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FROM GÓRALU CZY CI NIE ŻAL... TO TRANSNATIONAL MIGRANTS. THE CONSEQUENCES OF CHANGING THE PARADIGM OF EMIGRATION
Rafał CEKIERA1
Human Life – Transformations of Culture
Publication language: Polish
Journal article
Transformations No. 3-4 (70-71) 2011, Publication date: 17 October 2011
Abstract Modern migration processes are part of the increased mobility that comes from institutional transformations, the evaluation of new communication sources and also from the ensemble of globalization processes. The traditional understanding of an emigrant’s status used to be defined as the necessity of their assimilation and was associated, to a greater or lesser extent, with breaking ties with an emigrant’s socio-cultural background. Modern emigrants are often functioning (either alternating or through virtual communication) in the country of their origin and their country of residence, existing in those two social areas simultaneously. Change of context within modern migration, creates lots of new opportunities and levels down the trauma that used to be a permanent part of the migration process. Migrating overseas is no longer seen as a final decision, it is just one of the successive stages of one’s individual biography. However such situations can result in an emigrant being suspended between two social spaces and living in a state of permanent temporariness. Following the experience of post-accession polish migrants, this article presents the ambivalence associated with functioning in a transnational space of living.
Wydział Nauk Społecznych Uniwersytetu Śląskiego w Katowicach
E-mail: rcekiera@wp.pl