| Project title |
Careers, Conjunctures and Consequences. The implications of Polish migration to Ireland for contemporary Irish emigration |
| Summary |
Our ‘Migrant Careers’ study suggested that Polish migration to Ireland was prototypical for other emerging European migrations – including that from Ireland today. The proposed project further develops our Qualitative Panel Study methodology to re-interview young Poles who worked in Ireland during the boom and interview a matching group of Irish graduate emigrants. We evaluate whether novel forms of migrant careers exist within the European the mobility space, the impact on migrants’ careers of two different conjunctures (bubble and recession) and finally the lasting consequences for Irish employment regulation of the periods of mass immigration and mass emigration. |
| Funding Agency |
Irish Research Council |
| Programme |
Advanced Collaborative Research Project |
| Type of Project |
Research |
| Date from |
01/08/2012 |
| Date to |
30/09/2013 |
| Person Months |
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| Project title |
Cars, debts and public transport: urban mobility in the crisis |
| Summary |
After housing, for most people their major investment is a car. In countries such as Ireland car ownership, like home ownership, is taken as self-evidently desirable, yet the extent and form of both are massively shaped by public policy. However, cars, like houses, have to be bought. Car purchase often involves substantial debt and the expansion of car ownership is thus interwoven with the development of the financial services industry. Furthermore, motoring costs as a proportion of total household expenditure vary inversely with income. Like home ownership, car ownership is both entangled with the growth of the financial services industry and involves particular risks for low income groups; this is especially the case when some policies (e.g. limited public transport, dispersed settlement pattern) make car ownership crucial for low income groups. The final stages of the Celtic Tiger boom appear to have been an extreme case of this convergence: with a credit bubble and massive housing price inflation, home ownership, suburban sprawl, car ownership and consumer debt all expanded together.
In this context the research project examines the relationship between social exclusion and mobility in an epoch of financialisation. In the current crisis it is arguable that those most threatened by new social exclusion are those most dependent on the expansion of both mobility and credit in the boom – those on first time mortgages in new suburban areas. Has the crisis created new forms of exclusion for new social groups, and if so, how does their experience compare with those of groups who already have a long term experience of social exclusion?
The project will comprise case studies of two distinct suburban areas of Dublin: an established ‘working class’ area with high levels of unemployment even during the boom years, a second an area with new private sector housing constructed during the boom. It will largely use qualitative interview techniques as well as visual ethnography and existing statistical data. The project combines the research methods and concerns of the developing field of mobility studies both with the well established field of social exclusion and the new area of the financialisation of everyday life, including the role of assets and debt in social stratification
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| Funding Agency |
TCD Arts and Social Sciences Benefaction Fund |
| Programme |
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| Type of Project |
Research |
| Date from |
01/05/2012 |
| Date to |
30/09/2013 |
| Person Months |
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| Project title |
Migrant Careers and Aspirations |
| Summary |
Much of the debate on immigration in Ireland today is concerned with the question m of ‘integration’. However, this assumes that contemporary immigrants will in fact be staying in Ireland, even though there is considerable evidence that this is not necessarily the case. Equally, it is assumed that employers utilise migrant labour because of ‘skill shortages’, but there is no discussion of how this relates to the overall nature of employment in Irish workplaces. This project therefore studies the interaction of migrants’ and employers’ strategies. It studies the choices of both sides of the new employment relationship through analysis of individual migrants’ careers and case studies of workplaces.
To tackle these issues Migrant Careers and Aspirations uses a qualitative panel study of both immigrants and workplaces, flanked by a systematic monitoring of labour market trends. Fieldwork will begin in late 2007. The research will thus follow immigrants to Ireland as they move through the labour market. It will provide the first systematic study of migrants’ careers and aspirations and how these change over time.
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| Funding Agency |
Philanthropic |
| Programme |
Trinity Immigration Initiative |
| Type of Project |
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| Date from |
01/10/2007 |
| Date to |
30/09/2010 |
| Person Months |
36 |
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| Project title |
DYNAMO |
| Summary |
Analysis of the challenges facing national employment systems within the European Union; in particular the extent to which distinctive national structures are being reproduced. |
| Funding Agency |
European Commission |
| Programme |
6FP |
| Type of Project |
STREP |
| Date from |
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| Date to |
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| Person Months |
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| Project title |
Mobile Lives |
| Summary |
Analysis of the factors generating business travel and the location of particularly travel-intensive forms of business; the implications of extensive travel for work/life balance and social involvement. |
| Funding Agency |
IIIS |
| Programme |
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| Type of Project |
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| Date from |
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| Date to |
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| Person Months |
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| James Wickham, Gráinne Collins, Lidia Greco and Josephine Browne, Individualization and equality: women’s careers and organizational form, Organization, 15, (2), 2008, p211 - 231 |
| James Wickham and Alessandra Vecchi, ‘Local firms and global reach: Business air travel and the Irish software cluster , European Planning Studies, 16, (5), 2008, p693 - 710 |
| James Wickham and Ian Bruff, Skills shortages are not always what they seem: migration and the Irish software industry, New Technology Work and Employment, 23, (1-2), 2008, p31 - 44 |
| James Wickham, Gridlock: Dublin's transport crisis and the future of the city, Dublin, Tasc at New Island, 2006, 256pp |
| J. Wickham, 'Public transport systems: the sinews of European urban citizenship?', European Societies, 8, (1), 2006, p3 - 26 |
| More Publications>>> |
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Last Updated:19-MAY-2013 |