Wyniki wyszukiwania - Biblioteka Nauki

1

The Circulation of Non-Economic Capital in the Migration Cycle. Empirical Perspective

100%

Dzięglewski M.

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2013

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nr 1(23)

155-171

EN

In the context of post‑accession migration from Poland it is important to analyze not only its economic but social and cultural implications for receiving and home country as well as for migrants themselves. Recent migration takes place in a new context of inter‑European mobility and as such can be treated as a part of ‘life project’, career strategy and a new form of migration. The paper focus is on the theoretical and empirical frame of social and cultural capital accumulated by migrants abroad and transferred into home country. The theoretical framework is supposed to provide a base for empirical research on the social and cultural capital transfer possibilities in the case of return migration. The question such a research would try to answer is: can the return migrants bean active actors of innovation and social change?

2

Social Remittances and the Impact of Temporary Migration on an EU Sending Country: The Case of Poland

100%

Grabowska I. , Engbersen G.

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tom 5

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nr 2

99-117

EN

This article sheds light on the unintended consequences of temporary migration from Poland by combining Merton’s functional analysis with Levitt’s work on social remittances. In addition to economic remittances, Polish migrants have been bringing norms, values, practices and social capital to their communities of origin since the end of the nineteenth century. The article presents a juxtaposition of the non-material effects of earlier migration from Poland, dating from the turn of the twentieth century, with those of the contemporary era of migration from Poland since the 1990s. The analysis shows that some aspects, such as negotiating gender roles, the changing division of household labour, individualistic lifestyles, new skills and sources of social capital, and changing economic rationalities are constantly being transferred by migrants from destination to origin communities. Contemporary digital tools facilitate these transfers and contribute to changing norms and practices in Polish society. The article demonstrates that migration fulfils specific functions for particular sections of Polish society by replacing some functions of the communist state (e.g., cash assistance and loans from communist factories, factory and post-coop cultures) and by facilitating their adaptation to changing conditions (e.g., changing gender relations, new models of family, job aspirations and social mobility).

3

Social Remittances from the Professional Diaspora: The Issue of Home-Country Receptivity

88%

Nevinskaitė L.

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tom 5

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nr 2

135-153

EN

This article deals with the issue of home-country receptivity towards social remittances from the professional diaspora. Social remittances from the highly skilled depend on a favourable context for knowledge and skills transfer in their home countries, a context that could be summarised by the term ‘country receptivity’. This article is based on the case of Lithuania. The data comes from a series of semi-structured interviews with members of the skilled diaspora and representatives of institutions that are involved in programmes targeted at the diaspora. The analysis reveals several groups of obstacles to successful knowledge and skills transfer that may be understood as issues of country receptivity: mistrust of government by diaspora members, expressed as a belief that it is not interested in results and thus involvement of the diaspora, but rather in pursuing particular political objectives; lack of openness towards other experiences (unwillingness of institutions at different levels and in various fields to open up to new opinions, approaches and experiences brought by Lithuanians from abroad); bureaucratic and institutional impediments (inability of institutions to adapt their procedures in the interests of cooperation; slowness and ineffectiveness when dealing with requests or reacting to initiatives from the diaspora); and a perceived negative opinion (unwelcoming attitude) in society towards Lithuanians from abroad. The interviews also provide some tentative evidence of a ‘feedback loop’, through which the involvement of the diaspora causes changes in the home-country institutions. In the discussion part of the article, possible causes and implications of these obstacles are considered.

4

‘I Don’t Want This Town to Change’: Resistance, Bifocality and the Infra-Politics of Social Remittances

88%

Garapich M. P.

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tom 5

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nr 2

155-166

EN

The process of social remitting is complex and multilayered, and involves numerous social actors that at each stage face several choices. By definition, the process of socially remitting ideas, codes of behaviour and practices starts with the migrants themselves and their social context in the destination country. This paper focuses on the as yet unexplored issue of resistance performed and articulated by migrants confronted with potential change influenced by social remittances and the generalised process of diffusion. Faithful to the understanding of social remittances as ultimately a process where individual agency is the crucial determinant, the article follows the ideas, practices and values travelling across the transnational social field between Britain and various localities in Poland. Resistance to change and new ways of doing things is a continuous dialogical process within one culture’s power field, which is understood here in anthropological terms as a porous, open-ended field of competing meanings and discourses. Notions of bifocality, infra-politics of power relations and resistance are an important aspect of remittances and their reinterpretations, and resistance to social remittances by migrants, both in their destinations and in their communities of origin, is a crucial component of the whole process without which our understanding of remittances is incomplete.

5

Social Remittances and Social Change in Central and Eastern Europe: Embedding Migration in the Study of Society

88%

White A. , Grabowska I.

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nr 1

33-50

EN

Our article considers social remittances and social change in Central and Eastern Europe. We show how migration scholarship can be embedded into the wider study of social processes and relations. ‘Social remitting’ sometimes seems to be little more than a slippery catchphrase; however, this article defends the concept. If it is defined carefully and used cautiously, it should help the researcher to think about what, in addition to money, is sent from one society to another and exactly how, thus shedding light on important and insufficiently studied aspects of migration. A close-up view of the processes by which ideas, practices, norms, values and, according to some definitions, social capital and social skills are transferred by migrants across international borders helps researchers to understand more precisely how migration contributes to social change or, in some cases, prevents it from occurring. Our article reviews some of the most interesting arguments and findings presented recently by other scholars and discusses aspects of social remitting which particularly interested us in our own research. The context of our research is social change in Poland: we attempt to understand how migration has contributed to wider patterns of social change since 1989 and exactly how it intertwines with other social trends and globalisation influences. This entails a careful focus on both structural conditions and agency and therefore on social remittances.