Emigrants, Travelers, and Escapers: the Haidutoff Family between Occident and Orient

The article examines the migrations of young Bulgarians abroad in the 1920-1930s, caused by the Great Depression and in particular the labor migrations of Bulgarian musicians in Egypt and the Near East and their cultural and social interactions with the Bulgarian diaspora there and with the local population. The focus of the study is the travels of the Haidutoff family – a musical trio that has made a living in Egypt for many years, and in the 1920s-1930s traveled and gave concerts in Argentina, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Australia and Java island, then returned to Bulgaria and re-emigrated to Egypt. The text analyzes how their mobility is facilitated by blood-related networks, professional networks and interest networks, how it enables their nationalism to interact with the international environment, and how they perceive the West and the East (Orient) as traveling people through their own cultural stereotypes and social distances. The fate of the violinist Nedyalka Simeonova – the daughter-in-law in the family and a member of the musical trio – is traced in detail.

The influence of COVID-19 on international labor migrations from Bosnia and Herzegovina to EU

The article deals with the contemporary labor migrations from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Slovenia and the other countries of European Union, specifically during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. On the basis of fieldwork among the participants in these migrations, it seeks to identify the specifics of circumstances and situations that arose suddenly with the closure of political borders and the demands of social distancing. In these circumstances, we supposed that labor migrants found themselves to be a particularly vulnerable group of population. The case study has denied that this is completely true. On the other hand, labor migrations from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Central, Western and North European and some non-European countries have been a continuous process for the last century and at least migration flows must be taken as a fact which directions, volumes and character are greatly influenced by labor market regulations in each individual EU member and other states. Periodically, specific political and social situations also gain importance. The COVID-19 pandemic has exactly such an impact.

Workers Who Produce Industrial Fabrics and Cultivate the Land: Textile Labor, Migrations and Connections between Rural and Factory Work

This article explores the experiences of migrant workers, many from rural areas, who settled in a major center of the textile industry in Brazil, located in the state of Rio de Janeiro and which housed to four factories. Articulating several historical sources, we seek to understand both the agricultural practices maintained by migrants from the countryside, and the incentives to work in the fields fostered by employers in the factories. In contrast to studies guided by notions of modernization which have crudely linked the manufacturing world to progress as opposed to the agricultural, this article examines how rural and factory labor coexisted in multiple combinations. We argue that the term “roçado operário” (factory worker’s farm), used in many studies, is not enough to describe a far more varied and complex social phenomenon. Therefore, we propose a new framework for understanding the various forms of land use by these workers.

Hosting and Being Hosted in Times of Crisis

This chapter addresses the dynamics and patterns of the Syrian refuge in Syria’s neighboring countries, and its relations and interactions with the local host communities, in the broader context of the Syrian conflict and the massive exile of Syrians abroad that resulted from it. The chapter is based on in-depth fieldwork in the villages of the Dayr al-Ahmar caza (sub-district) in the muhafaza (district) of Baalbek-Hermel, in the north of the Bekaa plain in Lebanon. Our research focused primarily on the three villages that have the highest concentration of Syrian refugees according to a local census carried out in April 2016 by some of the caza’s municipalities. To examine the dynamics of hosting and being hosted, as well as contributing to a more nuanced understanding of the relations between Lebanese and Syrian refugees in Lebanon, the authors chose to study the Syrian refuge through a local prism. The authors rooted their inquiry in the host–guest relationship in time—the contemporary history of Syrian–Lebanese relations—and space—the Bekaa plain that combines dense social transborder interactions between Lebanese and Syrians, in particular, through the decades-long Syrian circular labor migrations to Lebanon—with memories of Syria’s political and military domination over Lebanon.

Labor exports from Palestine to Israel: a boon or bane for the West Bank economy?

This article analyzes the effects on the West Bank economy of temporary Palestinian employment in Israel, using a new database and a computable general equilibrium model. The results show that Palestinian employment in Israel increases household incomes but distorts the operation of the West Bank labor market and increases domestic wages. Employment in Israel increases the real exchange rate of the West Bank leading to “Dutch disease” effects that inhibit the development of the West Bank economy. A decrease in the number of Palestinian workers in Israel reduces household welfare, and constraints on the West Bank economy restrict domestic absorption of the extra labor. Hence, the Palestinian National Authority may seek more labor exports to Israel. This article contributes to the broader discussion on the effects of migration policies on labor-sending economies by demonstrating the nontrivial benefits from labor migrations, but that these benefits come with costs. This article explores policy options for offsetting those costs.

GEOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS OF EXTERNAL LABOR MIGRATIONS FROM UKRAINE

The purpose of the article lies in socio-geographical analysis of external labor migrations from Ukraine to European countries. Methodology is based on searching, processing and presentation of statistical information which describes the migration process. The main methods are descriptive, analytical, mathematical-statistic. Results. The current state of external labor migrations from Ukraine, their dynamics, scale, regional structure, main causes and transformations to develop an effective migration politics has been clarified. Scientific novelty lies in identifying stimulating factors of external labor migration of ukrainian people, the scale, structure and directions of external labor migration of the ukrainian population in the modern period. The practical value lies in the fact that the causes, scale, structure and geography of external labor migration are disclosed, that is the basis for conducting socio-economic procedures to prevent external migration processes at the regional level.

A Migration Becomes an Emergency

This chapter examines the circumstances that produced repeated migration surges from the Northern Triangle of Central America—El Salvador, Honduras to Guatemala—to the United States. Dominated by women and children fleeing poverty and violence, since 2014 the surges have challenged the U.S. asylum system, prompted crisis responses at the border and provoked ongoing political controversies. This chapter argues these surges are an outgrowth, really a kind of mutation, of long-standing migrations that have been dominated by labor and family reunification flows in recent years. Moreover, the surges were facilitated by migrations channels, including criminal smuggling networks, that had developed to transport what was once a far larger Mexican flow. The surges serve as a warning that seemingly stable labor migrations can transform into sudden, large scale movements of humanitarian migrants due to changing circumstances in sending communities.

Social and economic effects of labor migrations of the Poles in the German empire in the late XIX – early XX century

The article focuses on the problem of labor migrations of the peasant population of Vistula Land of Russia to the German Empire at the turn of the XIX and ХХ century. The subject of the study are the causes of migration, the situation of Polish workers abroad, the specifics and main spheres of hiring workers, the social and economic effects of the movement. The urgency of the work is determined by inadequate historiographic attention to the factor of the annual retreat of tens of thousands of Poles abroad. The article uses the civilizational approach, the principle of historicism, the ideas of the French school “Annals”. The conclusions obtained by the authors of the article testify to the special significance of migrations not only for the inhabitants of the Polish province, but also for the entire German landlord economy. Migration compensated for the labor shortage in Germany’s agrarian sector, ensuring rapid growth in production in the states. The experience of migration stimulated the economic initiative of Poles, increased their standard of living, affected the size of peasant land ownership in the Vistula Land.