Bournemouth University

Department Member, The Business School

Thesis Title: Choice and constraint in migrant worker integration: a study of migrant workers in a British workplace

About

Barbara Wilczek – PhD Researcher
BA, English and Ukrainian Business Language – Silesian University, Poland
MA, Human Resource Management – Bournemouth University

The aim of my thesis on Choice and constraint in migrant worker integration: a study of migrant workers in a British workplace is to gain a deeper insight into a complex phenomenon of recent Central and Eastern European (CEE) labour migration into the UK.

The research complements other regional and national studies by taking it away from "mapping exercises" and looking at the dynamic nature of migrant workers' every day negotiation/contestation of their acculturation strategies. That is because few of the available sources of knowledge specify how social and reciprocal relations between migrant and indigenous workers, their employers and/or trade unions might be characterised at individual company level, how these might evolve over time and what factors might influence migrants' choice over, and indigenous workers' response to, their adaptation into the host society. In the light of the existing evidence around migrant workers' experience of being de-skilled and de-valued as well as indigenous workers' potential hostility emerging from their fears of wage depression and substitution, the important question of how migrants negotiate their relationships within workplaces remains largely unexplored. Assuming that migrant workers are likely to be an important part of the national economy for the foreseeable future, it is time to ask the questions of how migrants negotiate their 'fit' into the British work environment, and how that is shaped and managed over time.

The research critically reviews the traditional conceptions of immigrant acculturation into the host society, including the work of Berry and Sam (1997), Bourhis et al (1997), Piontkowski et al (2000) and Navas et al (2005). However, it is argued that these models remain limited by their location in an overly cognitive framework and a positivist research paradigm. In order to address the issue of static and de-contextualised accounts of acculturation, the research operationalises a new approach that pays close attention to the everyday negotiations of migrants' acculturative choices. Priority has been given to ways in which workplace relationships between migrant and indigenous workers as well as employers and trade unions are developed on a day to day basis in particular workplace context. Such an approach is more capable of capturing the dynamic nature of migrant worker choice and constraint in relation to integration than alone identification of the final product of that acculturative process - strategies adopted.

Given the nature of this study, the research methods used are those of participant observation and autobiographical narrative interviews. These methods not only allow the researcher to gain an insight into migrants' contestation/acceptance practices but also illuminate the context in which daily encounters between workplace actors take place.

In addition to my research, I have also attended the following conferences:
IREC 2008 – University of Greenwich, London
IERA 2008 – Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
IREC 2009 - Kadir Has University, Turkey, Istanbul

I also presented my work at Dublin Trinity College seminar in 2009.

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