Migration Processes in Central and Eastern Europe - Multiple Choices

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Introduction
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08
continued cross-border mobility in spite of the visas.
Indeed, Radu's account of the Eastern European border
region indicates that the so called “sealing of the eastern
borders” (Lavenex, 2001: 30) which has accompanied the
expansion of the European Union is not happening in an
uncontested and a straightforward manner.
Neda Deneva's article focuses on the four
migratory pathways of the Bulgarian Muslim population of
the village of Ribnovo. Through the comparison of internal
and international migration she questions the takenfor-granted
significance, and analytical usefulness, that is
often attached to crossing of national borders.
She shows how social networks sustain the (re)production
of the ethnic, religious and other ties of belonging and
imaging of community when living and working outside
the village. The author concludes that the specific situations
in which migrants find themselves can be better analysed
when focusing on intersections between the type of work
and living conditions rather than attaching the crucial
importance to the national borders which migrants may or
may not have crossed. Deneva focuses on a category of
“Bulgarian Muslims” originating from a rural area rather
than on “Bulgarians” which helps us to analytically move
beyond the assumptions of “methodological nationalism”
(see Glick-Schiller and Wimmer 2002).
Jan Černík, in turn, looks at the role of intermediaries
(“clients”) and other actors in the so called client
system, the dominant mode of organisation of temporary
labour migration from Ukraine, Moldova and other
post-Soviet countries to the Czech Republic. At a time
of heightened political concern about this issue in the
Czech Republic, he argues that a policy response needs
to be based on the understanding of both its local and
external causes. By decomposing the client system into
its constituent elements, Černík provides a convincing
analysis of the rise of a particular type of organisation of
labour relations describing how the restrictions that came
with the 1999 Foreigners' Act and the new visa policy
introduced by the Czech Republic towards some Eastern
European countries, did not result in a rational and orderly
regulation of migration. Conversely, he argues that the
regulations led to the institutionalisation of exploitation
and pushed migrants to the spheres of organised crime.
The diverse three and a half borders around and
within Moldova itself are at the centre of analysis of
Daniela Gut‚u. She demonstrates their differing impacts on
people's mobility at the margins of the European Union.
Not only is it difficult for Moldovans to obtain a Schengen
visa as their country is on the EU's “black list”, but also
many of the embassies are not even situated in Chisinau,
Moldova's capital. Therefore, a Moldovan citizen may
need to first receive a visa to enter one country so they
could then apply for the visa of the desired country of
destination. In the future, the Moldovan-Romanian border
will be a border of the EU, which has only added to the
concerns about border control as well as political and
economic stability in Moldova and especially regarding the
self-proclaimed republic of Transnistria. The author points
out how vital it is for the development of Moldova that the
borders with the EU countries do not become “sealed”.
MIGRATION THROUGH GENDER,
AGE AND CLASS PERSPECTIVES
Articles in this section originated in one panel
of the workshop. It was organised around the idea that
gender, together with class, ethnicity and age, intervene in
migrants' social networks and practices in ways that can
both facilitate and constrain their migration opportunities
and effect the way they construct their lives while abroad.
The authors of the articles fitted well into the overall
framework of the panel. What is more, they broadened
it and added new perspectives from which this theme
can be examined. Each of the articles studies migration
and the impact on societies of both departure and arrival
from a different perspective.
Ramona Lenz analyses discursive representations
of Eastern European female sex workers in Cyprus within
the framework of nationalism and its gendered nature.
The perspective of the “receiving society” is crucial for
her argument about the role of migrant women within
the Cyprian construction of the nation, family and the idea
of “useful” citizens. In her conceptually and empirically
rich study, she demonstrates that migrant women who
work in the sex industry are imagined and treated as a
threat to the purity and honour of the nation/family on the
one hand, and as vulnerable and in need of protection on
the other. Lenz aptly argues that this seemingly paradoxical
construction of migrant women well suits the needs of
a particular type of national discourse: one which stabilises
“boundaries of conventional gender roles in times of
change” (34) and which confirms, if not reinforces, notions
of protective masculinity and dependent, vulnerable femininity.
Olha Yarova offers a perspective which is rather
rare in migration studies: she looks at those who are “left
behind” - families of Ukrainian women who left Ukraine to
work in Italy mainly as carers and cleaners. She discusses
to what extent a more or less successful taking over of
parental roles by “lonely” fathers left with their children
in Ukraine represents a real shift in gender responsibilities
and to what extent the traditional gender division of labour
is reiterated once women return back. Due to the relatively
limited scope of the research, further investigation would
be needed in order to draw more general conclusions
about the relations between migration of women and the
transformations of family life and gender roles in Ukraine.
It remains dependent and contingent upon a number of
Migration Processes in Central and Eastern Europe: Unpacking the Diversity