Migration and Transnationalism Between Switzerland and Bulgaria

This book explores trends in migration from Bulgaria to Switzerland since Bulgaria joined the European Union (EU) in 2007. Due to several unique factors, this in-depth case study provides a basis for understanding transnational migration in a wider European context. Bulgarians represent a fairly small community within Switzerland, and are quite scattered throughout the country. They come from various regions in Bulgaria with very different socio-economic profile. In Switzerland, apart from differences in linguistic regions and the federal system, there are significant regional disparities, providing a variety of contexts for exploring this transnational migration, causes and consequences.


The first part of the book analyses who migrates and why, addressing regional disparities within Bulgaria. The text explores the impact of economic differences, educational background, and other factors that play into immigrants’ motivations to move. The next part of the book examines different migratory movements and transnational practices between Switzerland, Bulgaria, and other destination countries for Bulgarian immigrants. It addresses larger socioeconomic shifts and resulting impacts at individual, household, community, and national levels. Finally, the book assesses all of these factors within the context of shifting immigration policies. This work draws on mixed-method empirical research conducted in both countries over a three-year period, analysed within four major frameworks: transnationalism and migrant networks, social inequality, regional disparities and development, and immigration policies.


The results will be of interest for researchers working in a variety of social science fields, including anthropology, geography, sociology, social psychology, law, public policy, political science, international studies, demography and exploring issues related to migration and development, social and regional disparities, inequality, employment, social networks, social identity and others.

PD Dr. Marina Richter is a sociologist and geographer who is presently working at a department for sociology, social policy and social work and has since her graduate school in gender studies worked in various projects with people from different disciplines. She is an expert in migration to Switzerland and has mostly published on Spanish migration to Switzerland. She has conducted research on transnational aspects of migration such as networks and has in this realm also published on methodological aspects. Her research perspective on migration also includes aspects such as emotional attachment to place, gender differences as an example of social inequalities and in particular questions of deskilling. Her major publications include: Richter, Marina and Michael Nollert. 2014. Transnational networks and transcultural belonging: a study of the Spanish second generation in Switzerland. Global Networks. 2014(04), 458-176; Richter, Marina. 2012. Researching transnational social spaces: A qualitative study of the Spanish second generation in Switzerland [40 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 13(3), Art. 8; Richter, Marina. 2011. “A country full of snow”. Spanish migrants in Switzerland and their ways of engaging with places, memories, and personal migration history. Emotion, Space and Society. 4. 221-228; Richter, Marina. 2006. Integration, Identität, Differenz. Der Integrationsprozess aus der Sicht spanischer Migrantinnen und Migranten. Bern: Peter Lang.

Dr. Paolo Ruspini is Senior Researcher at the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the University of Lugano (USI) since February 2008 and Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Social Sciences, University of Roehampton, London. A political scientist, he has been researching issues of international and European migration and integration since 1997 with a comparative approach and by drawing on qualitative and policy analyses. The geographical focus of his research spans from Western to Central and South-Eastern Europe and cover also the post-Soviet migration space with emphasis on the dynamics and multimodal character of migration flows in a changing policy context. He has been working in many collaborative projects at national and European level and he is active in research networks regarding international migration and social cohesion as well as being advisor for national and international organizations. From October 2013 until May 2014 he was visiting professor at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Institute of Law, Politics and Development (DIRPOLIS) in Pisa. He has also been Associate Fellow at the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations (CRER) of the University of Warwick for ten years until the CRER closed in September 2011. In the year 2001, Paolo Ruspini received a Marie Curie post-doctoral fellowship for his project “Living on the Edge: Irregular Migrants in Europe” (2001-2002) and he also received a German Marshall Fund and other smaller grants for holding the position of principal investigator at CRER for the research project in collaboration with the Centre of Migration Research of Warsaw University, “In Search for a New Europe: Contrasting Migratory Experiences” (2001-2005). He was visiting scholar at the Mershon Center for Education, Ohio State University (1998) and worked for the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (1995-1996). He combines research activities with routine lectures in a number of universities and international institutions. Besides a significant number of papers on migration and contributions to international conferences, he is author of Migration in the New Europe: East-West Revisited (2004, Palgrave-Macmillan, co-editor), Prostitution and Human Trafficking: Focus on Clients, (2009, Springer, co-editor), South-Eastern Europe and the European Migration System. East-West Mobility in Flux, (2010, The Romanian Journal of European Studies, Special Issue, No.7-8/2009, guest editor) and A Decade of EU Enlargement: A Changing Framework and Patterns of Migration, (2014, Central and Eastern European Migration Review, Special Issue, Vol. 3, No. 2, December 2014, co-editor).

