ECRP Project

Project funded by the European Science Fondation, in the framework of the European Collaborative Research Projects in the Social Sciences, call EUROCORES ECRP 2005

New Migrations Dynamics: Regular and Irregular work on the European Labour Market

Aims of the project:

The collaborative project will deal with working migrations and gendered matters in three economic sectors-agriculture, domestic services and prostitution- in which foreigners and among them, women, are over represented. The study will analyse the contradictory demands with regard to immigration in the EU, considering the gap between political will which intend to increase borders controls and to reduce extra-EU migrations and economic practices in sectors where low paid jobs, often occupied by undocumented migrants or special temporary sub-contracted ones, allow to maintain, in western countries, an economic activity which would not survive otherwise. Researches will analyse both the social and economic implications in the areas concerned in industrialized countries and the impact of these types of jobs and mobility on the migrant careers. These latter, because of their unstable statuses within Europe, often practice a transnational migration, composed of a multiplicity of places where people stop temporarily before returning home. In this context, the role played by women will be underline.
By working together during three collective seminars, the participants will be able to confront their research methods, particularly qualitative and ethnographic ones. A second point will be to discuss our analytic concepts, specially the one of ‘transnationalism’, ‘circulatory migrations’ or ‘incomplete migration’, on the basis of our different fieldworks. Third, we will compare the results of our researches, conducted in diverse European areas, and try to elaborate a model of these new forms of migrations.

One objective will be to write a collective article drawing an overview of the migrations in Europe and discussing the relevance of the concepts mentioned above to describe the phenomenon as a whole.

Secondly, we shall propose to organize a large Conference, first to present the results of our collective work and, subsequently to invite other researchers to confront their own researches on the topic of ‘regular and irregular work on the european labour market’. See http://www.unice.fr/migractivities/index-EN.html

Another point will be to publish a compilation of articles, resulted from the seminars we intend to organize, which should present a review of the situations in the countries studied: Belgium, Italy, France, Spain and Poland (as a country of arrival and departure) and a synthesis of the debat.

Duration of the project: 2 years, 2006 – 2008

Total grant: 44.000€

Coordinator: Swanie Potot, URMIS, CNRS


Research teams involved:

– France: URMIS (Alain Morice, Swanie Potot, Francesca Scrinzi)

– Spain: Universidad de Huelva (Dolores Rodondo-Toronjo, Celia Miedes)

– Poland: Warsaw university, CMR (Marek Okolski, Joanna Napierala, Marta Kindler)

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Associated research teams:

– Belgique: Université Libre de Bruxelles, GERME (Andréa Réa, Ralitza Soultanova)

– Italy: University of Genoa (Maurizio Ambrosini, Emanuela Abbatecola)