Abstract
International migration and the presence of minority ethnic groups have been perceived as urban phenomena, resulting in binary conceptualisations of urban spaces as ‘cosmopolitan’ and rural spaces and people as culturally ‘homogeneous’. Following the expansion of the European Union in 2004, international migration to rural Scotland has received growing attention and is perceived as a way of addressing population decline. This has led to an increased interest in issues of ‘integration’ and ‘retention’ as a way of ‘fixing’ migrants to the places they have migrated to. Accordingly, migration and mobility in rural areas are disrupting notions of rural places as ‘fixed’ and isolated’. Drawing on a number of qualitative research projects undertaken in the north of Scotland, the chapter focuses on international migrants and the ways in which they negotiate their identities and sense of belonging. It argues that places, spaces and people are mutually constitutive of each other in a changing context. Concepts such as ‘translocalism’ potentially provide a useful mechanism to explore the plurality of rural spaces and voices within a dynamic and stretched context.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Accession 8 (A8) countries entered the EU in May 2004 and included nationals from the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia; and Accession 2 countries entered the EU in January 2007 and included Romania and Bulgaria. In May 2004, Ireland, Sweden and the UK were the only EU countries that allowed A8 nationals access to their labour markets.
- 3.
Most of the interviews cited in this chapter were undertaken in English, with a small minority undertaken in the interviewees’ first language with an interpreter present. For instance, this interview was undertaken in Mandarin Chinese.
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de Lima, P. (2012). Boundary Crossings: Migration, Belonging/‘Un-belonging’ in Rural Scotland. In: Hedberg, C., do Carmo, R. (eds) Translocal Ruralism. GeoJournal Library, vol 103. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2315-3_12
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