concept vis-à-vis migrants reaching the EU territory. In the first part, the article sheds light on the interplay between the STC concept and the practices of deportation/expulsion and restrictions on freedom of movement (e.g., encampment and detention) with a particular focus on the Greek-Turkish context. In the second part, the article discusses that what is managed today through the STC concept in particular, and externalized migration management in general, is in fact migrants’ “access to a right to have rights”.

Keywords: safe third country, externalization of migration management, human rights, Hannah Arendt: right to have rights

For years in Poland, as in other Central and Eastern European countries, the dominant migration pattern was temporary, circular migration, with the largest group of foreigners being citizens of the former Soviet Union. Poland has gradually transformed from a migrant‐sending to a migrant‐receiving state, being a target country of economic immigration, especially for migrants from Ukraine. However, the Russian Federation’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, followed by the armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine in Donbas, stimulated a sharp increase in the number of Ukrainian migrants to Poland not only for economic reasons. The proposed paper will contribute to the literature on migration within and into the Central and Eastern European region by showing the evolving character of Ukrainian migration to Poland and the different motivations accompanying the migrants when deciding to leave their country of origin. The paper will explore the aspirations that Ukrainian migrants pursued through migration and show how these aspirations evolved in the course of their migration projects that, along with their capabilities, impact the process of integration and integration outcomes. We draw on 32 in-depth interviews with migrants from Ukraine who plan to circulate, settle in Poland, return to Ukraine or go to another country.

Keywords: Ukrainian migrants, aspirations, capabilities, integration, Poland, migration patterns, migration projects

Investigating on dynamics that trigger decisional processes towards (social and spatial) mobility becomes increasingly imperative when considering that a significant share of EU workers is occupied in segments for highly skilled, even more in times of the ongoing global health emergency, which furthermore changes opportunities, mobility strategies, and living concepts. Building on these premises, our study has been inserted in the broader field of migration studies and reflects on different dimensions that could add new perspectives on integration and return issues. The data to analyse decisional dynamics and processes has been retrieved from 18 in-depth interviews with Italian (highly)skilled movers who have been living in different destination countries in Europe and beyond, for at least five years. The research thus focuses on the consistency between the respondents’ initial motivation to leave and the later consideration to return or not to their country of origin in view of (structural) life course events, such as unexpected career developments, social issues (COVID-19) or political changes (Brexit). In other words: how do these external deviations of the expected migratory path and imagined reality interrelate with personal life course events and thus trigger, block or alter initial intentions to move onward or to return?

Keywords: highly skilled migration, life course events, return migration, mobility strategies

Our quality of life and sense of self are highly dependent on recognition from others. Indeed, researchers have established that recognition – ranging from intimate, personal relations to the larger societal arena – is ’a vital human need’ (Taylor 1992, 26). While recognition theory seems especially fit to shed light on the psychological mechanisms of social and political resistance, this paper underlines its potential for exploring patterns of migration. Drawing on a longitudinal, ethnographic study (2013-2020) of students from post-socialist countries pursuing a degree in Denmark and their onward journeys upon graduation, this paper illuminates the ways in which struggles for recognition (Honneth 1995) function as an imperative impetus in their migration. It shows how quests for recognition, often following experiences of misrecognition of the students’ professional skills in their home countries, play a key role in their initial decision to study abroad. When this quest fails to materialise in Denmark, typically due to ‘labour market failure’ and feelings of stigmatisation, aspirations of recognition remains an important compass – steering onward migration to certain countries over others as well as return migration to their home countries.

Keywords: Recognition theory,  student mobility, onward migration, post-socialist youth , ethnography

In the last decades Poland and other post-socialist countries of EU A13 have become European immigration sub-centres, attracting immigrants from further peripheries of the global capitalist economy – in a large part from the post-Soviet states. At the same time, “Central Eastern” Europe still remains the region of emigration, with thousands of citizens moving to Western migration centers each year. Countries of the region have been trying to define their new post-transformation identity through the narrative of “coming back to Europe” and orientalising the imagined “East”. Meanwhile, post-socialist, “Central Eastern” Europe remains at the peripheral position in relation to the Western core, both at the economic and symbolic level. In my ongoing research I apply this framework to analyse intra-regional migrations occurring crosswise the dominant direction of human capital flows. During the conference, basing on the semi-structured interviews I have been conducting with Polish migrants in selected countries of the region (Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary) I will discuss how this mobility could be analysed through the lens of postcolonial theory and world-systems theory and raise the question if such “trans-(semi)peripheral” migrations shall be approached as substantially different than migrations on the East-West trail.

s Central Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe, migration, postcolonial theory