Migrants as Agents of Change

Social Remittances in an Enlarged European Union

Izabela Grabowska, Agnieszka Radziwinowiczówna, Michał P. Garapich, Ewa Jaźwińska

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781137590657
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137590664
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Social Sciences

This book offers a unique and innovative way of looking at the paradoxical consequences of human mobility. Based on a three-year transnational multi-sited longitudinal research project, it demonstrates that not all migrants acquire, transfer and implement social remittances in the same way. Whilst the circulation of ideas, norms and practices is an important aspect of modernity, acts of resistance, imitation and innovation mean that whilst some migrants become ordinary agents of social change in their local microcosms, others may contest that change. By putting this individual agency centre stage, the authors trace how social remittances are evolving, and the ambiguous impact that they have on society. This thought-provoking work will appeal to students and scholars of sociology, geography and anthropology.

Table of contents

• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Charts
• List of Maps
• 1: Introduction: Social Remittances and “Hand-Made” Change by Migrants
• 2: Process of Transfer of Social Remittances in the European Union
• 3: Transnational Multisited Qualitative Longitudinal Research in Investigating Social Remittances and Change
• 4: Researched Communities in Poland and in the UK: Transnational Spaces of Diffusion and Social Remittances
• 5: Observing, Acquiring, Resisting: Migrants’ Agency in the Web of Social Remittances
• 6: Collective Outcomes of Social Remittances: Reactions of Local Communities (Acceptance and Resistance)
• 7: Migrants as Agents of Micro Social Changes
• 8: Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Index