Shuttling from the former Soviet Union to Poland: From 'primitive mobility' to migration

Abstract

This paper describes and analyses the phenomenon of shuttle mobility from the countries of the former Soviet Union into Poland during the decade after the collapse of the communist rule. I suggest that such pendulum movements are an ephemeral population phenomenon characteristic of the transition period in the Central-East European (CEE) region, and I introduce the term primitive mobility to characterise these temporary population movements. Furthermore, the analysis presented in this paper emphasises that, along with the development of networks and institutions created by both pendular migrants and receiving communities, some part of this mobility transforms slowly into more permanent migration. Both official statistics on channels of legal migration to Poland and the results of two surveys - on the Polish eastern border and in the Warsaw urban agglomeration - were used in this study. Keywords: Shuttle MobilityMigrationPolandFormer Soviet Union