Understanding trans-border career trajectories: Post-Soviet women professionals in London

This thesis analyses transborder career trajectories to explain how the micro-level of working agency is imbedded into broader social processes. Women migrants’ professional careers are understudied in social sciences which overwhelmingly remain gender-blind and nationally bound. As a starting point this thesis understands working lives as a complex social phenomenon. The interdisciplinary socio-analytical framework elaborated within this thesis is rooted in the sociology of work and migration as well as in gender and area studies. The research develops a trans-border career trajectory approach which connects meanings, strategies and actions over time and space. The multi-dimensional impact of family and migration processes on working lives is critically analysed. Trans-border careers are explored from three interconnected perspectives: work-related values, resources for career-making and work-life balance practices. The thesis focuses on women professionals originating from post-Soviet Eurasia and settling in the UK. In-depth interviews have been conducted with thirty five women working in London. The participants moved to the UK between 1991 and 2011 from Belorussia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine. They are ethnically diverse and speak Russian as a first or second language; most of them are in their thirties. This study conceptualises migrants as strategising agents and raises the visibility of a particular group of non-EU women professionals who often move through non-skilled migration routes. It sheds light on the largely unexplored area of post-Soviet migration of professionals to ‘the West’ and to London, in particular. This research also challenges ethnocentrism in migration studies and methodological nationalism in social sciences. The overarching argument of this thesis is that, on the one hand, neoliberal restructuring in the post-socialist region leads to mass out-migration as a life scenario. On the other, growing appreciation of ‘skills’ in knowledge-based economies allows for some (women) migrants with a strong ability to strategise around different forms of capital to secure middle class positions in ‘the civilised West’. They can do so mainly by building professional careers and creating dual career families across borders. Therefore, trans-border careers are interpreted as part of life strategising; however, this is not necessarily a case of upward social mobility. Key findings suggest that these processes can be better understood in terms of social reproduction of knowledge workers and dual career families across time and space. Finally, this thesis shows how the study of migrants’ working lives can contribute to the understanding of societal transformations in a particular country or region of origin (the post-socialist one here) and a particular place of destination (London here) as well as trans-nationally. In short, transborder career trajectories reflect the on-going interplay between continuities and changes in our society. Thus this thesis makes an interdisciplinary contribution to knowledge

Migration scholarship in post-Soviet Russia: between Western approaches and Eurasian geographies

This review explores Russian academic debates around migration, highlighting theoretical, empirical and policy issues which are specific to the Former Soviet Union (FSU). In global terms, FSU migration volumes are high: the Ukraine-Russia migration corridors are second only to those straddling the border between Mexico and the United States. Russia’s wealthiest regions are the primary destinations of both internal and FSU migrants. In line with global trends, the response by host countries’ populations and authorities is one of hostility informed by media-fuelled xenophobia. The chaotic and disruptive nature of post-socialist transformations has buffered the effects and lessened the perception of the multiple crises which have enveloped the European Union in the last decade. Eurasian integration and the rift with the West have produced different economic and political conjunctures, whose defining moments are the Ukrainian conflict, Western sanctions and worsening terms of trade for key exports. In Russia, migration debates have focused on FSU-specific emergencies including demographic unbalances, the repatriation of the Russian diaspora and the prospects of large scale Central Asian migration. Migration processes, their subjective understanding as well as Russian policies directed at them, have been informed by the long history of mobility across the Eurasian space. FSU migrants who make up the vast majority of Russia’s migrant population still view the latter as ‘a common house’, a transnational space open to all FSU citizens irrespective of current nationality

Social failures of EU enlargement: a case of workers voting with their feet' [Book review]

Review of "Social Failures of EU Enlargement: A Case of Workers Voting with their Feet", by Guglielmo Meardi. Routledge, London, New York, 2012

International migration and labour turnover: workers’ agency in the construction sector of Russia and Italy

This article focuses on migrant workers’ agency through exploring the relationship between working and employment conditions, on one side, and labour mobility, on the other. The study is based on qualitative research involving workers from Moldova and Ukraine working in the Russian and Italian construction sector. Fieldwork has been carried out in Russia, Italy and Moldova to investigate informal networks, recruitment mechanisms and employment conditions to establish their impact on migration processes. Overcoming methodological nationalism, this study recognises transnational spaces as the new terrain where antagonistic industrial relations are rearticulated. Labour turnover is posited as a key explanatory factor and understood not simply as the outcome of capital recruitment strategies but also as workers’ agency

Labour mobility in construction: migrant workers’ strategies between integration and turnover

