Authors

Discussion

My dissertation project ‘Georgian Migrants in Germany: The Impacts of Social Remittances on Forms of Inequality in the Country of Origin’ looks at Georgian educational migrants in Germany and their families in Georgia. It aims to develop an overarching theoretical framework to explain the effects of migration on both migrants and non-migrants. In this study, I shed light how the educational migrants and their family members in the country of origin perceive and interpret their social positions in relation to each other and their environment after migration. In this way I seek to expand our understanding of migration by focusing primarily on the phenomenon of remittances and their symbolic significance for the emergence of the transnational effects of migration, which together are constitutive of transnationality.

In an ethnographic framework, data for the study was gathered in different locations, which I compared with each other in order to reveal possible connections between them.

In my conference paper I discuss the transformative character of migration. In so doing I reconstruct their subjective views and interpretive patterns. Among other things, I ask why these ties are so essential for them. My paper also deals with the deeper reflections on identification and feelings of belonging by migrants who are connected to their country of origin.