Abstract
The concept of social remittances, coined by Levitt (1998 and later), evoked many scholarly reactions, but its mechanisms are rarely clearly defined or operationalised. This chapter attempts to reconstruct the mechanisms of social remitting in a transnational European context. The aim is to discuss the primary factors of the mechanisms of social remitting—acquisition, transfer and outcomes and their diffusion, triggering three identifiable modes: resistance, imitation and innovation. By distinguishing the stages of social remitting mechanisms and its modes, we develop some hypotheses, in constant dialogue with theory and empirical findings, about how the mechanism of social remitting operates within the European context.
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Notes
- 1.
According to the UK Citizenship Survey 2008–2009 the most common sites of meaningful social contacts in Britain are: shops (61 per cent); work, school, college (52 per cent); pub, club, café or restaurant (44 per cent); at home (36 per cent); group, club or organisation (30 per cent); formal volunteering (19 per cent); informal volunteering (17 per cent), crèche, nursery, children’s centre (15 per cent); place of worship (14 per cent) (cf. Rutter, 2015: 260).
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Grabowska, I., Garapich, M.P., Jaźwińska, E., Radziwinowiczówna, A. (2017). Process of Transfer of Social Remittances in the European Union. In: Migrants as Agents of Change. Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59066-4_2
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