Whiteness, ethnic privilege and migration: a Bourdieuian framework

Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold. First it offers an innovative conceptual framework for exploring how whiteness shapes ethnic privilege and disadvantage at work. Second it offers empirical evidence of the complexity of ethnic privilege and disadvantage explored through experiences of migrant workers from post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) on the UK labour market. Design/methodology/approach Using a Bourdieuian conceptual framework the paper begins from the historical and macro socio-economic context of EU enlargement eastwards in order to explore whiteness and the complexity of ethnic privilege at work through semi-structured in-depth interviews with 35 Polish and Slovenian migrant workers in the UK. Findings The findings highlight racial segmentation of the UK labour market, expose various shades of whiteness that affect CEE workers’ position and their agency and point to relational and transnational workings of whiteness and their effects on diverse workforce. Research limitations/implications Research has implications for diversity policies within organisations and wider social implications for building solidarity amongst diverse labour. Future research could increase generalisation of findings and further illuminate the complexity of ethnic privilege. Originality/value The paper contributes to management and organisational literature by offering a Bourdieuian conceptual framework for analysing whiteness and the complexity of ethnic privilege at work. It uncovers intersectional, transnational and relational workings of whiteness that shape ethnic privilege and disadvantage at work and speak of ongoing colonising and racialising processes that are part of contemporary capitalism

Migration, consumption and work: A postcolonial perspective on post-socialist migration to the UK

This article explores the links between transnational migration, consumption and work within a postcolonial and post-socialist world. By exploring contemporary Polish and Slovenian migration to the UK through a postcolonial lens, this article aims to provide an understanding of the post-socialist space beyond the western knowledge production. The article exposes the historical orientalization of post-socialist central and eastern Europe (CEE) and its subjects, which, throughout history, has marked its peripheral status within Europe and evoked the (self-)colonial ‘catching up’ model that constitutes CEE imagined communities as well as informs CEE migrants’ agency, and defines their diversity and their positioning in the West. In particular, the article stretches the understanding of orientalism in relation to transnational consumption and migration processes, and the neo-colonial binary division of capitalism and socialism that characterizes the postsocialist world. The article demonstrates that this binary division acts as an orientalising device that legitimizes the framing of neoliberalism as the modernizing project, and affects CEE migrants’ positioning in the UK and their strategies to reclaim their value. Ultimately the article contributes by offering a critique of neo-colonial epistemic violence that legitimizes the global expansion of neoliberalism to places and spaces previously shielded from unregulated market pressures

Neoliberalna (samo)kolonizacija: primer sodobnih poljskih in slovenskih izseljevanj aktivnega prebivalstva [Neoliberal self-colonisation: the case of contemporary Polish and Slovenian emigration of active population]

Through the case study of contemporary Polish and Slovenia emigration, this article exposes the micro effects of neoliberal (self)colonisation that marks the present cultural political economy on various local and global scales and affects exit strategies of active populations. For in-depth understanding of contemporary migration flows it is first necessary to shed light on the socio-econo¬mic and historical context that brought to neoliberal (self)colonisation in post-socialist Europe. In this regard, the article particularly focuses on the transition and Europeanization process and the current economic crises within Poland and Slovenia. This historical and socio-economic process forms the necessary foreground for the exploration of micro effects explored through in-depth in¬terviews with Polish and Slovenian migrants in Great Britain. These findings show both similarities and differences between these two groups of migrants that arise from diverse socio-economic and historical contexts and the imposition of neoliberal (self)colonisation in Poland and Slovenia

Change and inertia in (re)formation and commodification of migrant workers’ subjectivities: An intersectional analysis across spatial and temporal dimensions

