Narratives of recent migration: Young, well-educated Croats in Ireland

Abstract: In July 2013 Croatia has become the latest member state to join the European Union. Access to this single European area, in particular, to economically well-developed countries with a more robust labor market and a higher standard of living than Croatia resulted in intensification of emigration from Croatia. This has particularly affected young, well-educated Croats; ambitious, unsatisfied with the conditions in Croatia and in search of better opportunities abroad. This thesis explores the migration narratives of these individuals who have recently settled in Ireland hoping to shed light on a topic thus-far neglected in research, yet one of immense significance to the future of Croatia and, likewise, serving as an up-to-date example of EU periphery-to-center migration. By employing the method of interviews, this research analyzes ten narratives of recent (post-2013) migration of young, well-educated individuals from Croatia to the Republic of Ireland. The main topics explored are: reasons for leaving, settling and belonging, labor market integration, identity change in migration and migrants’ transnational orientation; all of which seek to paint a clearer picture of the experience of individuals in this current wave of emigration from Croatia. Although every migration narrative is specific, several significant themes reverberated across all migration accounts. In regard to the motivation for migration, the most prominent reasons interlocutors cited were economic stagnation and inhospitable labor market conditions, followed by the desire to escape “Croatian mentality” seen as negative, stagnant and rigid, the promise of Ireland’s booming economy and a desire for adventure and self-development. While some participants were successful in converting their particular forms of capital from the Croatian to the Irish labor market, the majority grappled with deskilling, an issue on the intersection of the personal and the structural mitigated by one’s habitus and positioning in the new field of action. Finally, all of the participants stated that they had experienced maturation and a personal transformation for the better thus, in their words, having been profoundly changed by their experience of migration.