The construction industry historically is characterised by high levels of labour mobility favouring the recruitment of migrant labour. In the EU migrant workers make up around 25% of overall employment in the sector and similar if not higher figures exist for the sector in Russia. The geo-political changes of the 1990s have had a substantial impact on migration flows, expanding the pool of labour recruitment within and from the post-socialist East but also changing the nature of migration. The rise of temporary employment has raised concerns about the weakness and isolation of migrant workers and the concomitant risk of abuse. Migrant workers though cannot be reduced to helpless victims of state policies and employers’ recruitment strategies. Findings of the research presented here unveil how they meet the challenges of the international labour market, the harshness of debilitating working conditions and the difficult implications for their family life choices

Electrical conductivity measured in atomic carbon chains

The first electrical conductivity measurements of monoatomic carbon chains are reported in this study. The chains were obtained by unraveling carbon atoms from graphene ribbons while an electrical current flowed through the ribbon and, successively, through the chain. The formation of the chains was accompanied by a characteristic drop in the electrical conductivity. The conductivity of carbon chains was much lower than previously predicted for ideal chains. First-principles calculations using both density functional and many-body perturbation theory show that strain in the chains determines the conductivity in a decisive way. Indeed, carbon chains are always under varying non-zero strain that transforms its atomic structure from cumulene to polyyne configuration, thus inducing a tunable band gap. The modified electronic structure and the characteristics of the contact to the graphitic periphery explain the low conductivity of the locally constrained carbon chain.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figure

Electrical and galvanomagnetic properties of AuAl2+6%Cu intermetallic compounds at low temperatures

The AuAl2 intermetallic compounds are of substantial interest in view of their application potential. The investigated intermetallics AuAl 2+6%Cu were prepared from fine powders of AuAl2 and Cu by vacuum sputtering on a glass substrate and consisted of films with a thickness of about one micrometer. The films were annealed. The temperature and field dependence of the electroresistivity, the magnetoresistivity and the Hall effect of AuAl2+6%Cu films were measured in the temperature interval from 4.2 to 100 K and at magnetic fields of up to 15 T. We demonstrate that the temperature dependence of the electroresistivity has a minimum at T = 20 K and a metallic behavior above this temperature. The magnetoresistivity is very small (less then 1%), positive at low temperatures and negative above 12 K. The Hall coefficient is positive, which corresponds to the holes in a one zone model with a charge carrier concentration of about 1.6 1020 cm-3. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd

Hydrogen Gas Response of Zn1 – xAgxOy and Cu1 – xZnxOy Nanostructured Films

Detection of hydrogen gas in industry, biomedical systems and combustion systems is important for safety reasons. Silver doping in zinc oxide and zinc doping in copper oxide were investigated to obtain improved hydrogen sensing performances for sensors. Samples were grown by chemical method and studied by X-ray diffraction, SEM and sensorial techniques. For selectivity study samples were exposed to hydrogen, methane and ethanol gases. Were found growth and annealing regimes which allow us fabrication of faster and more selective gas sensors based on Zn1-xAgxOy nanostructured films and nanocrystallite Cu1-xZnxOy films with respect to 100 ppm H2

Hydrogen Gas Response of Zn1 – xAgxOy and Cu1 – xZnxOy Nanostructured Films

Detection of hydrogen gas in industry, biomedical systems and combustion systems is important for safety reasons. Silver doping in zinc oxide and zinc doping in copper oxide were investigated to obtain improved hydrogen sensing performances for sensors. Samples were grown by chemical method and studied by X-ray diffraction, SEM and sensorial techniques. For selectivity study samples were exposed to hydrogen, methane and ethanol gases. Were found growth and annealing regimes which allow us fabrication of faster and more selective gas sensors based on Zn1-xAgxOy nanostructured films and nanocrystallite Cu1-xZnxOy films with respect to 100 ppm H2

Ethanol Sensing Performances of Zinc-doped Copper Oxide Nano-crystallite Layers

The synthesis via chemical solutions (aqueous) (SCS) wet route is a low-temperature and cost-effective growth technique of high crystalline quality oxide semiconductors films. Here we report on morphology, chemical composition, structure and ethanol sensing performances of a device prototype based on zincdoped copper oxide nanocrystallite layer. By thermal annealing in electrical furnace for 30 min at temperatures higher than 550 ˚C, as-deposited zinc doped Cu2O samples are converted to tenorite, ZnxCu1-xOy, (x=1.3wt%) that demonstrate higher ethanol response than sensor structures based on samples treated at 450 ˚C. In case of the specimens after post-growth treatment at 650 ˚C was found an ethanol gas response of about 79 % and 91 % to concentrations of 100 ppm and 500 ppm, respectively, at operating temperature of 400 ˚C in air