The Role of Social Capital in Labour-Related Migrations: the Polish Example
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The Role of Social Capital in Labour-Related Migrations: the Polish Example Justyna Łukaszewska-Bezulska 1 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract This article addresses the relationships between international labour-related migrations and social capital in two ethnically heterogeneous local communities, outstanding by their inhabitants’ high degree of spatial mobility. On the basis of the observations performed and in-depth interviews with migrants and experts, social networks built by the inhabitants were analysed, with particular attention paid to migration networks, and the meaning and role of social capital in the inhabitants of cultural borderlands’ migrations, especially in the areas of migrants’ lives such as job seeking, living together and dealing with difficulties, were discussed. It has been demonstrated that the international labour-related migrations influence the quality and type of social capital present in the ethnically heterogeneous local communities at cultural borderlands, although the direction and force of this impact are not equivocal and depend most of all on the strength and quality of primary ties in the migrants’ community of origin, i.e. if the community was rich in the social capital resources, migrations may contribute to its growth, while for communities deficient in this resource, migrations may cause its continued diminishing. Keywords Migration . Migration networks . Ethnic minorities . Social capital
Introduction Local communities have been the subject of sociological analysis since its inception. This topic was dealt with by, among others, classics such as F. Tönnies (1887), E. Durkheim (1893) and R. Park (1929). Nevertheless, there are still areas that require indepth scientific analysis. One of these areas is the interaction between international economic migrations and social capital, especially at cultural borderlands. According to
* Justyna Łukaszewska-Bezulska [email protected]
1
Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, University of Warsaw, Krakowskie Przedmieście Str. 26/28, 00-927 Warsaw, Poland
Łukaszewska-Bezulska J.
the researchers, many sociological aspects of migration cannot be captured except through the study of local communities. It is not only the intensity of emigration in different localities that varies, but also its types (Chałasiński 1936). With regard to the above words, the influence of international labour migrations on the formation and the shape of local social capital on cultural borderlands have been made the subject of the article. The key objective of this paper will be to demonstrate mutual interactions between spatial mobility of a population and social capital. The fact that the analyses will be conducted on the example of culturally diverse communities will make it possible to identify different types of the studied resource and its imponderables. The issue of migration is very important for Poland. Since the opening of the labour market following Poland joining the European Union, Poland experienced a mass migration, which
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