Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T23:30:50.564Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Trust in the Everyday Life of Guests and Hosts: Employers and Employees in Belgium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2008

Marcin Galent*
Affiliation:
Uniwersytet Jagiellonski, Instytut Europeistyki, ul. Jodłowa 13, 30-252 Kraków, Poland

Abstract

The collapse of the Iron Curtain, and recent European enlargement have brought about new waves of intra-European migration. Whilst millions of people from Central and Eastern European countries have trodden the well-worn path to the West in search of better paid jobs, their migration trajectories have differed from traditional patterns. They very often work in host countries and simultaneously maintain close social links with their countries of origin, thus earning the label ‘pendulum migrants’. These pendulum movements can be perceived as agents that stimulate processes of social integration at the micro level. Contrary to popular discourse, which represents migration as a phenomenon endangering social cohesion, this article investigates how personal contacts between hosts and guests may contribute to the building of mutual trust between European citizens.

Type
Focus: Labour Migration
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. For example: B. Misztal (1996) Trust in Modern Societies: The Search for the Bases of Social Order (Cambridge: Polity Press). P. Sztompka (1999) Trust. A Sociological Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). B. Rothestein (2005) Social Traps and the Problem of Trust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). R. Hardin (2006) Trust (Cambridge: Polity Press). F. Herreros (2004) The Problem of Forming Social Capital. Why Trust? (Palgrave Macmillan).Google Scholar
2.Putnam, R. (2000) Bowling Alone. The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York London Toronto Sydney: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks), p. 319.Google Scholar
3.Vertovec, S. (ed.) (1999) Migration and Social Cohesion (Aldershot: Edward Elgar).Google Scholar
4.Blalock, H. M. (1967) Toward a Theory of Minority-group Relations (New York: Wiley).Google Scholar
5.Commander, S., Heitmueller, A. and Tyson, L. (2006) Migrating workers and jobs. A challenge to the European social model? In: Giddens, A., Diamond, P., Liddle, R. (eds) Global Europe. Social Europe (Cambridge: Polity Press).Google Scholar
6.Allport, G. (1954) The Nature of Prejudice (Reading, MA: Addison Wasley).Google Scholar
7.Sztompka, P. (1999) Trust. A Sociological Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 25.Google Scholar
8.Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9.Nowak, S. (1981) Values and attitudes of Polish people. Scientific American, 245 (1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10.Mach, Z. and Niedzwiedzki, D. (eds) (2001) Polska lokalna wobec integracji europejskiej (Krakow: Universitas).Google Scholar
11.Putnam, R. D. (1993) Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: University Press).Google Scholar
12. For example: Czapiński, J. and Panek, T. (eds) (2007) Diagnoza społeczna 2007, European Social Survey (Warszwa: Vizja Press & IT).Google Scholar
13.Rifkin, J. (2004) The European Dream. How Europe’s Vision of the Future is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream (Cambridge: Polity Press).Google Scholar
14.Uslaner, E. M. (1999) Morality plays: social capital and moral behaviour in Anglo-American democracies. In: Van Deth, J. W., Marffi, M., Newton, K. and Whiteley, P. (eds) Social Capital and European Democracy (London: Routledge), p. 216.Google Scholar
15.Boslego, J. (2005) Engineering social trust. What can communities and institutions do? Harvard International Review, Spring, 2831.Google Scholar
16.Ruijter, E. d., Lippe, T. v. d. and Raub, W. (2003) Trust problems in household outsourcing. Rationality and Society, 15, 473506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar