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Migrants as Agents of Micro Social Changes

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Migrants as Agents of Change

Abstract

The chapter brings evidence that migrants, under certain conditions, may act as local agents of change by circulating social remittances. Firstly, migrants need to act actively and daily in given opportunity structures both of community of origin and destination. Secondly, they need to have a local social recognition for spreading out forms of social change to such ideas and practices. Thirdly, they need to have a wide network of contacts. The chapter is based on selected nodes of key individuals and their followers from three translocal communities, filtered out from a general sample of 124 in-depth interviews collected in the transnational multisited longitudinal research. At the end of this chapter, we come up with the typology of migrants as ordinary agents of micro social changes in their local microcosms.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Pszczyna is exceptional in terms of a rather homogeneous Catholic religion landscape of Poland as there are practised different kinds of Christian religions.

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Grabowska, I., Garapich, M.P., Jaźwińska, E., Radziwinowiczówna, A. (2017). Migrants as Agents of Micro Social Changes. In: Migrants as Agents of Change. Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59066-4_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59066-4_7

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-59065-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-59066-4

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