Migrant workers and migrant entrepreneurs: changing established/outsider relations across society and space?

Abstract

Drawing on Elias and Scotson's theory of established/outsider relations, in this paper we argue that migrants can be outsiders in one spatial context and established in another simultaneously. Our empirical focus is the situations and experiences of migrant workers from Central and Eastern Europe in four towns across Wales. While their position as outsiders is reinforced in the occupational spaces of meat-processing factories, outside the workplace a small but growing number of migrants are engaging in entrepreneurial activities that create new spaces of cultural diversity. We argue that this is having a wider affective impact on established/outsider relations.

Keywords:

• established/outsider relations
• figurational sociology
• migrant entrepreneurs
• migrant workers
• place
• space

Notes

1 The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and they do not represent the views of Welsh Government who funded the research on which the paper draws.

2 The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia joined the EU in 2004.

3 Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU in 2007.

4 It should be noted that this is a dynamic local business environment and that new migrant businesses open and old ones close regularly.