Pierre Bourdieu, the French sociologist, philosopher, and anthropologist, has been widely studied and analyzed in academic circles, particularly in sociology, where his ideas about power relations in social life helped to define the contemporary field. While many other sociological theories and figures have been extensively discussed and analyzed within the contexts of organization studies and management, Bourdieu’s ideas have, until recently, been largely ignored. Offering an authoritative evaluation of Bourdieu’s work, this book provides readers with conceptual frameworks, empirical examples, and methodological considerations for advancing theory and research in management and organization studies. Table of Contents 1. Introduction Part 1: New Frontiers in Theory Building 2. Theorizing at Multiple Levels3. Theorizing Change and Inertia4. Carnal Theorizing Part 2: Empirical Insights 5. Understanding Management and Organizations as Bourdieuan Fields6. Illusio and Doxa in the Context of Managerial and Organizational Practice7. Framing Symbolic Violence in Management and Organizations8. Researching Habitus9. Exploring Different Forms of Capitals10. On the Possibilities of Strategic Agency in Organizations Part 3: Methodological Reflections 11. Relational Methods in Management and Organization Studies12. A Reflexive Turn in Researching Management and Organizations13. Scholarship with Commitment 14. Conclusio

Innovative trade union practices addressing growing precarity characterised by rescaled governance and the shrinking welfare state: the case of Slovenia

This chapter explores innovative trade union practices addressing precarity in Slovenia. It conceptualises precarity as vulnerability and disaffiliation that does not only affect one’s job quality or hinders one’s integration into the labour market but also one’s inclusion in the broader social system and access to rights that used to be part of the established compromise of Keynesian welfare states. This poses challenges for the representation of the growing number of precarious workers and ‘non-deserving’ (non)citizens who have been excluded from the labour market and broader social and rights systems. The wider conceptualisation of precarity serves as a point of departure upon which innovation within the Slovenian trade union movement is assessed; it also determines the selection of presented case studies in this chapter. The erosion of labour and social rights brought de-unionisation and interest fragmentation, but it also stimulated innovative forms of organising of increasingly precarious and non-unionised workers and (non)citizens. This chapter focuses on several initiatives that have emerged during the crisis within or in close relation to Slovenia’s biggest trade union confederation. These have brought important innovations to traditional trade union activities such as the involvement of diverse target groups, the creation of innovative organisational structures and the use of non-traditional strategies to address rescaled class politics and labour market governance. These initiatives are the Counselling Office for Migrants project; trade union Young Plus; and the Movement for Decent Work and Welfare Society, together with the recently established Trade Union of the Precarious. The chapter is structured as follows. Section one begins by providing background information on the Slovenian trade union movement and its development, especially in regard to how it was affected by the current economic crisis. This particular context is also used to provide key concepts related to rescaled governance, changing welfare states and growing precarity. Section two presents each of the above initiatives and its innovative characteristics. These are then jointly discussed and assessed in the concluding section

Editorial: Different pathways into critical whiteness studies

This special issue explores the complexities of critical whiteness studies methodologies. We decided upon critical whiteness studies (CWS) as our nodal point for this special issue since we believe whiteness often stays unchallenged as un-articulated and invisible social, political and economic norms surrounding and penetrating academic knowledge production

Toward a precarious projectariat? Project dynamics in Slovenian and French social services

Project organization is used extensively to promote creativity, innovation and responsiveness to local context, but can lead to precarious employment. This paper compares European Social Fund (ESF)-supported projects supporting ‘active inclusion’ of disadvantaged clients in Slovenia and France. Despite many similarities between the two social protection fields in task, temporality, teams and socio-economic context, the projects had different dynamics with important implications for workers. In Slovenia project dynamics have been precarious, leading to insecure jobs and reduced status for front-line staff; in France, by contrast, projects and employment have been relatively stable. Our explanation highlights the transaction, more specifically, the capacity of government agencies to function as intermediaries managing the transactions through which ESF money is disbursed to organizations providing services. We find that transnational pressures on the state affect its capacity as a transaction organizer to stabilize the organizational field. In Slovenia, transnational pressures associated with austerity and European Union integration have stripped away this capacity more radically than in France, leading to precarious project dynamics and risk shifting onto project workers

Integracija kot večsmerni proces: Študija primera inovativnih projektov integracije priseljencev v Sloveniji

