RESEARCH PROPOSAL



HESP Regional Seminars for Excellence in Teaching

Teaching Anthropology: Means and Meanings

RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Team research coordinator: Razvan Stan

Students to be involved:

Paul Cengher

Raluca Dumitrescu

Adina Elena Faraon

Olteanu Ana Maria Iuliana

Title: International Labour Migration from Neamt Romanian Region to Italy. Causes, Means and Socio-economic Consequences of Migration from a High-rate Sending Community

Introduction:

The post-communist Romanian transition to market economy led to a deindustrialization process of national proportions that was encountered by a reduction of real salaries and living standards for many Romanian citizens as well as by an increase in unemployment rate. On this background and as a result of the EU lifting visa requirement, the practice of temporary work abroad increasingly became an adaptive strategy for Romanian citizens.

This exploratory research aims to contribute to a qualitative understanding of causes, means and effects of labour migration through an anthropological fieldwork in a high rate sending region from Neamt County (Eastern Romanian region). At national level, Neamt County could be singled out because of the highest rate of international migration. According to Public Opinion Barometer (OSF, 2004), 30% of the citizens from this county have at least one family member working abroad in the last year. These data point to a migration rate more than three-fold the national average (9%). Neamt County also remarks through its unemployment rate which is much higher than the national average amounting to 18.5%.

Specific objectives and research questions:

• To identify the main migration patterns from the selected sending community (permanent/ temporary/ cyclical; legal / illegal)

• To explore several migration networks and the role they have in supporting the labour migration strategies (type, structure, dynamics, mechanisms)

The approach of the migration process will be mainly made at the relational level, of the organizations and social networks, without leaving aside the contribution of the structural opportunities and the structural restrictions, and the individual resources[1]. Relational level “concerns networks of social interactions that distribute resources such as money, give advice on transportation and job opportunities, channel information, or even provide emotional support.”[2].

The research will attempt to identify both institutional (public or private labour mediating actors) and informal (kinship, community or friendship based) channels, both legal and illegal (smuggling) migration networks.

• To assess the socio-economic changes brought by international labour migration at personal, family and sending community levels.

Does migration lead to workers’ exploitation, to family disorganization and dependence, and to community aging? Does it lead to personal, family and community well-being through the investment of remittances, through the transfer of skills and experience acquired abroad and through the construction of trans-national networks?

Research methodology

The research methodology will articulate several methods, sources and perspectives. The complex and less accessible nature of the migration networks needs to be approached thoroughly, and from an anthropological point of view. Unstructured and semi-structured interviews with migrants and their families will allow the identification of the structure and mechanisms of these networks. The interviews will approach the migration experiences as case histories and will attempt to identify the changes in the labour migration strategies. The access to other labour migrants will be made through the “snow-ball” method and will be based on the information provided in the previous interviews. In practical terms, the field research will attempt to identify several migration networks and to “follow” these networks.

This study will also attempt to complementarily investigate the perspectives of several stakeholders from local public institutions as well as of private and public mediating agents. The analysis of statistical population and employment data would provide a good structural context for understanding migration.

Expected results:

Although it will rather be an exploratory research, because of time and resource constraints, this study aims to contribute to a better understanding of international labour migration of East European workers as well as of the consequences it brings back on the sending communities. This phenomenon is still understudied, in spite of its extent and social impact.

Besides, this study will be designed as a didactic research. The students that will be involved in all the stages of this research will learn how to design an anthropological study, will receive methodological training through direct involvement in to field and coordination, will have the opportunity to find connections between theory and practice, and will acquire better data-analysis, interpretation and writing skills. Two of the students already plan to write their BA thesis on international migration and this research will provide them the opportunity to better frame their subjects and to have a good start.

Selected bibliography:

Brettell, C. B. “Theorizing Migration in Anthropology. The Social Construction of Networks, Identities, Communities, and Globalscapes”, in Brettell, C. (Ed.). Migration Theory. London: Routledge, 2000.

Caglar, A. ‘”Citizenship Light”: Transnational Ties, Multiple Rules of Membership, and the “Pink Card”‘, In: J. Friedman and S. Randeria (eds). Worlds on the Move: Globalisation, Migration and Cultural Security. London : I. B. Tauris, 2004.

Faist, T. “Sociological theories of international south to north migration: the missing meso-link” in ZeS-Arbeitspapier, Nr.17, 1995, Centre for Social Policy research, University of Bremen.

Kalb, D. “Afterword. Globalism and Postsocialist Prospects”, in Hann, C. M. (ed.), Postsocialism. Ideals, Ideologies and Practices in Eurasia, London: Routledge, 2002.

Kearney, M., “The Local and the Global: The Anthropology of Globalization and Transnationalism” in Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, 1995.

Massey, D. S. et. al. “Theories of International Migration: A review and Appraisal” in Population and Development Review, 19,3, 1993.

Marcus, G. E. “Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography”, in Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, 1995.

Roseberry, W. "Multiculturalism and the Challenge of Anthropology", in Social Research, 59,4, 1992.

Verdery, K. What Was Socialism and What Comes Next? Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.

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[1] Faist, T. "Sociological theories of international south to north migration: the missing meso-link", ZeS-Arbeitspapier, Nr. 17, 1995, Centre for Social Policy research, University of Brehmen., p 24.

[2] Idem, p 25.

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