Международни и вътрешни миграции: Ролята на границите в мобилизацията на мрежи в едно родопско село
Internal and International Migration: the Role of the Borders in the Mobilization of Networks in a Bulgarian Muslim Village

Summary/Abstract: Migration theories have tended until recently to set a strict divide between internal and international migration, focusing predominantly on the movements of people, which necessarily include border crossing. This has left internal migration under researched by migration scholars. The research presented here aims to demonstrate a possible way of filling this gap. It focuses on the differences and similarities concerning the mobilization of networks during the labour migration processes in Ribnovo, a Bulgarian Muslim village in the Rhodopi Mountain, characteristic with its high migration rate. The study addresses the question of what type of social networks are mobilised during the migration process. The main findings have lead to the conclusion that the mobilisation of networks in the case of Ribnovo does not depend on the border-crossing factor. There is high level of network mobilisation in all types of labour migration. The differences are related to the context and the structural conditions. That is, what kind of work is being done, in what setting, and what is the social structure of the group migrating together (men only or whole families). Moreover, the networks being used are mainly based on kin ties in all the cases, which could be explained with the specifics of the migration processes, as well as with the historical, cultural and social conditions in which the inhabitants of the village are embedded. The presented findings are based on intensive field work in the village of Ribnovo in April 2005, which included participant observation, in-depth semi-structured interviews and many informal conversations.

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