This article explores innovative EU-funded migrant integration projects which emerged in Slovenia after the 2008 global economic crisis. It stems from sociological literature that conceptualises integration as a general societal phenomenon that shields against precarity. By conducting qualitative interviews with those running the studied projects and other stakeholders, this article explores the projects’ drivers, tactics, and their impact on established institutions. The findings show that the projects were established by proactive activists who utilised EU funds to professionalise their activities and engage in partnerships to develop needs-based, cross-sectional and networked provision that empowers migrants and benchmarks professional norms and standards for migrant integration. Its specific contribution lies in uncovering a multi-way integration process that moves away from mainstream approaches to integration, which segregate and demand change only from migrants, and also includes public institutions and servants, professionals and host societies as a whole.V članku raziskujemo inovativne projekte integracije priseljencev, ki jih financira EU in so se v Sloveniji razvili po globalni ekonomski krizi leta 2008. Pri tem izhajamo iz sociološke literature, ki konceptualizira integracijo kot širši družbeni fenomen, ki varuje pred prekarnostjo. S pomočjo kvalitativnih intervujev s posamezniki, vpetimi v projekte, in drugimi deležniki raziskujemo vzvode projektov, njihove taktike in vpliv na uveljavljene institucije.  Ugotovitve kažejo, da projekte s pomočjo sredstev EU razvijajo proaktivni aktivisti z namenom profesionalizacije teh aktivnosti in oblikovanja partnerstev za razvoj povezanih in medresorskih storitev, ki bi izhajale iz potreb priseljencev in bi bile namenjene njihovemu opolnomočenju, ob tem pa bi vzpostavili profesionalne norme in standarde za integracijo migrantov. Posebni prispevek članka je v razkrivanju večsmernega integracijskega procesa, ki se odmika od prevladujočih integracijskih pristopov, ki segregirajo in zahtevajo spremembe zgolj od migrantov, ter tako vključuje tudi javne institucije in uslužbence, strokovne delavce in družbo gostiteljico kot celoto

Racialised ‘price tag’: Intersectional commodification of Central and Eastern European workers in the UK labour market

PhDThis thesis explores the intersectional commodification of migrant labour from post-socialist EU Accession 8 (A8) countries and its effects on Polish and Slovenian migrant workers in the UK. Using historical and macro socio-economic contexts as its point of departure, the thesis aims to uncover how a postcolonial narrative surrounding A8 countries’ transition to market economies and their accession to the EU has legitimised on-going colonial processes that construct A8 countries and their nationals as second class EU citizens and re-evaluate subjectivities in relation to the market. Further, it explores how this narrative has been appropriated by transnational employment agencies that colonise A8 countries and as such play an active role in commodifying A8 workers and supplying them to the UK. Moreover, the thesis sets out specifically to explore how this colonisation and its narrative affect workers’ (self)value and emigration from Poland and Slovenia, as well as the value extraction possibilities and strategies of diverse actors involved in transnational labour relations between East and West. Through a transdisciplinary adoption of a Bourdieuian conceptual framework, this research offers an original theoretical and methodological toolkit for complex intersectional analyses that uncovers the multiple and misrecognised power relations associated with embodied categories, spatial and temporal dimensions and varying modalities of knowledge. As such, it uncovers on-going colonial processes that characterise a contemporary post-socialist world marked by changed transnationalised consumption and production processes and the marketization of cultural, diversity and identity politics. In this way, the research uncovers symbolic economy hidden under neoliberal (self)colonisation, which enables strategic utilisation of migrant labour and disciplines, segments and divides the global poor. By providing a broader comparative analysis of diverse actors and A8 groups, the thesis widens our understanding of A8 labour migration to the UK and also leads to insights into the remaking of class, race and gender politics on the local and global scales.School of Business and Management, Queen Mary, University of London Studentshi

Integration as a Multi-way Process

This article explores innovative EU-funded migrant integration projects which emerged in Slovenia after the 2008 global economic crisis. It stems from sociological literature that conceptualises integration as a general societal phenomenon that shields against precarity. By conducting qualitative interviews with those running the studied projects and other stakeholders, this article explores the projects’ drivers, tactics, and their impact on established institutions. The findings show that the projects were established by proactive activists who utilised EU funds to professionalise their activities and engage in partnerships to develop needs-based, cross-sectional and networked provision that empowers migrants and benchmarks professional norms and standards for migrant integration. Its specific contribution lies in uncovering a multi-way integration process that moves away from mainstream approaches to integration, which segregate and demand change only from migrants, and also includes public institutions and servants, professionals and host societies as a whole