The Family in the Life-World of Labour Migrants. The Case of the Karakachans in Post-Socialist Bulgaria
The Family in the Life-World of Labour Migrants. The Case of the Karakachans in Post-Socialist Bulgaria

Summary/Abstract: The political changes in Bulgaria of November 1989 were accompanied by a severe economic crisis, a high level of unemployment and the rise of strong social inequality, which led to intensive migratory processes. The opening of the borders was followed by various forms of cross-border mobility. Since the very beginning of the 1990s, the Karakachani, in contrast to the rest of the Bulgarian citizens, got an easy access to visas to Greece. It enabled labour mobility which in only a few years spread among a significant part of the members of the community. For most of them, gurbet turned out to be more than just a supplementary opportunity: it became a main strategy for realization in life. The subject of the present study are the “damages” that labour mobility causes to the structures of the life-world of the migrants and their relatives. There are two main questions: how does labour mobility transform main principles of family relations and of the statuses of family members; and how does the family on its part determine the nature of labour mobility.

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