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An Inside-Out Approach to Social Remittances: Linking Migration and Social Change in Poland

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Migration and Social Remittances in a Global Europe

Part of the book series: Europe in a Global Context ((EGC))

Abstract

To understand the impact of migration on sending countries it is worth first investigating social trends in those countries, then considering migration as one contributory factor to social change. This ‘inside-out’ approach avoids overstating the role of social remittances. Taking Poland as a case study, the chapter identifies examples of social trends—changing material aspirations and increasing levels of social trust—and illustrates how aspirations link to migrants’ experiences abroad, which are transferred to ‘stayers’ back in Poland, but links between migration and trust are more complex. It is further argued that literature on the impact of migration on receiving countries can aid understanding of how migration affects sending country populations and that (if defined carefully) ‘cosmopolitanism’ is a helpful concept for understanding social change in Poland.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Even Kapur (<CitationRef CitationID="CR24" >2010</Citation Ref>)—as far as I know, the author of the only full-scale monograph on the impact of migration on a particular country—is almost entirely concerned with the role of diasporas and returnees. His research question is, How has international migration affected the political economy of India’s development?, but migrants, rather than the political economy, are the main object of analysis. Slany and Solga’s (<CitationRef CitationID="CR34" >2014</Citation Ref>) ‘Social Consequences of Post-Accession Migration by the Polish Population’ is an impressive collection of research findings on different migration influences by Poland’s leading migration scholars, but it resembles a patchwork rather than a synthesis.

  2. 2.

    http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries

  3. 3.

    Information from Paweł Kaczmarczyk, Warsaw CMR.

  4. 4.

    See, for example, Czapiński (<CitationRef CitationID="CR8" >2013</Citation Ref>), Grabowska (<CitationRef CitationID="CR20" >2013</Citation Ref>), Boguszewski (<CitationRef CitationID="CR4" >2013</Citation Ref>), Omyła-Rudzka (<CitationRef CitationID="CR31" >2015</Citation Ref>), Omyła-Rudzka (<CitationRef CitationID="CR32" >2016</Citation Ref>). For detailed discussion in English, see Golebiowska (<CitationRef CitationID="CR19" >2013</Citation Ref>).

  5. 5.

    For a fuller discussion, see White (<CitationRef CitationID="CR38" >2016a</Citation Ref>).

  6. 6.

    The CBOS research report does not provide information on whether attitudes differed across any variables other than knowing foreigners resident in Poland.

  7. 7.

    For further details of the methodology see White (<CitationRef CitationID="CR36" >2011</Citation Ref>, <CitationRef CitationID="CR37" >2014</Citation Ref>, <CitationRef CitationID="CR39" >2016b</Citation Ref>). All translations from Polish sources in this article, and from my interviews, which were almost all in Polish, are my own.

  8. 8.

    This not true in all societies: see, e.g., World Values Survey data at http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp (last accessed 7 April 2016).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University College London, London, UK

    Anne White

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  1. Anne White
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Humboldt University Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Magdalena Nowicka

  2. Humboldt University Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Vojin Šerbedžija

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White, A. (2016). An Inside-Out Approach to Social Remittances: Linking Migration and Social Change in Poland. In: Nowicka, M., Šerbedžija, V. (eds) Migration and Social Remittances in a Global Europe. Europe in a Global Context. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-60126-1_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-60126-1_3

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-60125-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-60126-1

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