Our article considers social remittances and social change in Central and Eastern Europe. We show
how migration scholarship can be embedded into the wider study of social processes and relations.
‘Social remitting’ sometimes seems to be little more than a slippery catchphrase; however, this article
defends the concept. If it is defined carefully and used cautiously, it should help the researcher to think
about what, in addition to money, is sent from one society to another and exactly how, thus shedding
light on important and insufficiently studied aspects of migration. A close-up view of the processes by
which ideas, practices, norms, values and, according to some definitions, social capital and social skills
are transferred by migrants across international borders helps researchers to understand more precisely how migration contributes to social change or, in some cases, prevents it from occurring. Our
article reviews some of the most interesting arguments and findings presented recently by other scholars
and discusses aspects of social remitting which particularly interested us in our own research. The
context of our research is social change in Poland: we attempt to understand how migration has contributed to wider patterns of social change since 1989 and exactly how it intertwines with other social
trends and globalisation influences. This entails a careful focus on both structural conditions and
agency and therefore on social remittances