Dr. Dotcho Mihailov is a survey researcher and a manager of the research agency “Agency for Socioeconomic Analyses” (ASA), which is partnering with the ERI on the Bulgarian side of the project “Migration and transnationalism between Switzerland and Bulgaria”. Holding a PhD in Social Psychology, Dr. Mihailov has coordinated and has contributed as a lead author to a number of policy reports for Bulgaria, addressing the issues of regional disparities and social inequality. Among them are the 2003 UNDP National Human Development Report “Rural Regions: Overcoming Development Disparities”, the UNDP 2002 National Human Development Index: “Municipalities in the Context of Districts" and the UN National Millennium Development Goals reports for Bulgaria for 2003 and 2008. During the last 15 years Dotcho Mihailov has been providing consultancies mainly in the fields of rural development and social inclusion for a number of development agencies such as the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the UNDP, the World Bank and others. As an associate of Blackstone Corporation Resource Management Consultants, Canada he has carried out project evaluations and development consultancy missions in Eastern Europe, Africa, India and China. In terms of survey experience Dotcho Mihailov has coordinated more than 100 national and topical surveys, including two on migration in cooperation with Mintchev, Kalchev, Boshnakov and Zareva.

Prof. Dr. Vesselin Mintchev  is an economist. His research background is in the field of corporate governance and international economics. He analysed, among others, the attitudes of potential migrants; effects of return migration and remittances in South East Europe (Mintchev, V. (2009), “International migration and remittances in the Balkans: the case of Bulgaria”, in E. Novotny, P. Mooslechner and D. Ritzberger-Grunwald (eds.), The Integration of European Labour Markets, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 177-204.)  He was interested by the interaction among family models and migration patterns (Mihailov, D., V. Mintchev, V. Bosnakov, and K. Nikolova (2007), Family models and migration, National Representative Survey, Sofia: Agency for Social and Economic Analysis and Center for Comparative Studies). He analysed the migration as factor of income inequality in Bulgaria (Mintchev V., V. Boshnakov and A. Naydenov (2010), “Source of Income Inequality: Empirical Evidence from Bulgaria”, Economic Studies, 4, 39-65) as well. More recently he was concentrated on the study of Bulgarian Diaspora in Spain, identifying the models of adaptation, the contacts with the home country, etc. He coordinated and participated in a number of research projects in the field mentioned above commissioned by different institutions such as UNFPA, Global Development Network, National Science Fund of Bulgaria.

Prof. Dr. Michael Nollert is a sociologist and has worked extensively on social inequalities and social exclusion and the impact of policies on social stratification. He analysed economic inequalities in the world system, in Latin America, in intergenerational reproduction of social status (social mobility regimes), in the reproduction of economic elites. He also studied the influence of European umbrella associations in the decision making process of the EU, the transnational ties of big European companies and their impact on the Single European Act in the 1980s and the class formation of transnational elites. One of his recent research project analysed the regional varieties of gender inequalities in the Swiss labour market and the impact of policies on these inequalities (M. Nollert and S. Schief, Cantonal patterns of gender-specific time-inequalities in paid and unpaid work: Empirical results and political-institutional conclusions, in: B. Liebig et al. 2016, Gender Inequality in Context: Policies and Practices in Switzerland. Opladen: Barbara Budrich. His recent contributions to migration research stem from a broader project, where also Marina Richter was collaborating (Richter and Nollert 2014), and a current research project which focuses on the identities and attitudes of migrants which engage in Muslim organisations in Switzerland (M. Nollert and A. Sheikhzadegan 2016, Gesellschaften zwischen Multi- und Transkulturalität. Zürich: Seismo). His geographical focus is on Europe, Latin America, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland. Most of his studies are based on a comparative perspective.