Europeanisation, National Identities and Migration ... - europeanization

Migration and cultural diversification 105
by this labour migration are, for instance, suburban neighbourhoods near the small
town of Siemiatycze where comfortable houses with swimming pools mushroom,
supplemented with garages equipped with automatic doors (Romaniszyn 1999a:
94). The observed phenomenon is far from being modern or unique, the evidences
of ‘dissemination’ of work, housing, or dress patterns, etc., from the receiving to the
sending regions as a result of return migration have been reported in literature
(Gabaccia 1994). For instance, at the turn of nineteenth and twentieth centuries
‘baggage from America consisted not only of money, or tools, or seeds but also
of ideas’, as well as clothes, food, and new customs and words (Wyman 1993: 150,
182). In effect, ‘the “American houses” . . . sprang up like mushrooms after a rain’,
‘seeds carried back...produced plants that were new and impressive to neighbors
. . . so tobacco plants thrived in Norwegian soil, tomatoes in Finland, and lettuce
in Ireland’ (ibid. 128, 141). Today, of course, the diffusion of consumption, and
other cultural patterns does not result from immigration basically and exclusively,
but tourism and mass media also significantly add to ‘the migration’ of lifestyles, the
styles of consumption or new ideas. As shown by the examples discussed, the impact
of the immigrant entrepreneurs, the ‘inflow’ of a new organisational culture brought
in by the newcomers, and the importation of foreign consumption patterns by
returning migrants, altogether influence and reshape the economic culture of the
society involved, diversifying this sphere.
Also, the social culture, understood as a realm of social relations, roles and
statuses, does not remain ‘immune’ to the influences stemming from the international
migration. First, changes can be traced in the sphere of interpersonal
contacts between the newcomers and the host society’s members. Immigrants
who stay and work in the recipient country come into contact with its citizens
and institutions. The interpersonal contacts between the newcomers and the
indigenous people sometimes dismantle barriers of ignorance and indifference,
bring the members of the two societies and cultures closer together, and, hence,
link the involved societies (Romaniszyn 1999b: 127). In fact these people take
on the role of contact-builders between the sending and receiving societies, who
create and maintain social ties across boundaries with persons met in the migration
country. This not only broadens the landscapes (Schama 1995) rendered familiar
to immigrants, but also works towards bridging the gap between the sending and
the receiving communities involved. Furthermore, these interpersonal contacts
may further support the establishment or development of the migratory networks
that augment, direct, and structure the subsequent inflows (as mentioned earlier).
Second, international migration may affect the role and status changes within the
migrant family, sending community, and even wider society. An excellent example
is provided by recent, intensified migration of women. 5 It has the potential to
improve migrant women’s status within the household, and within the wider society
by providing them with opportunities to earn their own income, and by weakening
traditional patriarchal authority. To some extent this potential advantage of
migration may be hindered by the nature of the work in which the migrant women
are engaged. When that work is low paid and involves poor working conditions
with little prospect of upward mobility, it is unlikely to lead to an improvement in