Overcoming the crisis : the changing profile and trajectories of Latvian migrants
The work was funded by the National Research Programme [grant number 5.2.4] and the Latvian Council of Sciences [grant number 514/2012]. Taking mobility between Latvia and Western Europe as an empirical lens, this analysis explores the complex relationship between spatial disparities in earning potential and migration. The very dramatic shifts in the economic and political context against which migration from Latvia has occurred over the period 2004-2012 make it an especially apposite focus of research investigating the link between mobility and labour market circumstances. As an analytical starting point, conventional economic theory broadly explains the movement of workers from lower to h…
Distinctive and comparative places: Alternative narratives of distinction within international student mobility
Moving beyond the ‘world-class’ institutional model of international student mobility, this paper examines alternative narratives of distinction relating to place of study. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with international students at universities in the UK, Austria and Latvia, we illustrate how students inside and outside mainstream reputable higher education institutions narrate and reconfigure markers of distinction to validate their international mobility and location of study, in part to compete with peers at other (more prestigious) institutions. We demonstrate the importance of lifestyle and experiential places within a global differentiated higher education landscape and argu…
Recruitment through migrant social networks from Latvia to the United Kingdom: Motivations, processes and developments
A burgeoning body of literature exists in relation to the role of social networks in connecting migrant workers with employment opportunities, particularly in lower wage jobs. This evidence points to social networks being an attractive recruitment channel from the perspective of both migrants seeking employment and employers seeking employees. This analysis presents a wide breadth of original material, which examines recruitment through social networks from the perspective of both migrants and employers. This includes data drawn from an extensive mixed methods approach involving a novel online survey of Latvian migrants in the UK and face-to-face interviews with British low-wage employers. …
Rethinking Labour Migration Channels: the Experience of Latvia from EU Accession to Economic Recession
With the onset of recession in the UK in 2008, it was assumed that immigration from other European Union countries would decline. However, this has been shown to not be the case, with the volume of new arrivals from most of the East-Central European ‘Accession 8’ countries actually increasing. The focus of this paper is Latvia, a country that had a relatively buoyant economy following its accession to the European Union in 2004 but that now has one of the highest unemployment and emigration rates in Europe. Interviews carried out with labour providers, policymakers, and employers are used to examine the labour migration channels that reflect and structure labour migration flows from Latvia …
The role of recruitment agencies in imagining and producing the ‘good’ migrant
This paper focuses on representations of labour migrants and interrogates how such imaginaries shape migrant recruitment and employment regimes. The recruitment and employment of labour migrants inevitably involves a range of knowledge practices that affect who is recruited, from where and for what purposes. In particular, this paper seeks to advance understandings of how images of ‘bodily goodness’ are represented graphically and how perceptions of migrant workers influence the recruitment of workers to the UK from Latvia. The research described in this paper is based on interviews with recruitment agencies, employers and policy makers carried out in Latvia in 2011. The analysis results in…