migration and migration narratives in the era of globalization

Migration and Migration Narrativesin the Era of Globalization

ATTILA MELEGH

Introduction1

Globalization has been a major new phase in the history of world capitalismwhich, directly and indirectly, has had a major impact on internationalmigration. Globalization is not an absolutely new phase of development, buta new cycle in the history of world capitalism. Previous systematicrelationships between migration and the functioning of the world system havenot been changed substantially (Chase-Dunn, 1999). In the early 1980s andlate 1970s, globalization as a new discursive and social order based on theintegrity of the global financial system and the conditions for transnationalcorporate capitalism ended a historic epoch, a period based on the competitionof capitalist and socialist modernization projects organized in the frameworkof nation-states and their block alliances like the Comecon and EEC (Melegh,2006a). This change was not just a phenomenon effecting the so-called West,but also the ‘socialist world’ too, due to its strong connections with worldcapitalism (McMichael, 2000). We can even say that the socialist experimentended as a result of the penetration of capitalism into the economic system ofcentrally planned economies and the related social arrangements. In thesedramatic changes migration played an important role, as the movement ofpeople was a direct factor in the rearrangement of global power structures.(On globalization and migration, see among others: Staring in Kalb et al.,2000; Sassen, 1996, 1999, 2001; Orozco, 2002; Mittelman, 2000; Lutz,2002; Phizacklea in Koser and Lutz, 1998; Okólski, 1999; Forsander, 2002;Böröcz, 2002; Melegh, 2003; Baumann, 1996; Beck, 2000; Appadurai,1996.)

The key point is that world capitalism, as it emerged in the early modernperiod, has always been a hierarchical system in which different areas of theworld have been configured into core areas, semi-peripheral areas andperipheries. The aim of this article is to show how migration operates withinsuch a system, or rather within the hierarchical system which re-emerged in

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eastern Europe from the 1980s when East European state socialism firstdecomposed and was then replaced by a certain pattern of capitalist economywith very low saving rates and a high dependence on foreign investment. Inother words, our concern is with migration and migration narratives asindividual reflections on such life-changing events in East European countrieswhich have been reintegrated into the hierarchical system of world capitalismwhich they partially left during the state socialist period. The concrete majorissues for us are the following:

• As a new phase of world capitalism, globalization is a powerful macro-structure increasing global inequality and hierarchy. It is linked tomigration. We must then consider the different links between themovement of capital and labour.

• Under the auspices of the state and capital, class, race/ethnicity and genderas a combined power structure contain the room for manoeuvre formigrants.

• How do macro and micro structures formulate the life course and the life-course perspective of migrants?

Reintegrating Eastern Europe into Global Hierarchies 1981–2001

The late history of state socialism can be told as a gradual reintegration ofplanned economies into the capitalist world system under the East–Westcivilizational ideological umbrella. Financial and international debt linkswere established between state-socialist systems and the ‘world economy’ inthe context of the energy crisis of the 1970s, which then led to market-oriented reforms and ‘dual dependency’ of smaller East European countries(Böröcz, 1999). In this respect the change in the global political economy(from a modernizationist political economic scenario based on the nation-stateto globalization and the dominance of financial aspects) provides the propercontext for understanding the fall of socialism.

As Figure 1 clearly indicates, all East European states suffered a severeeconomic crisis between 1989 and at least 1996. In this period, the key pointis that it led to a major collapse and restructuring of the state socialisteconomy, especially industry. This collapse ‘freed’ a lot of employees,especially in the ‘countryside’, and some of the local communities startedbuilding up migratory networks in order to secure casual labour either in theWest (the most eastern border in this respect Romania, western Ukraine andMoldova) or in the East, namely Russia.

The East–West border can be clearly located around Ukraine, Moldova and

MIGRATION NARRATIVES IN THE ERA OF GLOBALIZATION 375


Romania. They are the countries which are at the bottom of the league (atleast during the 1990s, early 2000s) as inequalities in gross domestic productwiden. In the 1980s, there were gaps between the state-socialist economiesbut these gaps have increased, and it seems that these countries are on a gradual,differentiated ‘slope’ of economic well-being. East European countries have beenreintegrated into a hierarchical slope of world capitalism, which has also beenclearly reflected on the ideological construct of an East–West slope (Melegh2006a).

Global and Local Inequality Versus Migration from 1995

The above described differentiation is almost directly linked to migration. Forthe sake of the reintegration of the state-socialist economies’ industries, hugegroups of people have been ‘abandoned’, some of whom have become involvedin transnational migration. Countries like Hungary, the Czech Republic,Slovakia and Poland (which are also countries of emigration) have becometargets of immigrants coming from Ukraine, Russia, Romania and even from

376 THE LONG MARCH TO THE WEST

Source: World Development Indicators, World Bank, 2003.

3174 Long March to the West 16/4/07 2:55 pm 76

further east (China, Vietnam). Migration is an extremely complexphenomenon and historical links are crucial of course, but it seems that globalinequality plays a major role in this, and thus the reintegration of easternEurope into a more differentiated global capitalist hierarchy has been a majorengine of migration.

We can illustrate this with the relationship between Romania andHungary, two countries bound together historically. As Figure 2 illustrates, inHungary with regard to Romanian citizens the immigrating population(flow) and labour permit follow changes of GDP differences.

Local inequality is not to be to be separated from global inequalities, andwith the more intensive integration of local economies into global capitalismthere are certain patterns which influence local regional patterns of migration.As it has been pointed out above, East European economies are very dependenton foreign capital, especially on the ruins of the state-socialist economieswhich have collapsed due to the reintegration into global hierarchies.

