Pathways of settlement among pioneer migrants in super-diverse London

ABSTRACT

Urban areas in Europe and beyond have seen significant changes in patterns of immigration, leading to profound diversification. This diversification is characterised by the multiplication of people of different national origins, but also differentiations regarding migration histories, religions, educational backgrounds, legal statuses and socio-economic backgrounds. This ‘diversification of diversity’ is now commonly described as ‘super-diversity’. Despite an increasing number of studies looking at how people live together in such super-diverse contexts, little is known about new patterns of immigration into such contexts of migrants who do not follow established migration patterns. Where do recent migrants who cannot draw on already existing migrant or ethnic ‘communities’ find support? What do they do when they arrive? Drawing on earlier studies on ‘pioneer migration’, this paper reformulates the notion of such pioneer migrants and asks what factors impact their settlement process, particularly in regard to economic integration. The paper argues that it is not ethnicity or country of origin which are the main factors shaping this process, but legal status and cultural capital.

KEYWORDS:

• Pioneer migration
• super-diversity
• cultural capital
• socio-economic integration
• legal status

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all the research participants for taking their time to talk to me. I would also like to thank Jenny Phillimore for continuing feedback and support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 For a critical review of the notion of cultural capital, see Goldthorpe (2007).

2 For a critical evaluation of migration systems theory, see Bakewell, de Haas, and Kubal (2012).

3 This is not to be confused with Van Hear’s (1998) notion of ‘migratory cultural capital’, referring to accumulated knowledge about migration as a result of a ‘community’s collective migration history’ (1998, 51).

4 Although there exists a sizeable Brazilian ‘community’ in London, Gabriela could not relate to fellow Brazilians because of different interests, her different migration history via Portugal and different regional origins within Brazil. She sees herself as ‘pioneering’ in that she did not follow the ‘beaten track’ or get any support (except from initial housing) from fellow Brazilian.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the European Commission Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellowship Programme.