ORAL HISTORY: MIGRATION AND LOCAL IDENTITIES - Academia

Narrating Migration in Nordic Countriesprosperity tend to foster SM activity. Prosperous societies generate anumber of resources that can aid SM mobilization. Resources can be ofa material (money, organizational facilities, manpower, means of communication,etc.) or non-material nature (legitimacy, loyalty, authority,moral commitment, and solidarity). Researchers highlight thatwhen the groups possess dense interpersonal networks, members arereadily mobilizable. Networks provide a base for collective incentives.For successful mobilization a movement needs several factors, amongthem, for instance, leadership and political opportunity. Leaders identifyand define grievances, develop a group sense, formulate strategies,and facilitate mobilization by utilizing the above-mentioned resources.Many of our life story tellers remember and notice in their narrativesdifferent essential figures within the exile social landscape. The theorysays that the challenge for social movements is to identify and seizeopportunities for action. This implies a cost-benefit assessment of thelikelihood of success, given their evaluation of the possible outcomesof their actions and the responses of their adversaries as well as thoseof their allies. In life stories this aspect is found as memories aboutstrong trust in and reliance on the help of western democratic governments(British or United States), reminiscences on the attitudesof native Swedes (their open hostility towards refugees), and political“openness” (but also pro-Sovietism to a degree).In short, the main point of RM is to look at the process of mobilizationto influence political events and, if we collect appropriate data,it could also be used to analyze what (and how) has been done by politicalentrepreneurs of the Latvian exile community. The given theoryis especially interested in direct, measurable impacts of movementson political issues, and less interested in the expressive, ideological,identity-shaping, and consciousness-raising dimensions of movements.RM draws attention to rational factors and instrumental action(to what extent it is successful in achieving defined goals), but a socialmovement may be an end in and of itself—for, let us say, identity mattersbecause a SM can help to define and express one`s identity.For people in exile the immediate success of their actions mightbe less important because the establishment of community and theconstitution of a collective identity is a goal in itself. This aspect177