Central and Eastern European Migration Review

The article explores the connections between social, political, economic and ethnic processes in the Ukrainian-Romanian borderland. The aim is to describe how borderlanders work out strategies to overcome the contradictions inherent in the state border. The study is based on ethnographical fieldwork (participant and non-participant observation) conducted in a small town, a former mining centre, in the region of Transcarpathia in Western Ukraine. I point to the political changes in the late 20th and early 21st centuries (the collapse of the Soviet bloc and Ukraine neighbours’ integration in the European Union) and their impact on local social life. The crucial aspect, linked to the town’s geographical setting, is the role of the state border, which changes in accordance with the political changes in the region and in Europe. First, the collapse of the communist dictatorships in Ukraine and Romania resulted in the opening of the border and an increase in cross-border contacts. However, in the first decade of the 21st century, Romania tightened its passport and visa regulations for Ukrainian citizens. Another factor is the complete disintegration of the mining industry and local labour market, resulting in significant changes in occupational patterns and a greater role of the border in respect of labour migration and shuttle trade. I also acknowledge local ethnic composition and argue that the use of ethno-national symbolism, languages, relations between ethnic minorities and their ‘external homelands’ constitute an inherent element of the strategies to overcome the lack of regular employment and poverty.

The paper deals with the importance of neighbourhood ties in the social networks of circular migrants. While existing research shows that social networks constitute a crucial element in the process of circular migration, not much is known about the extent to which these networks are territorialised. The paper discusses this issue by analysing the case of Ukrainian migrants in Warsaw and its suburbs, who are close to the receiving society in both cultural and geographic terms and thus make this group a unique case compared to immigrants travelling to Europe from more distant places. The analyses are based on data collected in a survey on Ukrainian migrants carried out in 2010 by the Centre of Migration Research, University of Warsaw, with the help of Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS). The studied sample consists of 342 respondents with different duration of migration from Ukraine to Poland. The paper argues that neighbourhood ties do not play an important role in the social capital and mobility patterns of Ukrainian circular migrants. The social relations of migrants are formed through ethnic and kinship ties, which are not related to a specific local area. The analyses also confirm earlier findings which show that Ukrainian migrants do not tend to concentrate spatially in the Warsaw metropolitan area, but which do point to the existence of small ethnic clusters. However, these seem to be determined by structural factors such as the availability of flats rather than individual preferences to live close to co-ethnics, which altogether suggests that there is a limited potential for local community formation among Ukrainian migrants.

The aim of the article is to provide a brief overview of current labour migration from Ukraine to the Czech Republic and to explore the degree to which Ukrainian labour migrants utilise their skills on the Czech labour market. The analysis, using internal statistical data from the Czech Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and evidence from specific migrant surveys, is focused on the relationship between the formal education of economically active Ukrainian migrants and their position on the Czech labour market, and the extent to which there is an educational–occupational mismatch. The article analyses the factors that might influence the match between jobs and formal education and the position of Ukrainian migrants in the labour market. Analysis of the educational background of Ukrainian respondents does not seem to support the popular stereotype of the average Ukrainian as a university-educated construction-site worker or a cleaner, primarily due to the fact that the Czech Republic does not only attract well-educated Ukrainian migrants. Nevertheless, a comparison of the educational and occupational structures of Ukrainian migration does provide evidence of a significant waste of human capital.

This article investigates the phenomenon of Ukrainian migrant women employed in the domestic and care sector in Italy. The analysis is based on a broad doctoral research carried out both in Ukraine and in Italy between 2005 and 2007. In particular, I investigate the subjective perception of downward mobility and how migrant women face this process of social devaluation and respond to it, taking into account that, in the case of Ukrainian female migration, the social skidding produced by migration goes hand in hand with the erosion of social and professional identity as experienced in their origin country during the 1990s. Thus, in order to comprehend the complexity of migration experiences it is necessary to analyse the migrants' whole life trajectories. The main results of the article are that Ukrainian migrant women give meaning to the process of devaluation by viewing it as an interlude in their life and as a sacrifice that serves to improve their families’ upward social mobility. Furthermore, in order to mitigate the social skidding and the asymmetrical relationships that characterise domestic work, they prefer to personalise the relationship with their employers and to avoid working for low educated and working class people. Finally, Ukrainian domestic workers react to the homogenisation engendered by migration by differentiating themselves both from other foreign nationals employed in the same sector, and from the ‘rough mass’ of their fellow countrywomen.

In recent years, the concept of transnationalism has become one of the main analytical tools used to assess the mobility patterns of Central and Eastern European populations. This work studies the transnational activities of Ukrainian immigrants in Spain. It examines three areas of transnational behaviour: travelling to the country of origin, the frequency of non-direct contact with the communities of origin and remittances. Our objective is to examine how gender, legal status and type of family unit (multilocal/non-multilocal) affect the frequency and extent of transnational activities. Most of the statistical data presented in this article come from the National Immigrant Survey (ENI-2007) conducted by the National Institute of Statistics (Spain). The study confirms that family ties play a crucial role in establishing and maintaining links between countries of origin and destination. It also reveals that the legal status of Ukrainian immigrants in Spain has a great impact on patterns of transnational behaviour. In this sense, it is evident that institutional factors must be included in analyses of migratory processes from a transnational perspective.