As can be shown in the case of Hungary (a rather small and homogenouscountry), foreign subscribed capital and the regional distribution of residentinternational migrants are strongly related, even if the link is not withoutcomplications. The central region with the highest per capita foreignsubscribed capital is the region in which international migrants reside in thehighest ratios compared to the resident non-migrant population. None theless, there are regions in which migrants are not so numerous but foreigncapital is heavily invested and vice versa. Thus capital and migration aredefinitely related to each other, and we can even argue that the local


Source: Central Statistical Office, Budapest, Hungary.


consequences of global inequalities are also a structural factor in internationalmigration in eastern Europe.

But global inequalities also appear in other ways in immigration patternsin eastern Europe (Melegh, 2003). Looking at the immigrating population interms of occupational structure with regard to resident migrants and work-permit holders, we can also observe the consequences of global inequalities. Acountry like Hungary receives low-skilled and deskilled labour migrants fromthe East (Ukraine, Romania) or, in a special niche of the global/local economy,the Chinese diaspora. From the West, a kind of a secondary elite comes andresides in eastern Europe, often with the aim of buying property, looking formarriage partners, or seeking job opportunities. Central Europe is a meetingplace for these different migrant groups, even if they rarely meet physically.

Cognitive Mechanisms and Migration

Public Discourses in Central and Eastern Europe: Hierarchical Imagination in aHierarchical World

Migrants are put into a web of discourses and motivated by them. Discourses


Figure 3. Regional distribution of foreign subscribed capital and foreignresidents in Hungary in 2001 on a sub-regional level (per 1,000 people).

Source: Regional database of the Central Statistical Office, 2001.


are major centres of power in the sense that they provide interpretativeframeworks for social action and identities. Migrants are especially vulnerable,in the sense that they move from one area to another and they must adapt todifferent discourses. With regard to eastern Europe, the most importantcognitive shift, related to changes in the political economy, is that from theearly 1980s the geopolitical and geo-cultural imagination has been recapturedby the idea of a ‘civilizational’ or East/West slope, providing the maininterpretative framework for reorganizing international and socio-politicalregimes in the eastern part of the European continent. In this radical‘normalization’ and ‘transition’ process, almost all political and social actors in‘East’ and ‘West’ identify themselves on a descending scale from ‘civilizationto barbarism’, from ‘developed to non-developed’ status. This discursivestructure appears in very different forms and areas of knowledge, and isutilized by very different speakers ranging from the European Union torestaurant owners and migrants (Melegh, 2006a). This idea of an East/Westslope has a major impact on the perception and management of migration.Migrants are perceived and perceive themselves as who is coming from where,and in which direction, on the slope. The migrant, and in this respect thereceiving social self, is constructed in the web of different perspectives on theslope. The identity and the life-course perspective of migrants is a reallyinventive work, as migrant individuals must find ways in which they canlegitimate themselves in the web of different perspectives hierarchicallyrelated to each other (Melegh, 2006b; Hegyesi and Melegh, 2003).

This hierarchical imagination can be seen very clearly in the followingcaricature on labour migrants from the ‘East’ to Hungary.


‘Before we go to work, both of us should sing our own national anthem’(2001, Magyar Nemzet)


The context of this caricature was allowing Romanian citizens to work inHungary irrespective of ethnicity. The hierarchy is very clear in contrasting a‘clean’ and hard-working Hungarian peasant (an identity which does not existany more in post-communist society) to a drunken, badly dressed Romanianrural figure. Migrants are supposed to counterbalance in their legitimacystrategies such hierarchical images.

Hierarchical imagination also appears in narratives of migrants when theypresent their life-story (Kovács and Melegh, 2001, 2004) The most importantpoint is that there are only a limited amount of patterns which migrants findlegitimate in presenting their life-story. Among these patterns, they rarely useassimilation or even integration perspectives, even though these are a majorrequirement of the ‘civilized’ receiving countries in their own discourses onmigration. Instead they suffer in retelling stories of subordination,suppression and traumas.

One of the most important findings is that migrants (men and womenalike) present their migration story in a passive manner, that is to say, as being‘taken’ to the target country which is a major sign of social and culturaloppression. Also they often ‘rediscover’ their ethnic origin, and in thenarrations they actively work on presenting an ethnic identity which they didnot have before migration. Thus we can see that the ‘fundamentalism’ ofmigrants is a post-migration creation (interaction between migrants and hostsocieties) and not something originally taken from the sending society. It isimportant to note that they often struggle to present a refugee story, since itis probably the only legitimate way of self-presentation in European societies.If they succeed in presenting themselves as refugees, then they can give amuch more active impression of themselves. None the less, subordination alsoappears in the reporting on the fight against discrimination and very importantly in‘paper narratives’ in which they organize their life-story according to sagas of gaininglegitimate status in the host society.

Conclusion

European discourses on migration are extremely simplified, in the sense thatmigrants are seen as guests whom it is necessary to select. The above articleshows that with regard to eastern Europe, such political discourses aremisleading, as migration is a complex phenomenon which is driven by majorchanges in the global political economy (an interplay between global/localcapital, the state and the migrant and their sending society). In our analysis,we therefore must see the whole picture, or else, out of sheer political will, wewill not only miss important points but will actually push migrants into thea position of a semi-criminal, semi-civilized person who wants to disturb us.



Taking a more macroscopic perspective, and also looking at the relatedindividual struggles of migrants, we are able to settle some of the emergingcultural and social conflicts which increasingly ‘unsettle’ European societies.

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NOTE

1 Parts of this article have already been published in Melegh (2006b). They have been re-edited andsubstantially revised for this article.



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