Ukrainian Migration and the European Union

To migrate or not to migrate: that is the question. This book discusses migration in the highly topical context of Ukraine, and explores the imaginations, life-stories, aspirations and life-projects of people in Ukraine through a consideration of Ukrainian migration to the European Union (EU) from the perspective of the sending-country. Building on the existing literature and drawing on a rich variety of empirical data and field research, this text addresses migration by Ukrainian nationals into the EU, and how and why people leave or stay in Ukraine. The book also considers questions of subjectivity, the self and the construction of narratives, and contributes more widely to the significant academic and policy debates surrounding Ukrainian migration in the EU.

• Migration
• European Union
• Ukraine
• Politics
• Subjectivity
• corruption
• decision-making
• Europe
• European Union (EU)
• migration
• nationalism
• politics
• european union politics

This book works at a number of levels, linking a sophisticated discussion of selfhood with the decision to migrate or remain. The case study is Ukraine, but the lessons to be learned are much wider. The questions 'who am I?', 'how am I to live?' and 'where am I to live?' are conjoined in this rich and textured account. Bastian Vollmer is to be congratulated for breaking the usual mould used to explain migration.'–Professor Robin Cohen, University of Oxford, UK

'This is important work. Bastian Vollmer's book makes a vital contribution and he should be commended for this excellently drafted piece of work. The book explores an underdeveloped perspective in the field of politics and migration: the perspective of migrants as agents. This perspective is extremely well discussed under the consideration of structure and context. A more interesting and timely context could not have been selected. Bastian Vollmer draws from a wide landscape of theories and disciplines, but he successfully accommodates these and provides significant insights into the situation of migration, and of Ukraine and its society as a whole - just before the riots in Kyiv took place. As the developments and discussions in Ukraine and in the EU continue, this work will remain a standard reference. This is a book that every scholar, student and policy-maker with an interest of subjectivities and politics of migration should read.' - Dr. Olena Malynovska, Principal Researcher at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, Kyiv, Ukraine This book works at a number of levels, linking a sophisticated discussion of selfhood with the decision to migrate or remain. The case study is Ukraine, but the lessons to be learned are much wider. The questions 'who am I?', 'how am I to live?' and 'where am I to live?' are conjoined in this rich and textured account. Bastian Vollmer is to be congratulated for breaking the usual mould used to explain migration.'–Professor Robin Cohen, University of Oxford, UK

'This is important work. Bastian Vollmer's book makes a vital contribution and he should be commended for this excellently drafted piece of work. The book explores an underdeveloped perspective in the field of politics and migration: the perspective of migrants as agents. This perspective is extremely well discussed under the consideration of structure and context. A more interesting and timely context could not have been selected. Bastian Vollmer draws from a wide landscape of theories and disciplines, but he successfully accommodates these and provides significant insights into the situation of migration, and of Ukraine and its society as a whole - just before the riots in Kyiv took place. As the developments and discussions in Ukraine and in the EU continue, this work will remain a standard reference. This is a book that every scholar, student and policy-maker with an interest of subjectivities and politics of migration should read.' - Dr. Olena Malynovska, Principal Researcher at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, Kyiv, Ukraine

• Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

  Bastian Vollmer

Bastian A. Vollmer is Leverhulme Fellow at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), University of Oxford, UK.

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