The main theme of this book is the analysis of horizontal mobility and its effect on individual identity. Niedźwiedzki focuses on ‘unfinished migration’, and especially ‘pendulum migration’, which refers to the spatial mobility defined by the migrant retaining links to both the country of origin and the host society. It is argued that the concept of pendulum migration is an indispensable instrument for describing and understanding phenomena occurring in contemporary developed societies. These phenomena include dynamic forms of socialisation often described by numerous metaphors like, ‘network society’, ‘the society of encounters’ or ‘liquid modernity’. These types of socialisation signify the cohabitation of different peoples and cultures, their intermingling and encounters that occur in a multifaceted social space.
What kind of identity changes occur during pendulum migration? Migration has an effect on the self-identification of those moving, as well as on how they identify others. The key questions in this regard pertain to the conditions under which identities are reconstructed as well as the forms they adopt. This problematic is new, important and difficult to grasp because of its distinctness as compared to traditional forms of societal mobility, and particularly due to its entanglement in three distinct socio-cultural orders, namely the world of the society of origin, that of the hosts, as well as the socio-cultural space created by migrants themselves. The latter often takes on the character of a ‘transnational social space’, formed in the process of migrant movement and possessing unique cultural traits referring to various axionormative orders.
Presentation of the book in Polish:
Książka jest efektembadań terenowych przeprowadzonych przez Autora wśród polskich migrantów oraz osób ich przyjmujących w Belgii. Autor skupia się głównie nazjawisku tzw. „migracji wahadłowej”, czyli niepełnej. Według Autora koncepcja migracji wahadłowej stanowi istotny instrument opisu izrozumienia zjawisk, jakie zachodzą w rozwiniętych społeczeństwach Zachodu. W publikacji szeroko omawiane są skutki i tożsamościowe konsekwencje ruchliwości przestrzennej.
Full info:
Migracje i tożsamość. Od teorii do analizy przypadku
[Migration and Identity: From theory to case study]
Dariusz Niedźwiedzki, Nomos, 2010 (in Polish)