The Eastern European Left Media Outlet – ELMO recently published a multilingual thematic article series and organized a panel discussion on transnational migration in Central and Eastern European context.
Reflecting on this topic is relevant, in the words of the curators of the series, „not only because migration is a source of political gain, and indeed an opportunity for very real and fast capital accumulation, but also since migration stands in front of us as a contemporary development full of contradictions. It shapes social, economic, and political development, as well as the lives of peoples and communities in the broader region.“
Changes linked to migration that impact societies of Central Eastern Europe include continuous labour migration for higher wages and better working conditions, directed towards richer regions of the EU; the rise of a migration commercial infrastructure and associated industries (ranging from brokers of transnational employment to human trafficking networks); abrupt changes in border regimes due to Covid-19 restrictions; developments stemming from the so-called “European migration crisis” of 2015; the ongoing migration resulting from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The ELMO series on transnational migration contributes to the understanding of these changes and other factors linked to migration. The speakers on the panel expand the discussion both by reflecting on the texts and by sharing their insights stemming from their own theoretical and practical work related to migration.
The speakers of the pannel are Attila Melegh (Institute of Sociology at Corvinus University of Budapest, Demographic Research Institute in Budapest and Karl Polanyi Research Center), Goran Lukić (Counselling Office for Workers, Slovenia), Marta Stojić Mitrović (The Institute of Ethnography of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts), Olena Fedyuk (Research fellow in the project “RightsLab: Towards Transnational Labour Rights?“, University of Padua).
The texts that make up ELMO‘s series on transnational migration are Anastasiya Ryabchuk: Who Will Stay and Who Will Return? Divergent Trajectories Of Ukrainian War Refugees In The EU; Oksana Dutchak: Together We Stand: Enforced Single Motherhood and Ukrainian Refugees’ Care Networks; Céline Cantat: Citizenship And Exclusion In Contemporary Hungary; András Juhász and Tibor T. Meszmann: Drifters in the Making: Labour Migration from Serbia and the (Re)production of (Trans)national Inequalities; Irene Peano and Chiara Busca: Where Have Eastern Europeans Gone? Made-In-Italy Agribusiness, Mobility Control And The Great Resignation.
The series was curated by Tibor T. Meszmann (LeftEast), Oksana Dutchak and Anastasiya Ryabchuk (Spilne/Commons), Stoyanka Eneva (Levfem), Nóra Ugron (ELMO coordinator/LeftEast), Adriana Qubaiova (LeftEast). The panel discussion was moderated by Marko Miletić (Mašina.rs).
ELMO – Eastern European Left Media Outlet is a network of Eastern European left media platforms founded at the end of 2019. The vision of ELMO is a regional network of media platforms that will cooperate based on solidarity and work together for an internationalist Eastern European public. ELMO aims to develop common perspectives on regional issues, generate the flow of reliable and relatable news, by presenting critical regional and globally pertinent analyses.
A.J.
