In the Czech Republic are also foreign communities, which were not traditional in Central Europe, however became part of the Czech Republic ethnic spectrum and we can assume their further development. One of these communities is the Kurdish community; it is not very large (it has only about 200 members), but this community is certainly interesting. The Kurdish Community seeks to promote organized interests, they are linked to the wider Kurdish Diaspora on other countries and to their home countries as well, and therefore we are able to identify their transnational activities.
When reflecting on the symbolic integration of migrants into their host societies, sociological and anthropological discourses are challenged by the fact that recent migrants do not simply leave their homelands behind but make great efforts to maintain their attachments at a distance. In this article the authors examine a transnational migrant network of eight highly educated young women from the post-socialist region of southern Slovakia and devote special attention to the construction of their diasporic identity and shared life-world. They interpret the migration of these highly educated people not as a rupture but as a coherent continuation of their life course. In order to understand their recent biographical situation, it is necessary to consider the role that a particular form of habitus plays in migration. The authors claim that the experience of living in the culturally hybrid life-world of Czechoslovak Hungarians has played an important role in shaping their ability to live in the dual world of migrants.
Perspectives on migrant integration differ by time and place. This article examines this vague concept to shed light on how its evolution over time has shaped the current conceptions of migrant integration in the EU and the Czech Republic. It describes the situation in the Czech Republic and the country's normative goals in the field of migrant integration. While the country has explicit integration priorities in place, there is no evaluation of their fulfilment. The article explores whether these priorities are indeed fulfilled and from what sources by analysing a unique dataset of 3061 projects in the field of migrant integration. All these projects were implemented in the Czech Republic between 2010 and 2019. The results show that although funding for migrant integration has increased since 2016, even taking into account the long-term increase in the number of migrants in the Czech Republic, funding in support of these priorities is allocated very unevenly. European funding remains crucial. Among the most supported priorities is knowledge of the Czech language and education. There is also some support in the social field. By contrast, the issues of discrimination, equal rights, foreign nationals' access to health care, and the development of professional skills receive hardly any support. The results thus show a discrepancy between the priorities that have been set and their fulfilment, especially in the area of activities targeting the majority society and its institutions. The declared two-sidedness to the process of integration process thus remains a somewhat unsupported vision.
Transnationalism and diaspora are concepts that are often intertwined but nonetheless differ. This article examines the link between transnationalism and integration processes among return migrants from the Armenian diaspora and examines the role social networks play in integration in Armenia. Returnees to Armenia can be divided into those who have returned from the Armenian diaspora (second and subsequent generations of migrants) and those who emigrated from Armenia and decided to return. This is reflected in the literature as a distinction between the 'old' and the 'new' Armenian diaspora, the latter having emerged in the 1990s. Before returning, both groups maintained ties with people in Armenia and may differ only by the extent and frequency of use of these ties. These ties can then accompany them when they return to Armenia and help them to (re-)integrate. The integration of returnees has its own specifics, compared to the integration of migrants, and may not be as simple as it might seem. This article focuses on the transnational ties of 23 migrants of Armenian descent who returned to Armenia after a long time abroad and draws on original research on return migration in Armenia conducted in 2016 and 2018. Semi-structured interviews with returnees revealed that their participation in the labour market is instrumental to their integration into mainstream society, and their work may involve transnational activities. The article shows the different opportunities that weak and strong ties provide returnees and that may facilitate their integration. Weak ties on a local level are crucial for returnees to be able to reintegrate and fully participate in life in Armenia. The article aims to understand the return strategy as one of the migration options that may or may not be permanent. A return may be followed by re-migration, under certain conditions and if obstacles to sustainable reintegration, and the article also explores the motivations for re-migration.
This article deals with Ukrainian student migration and the convergence of integration and transnationalism. Its main focus is the self-identification of young Ukrainians studying in the Czech Republic. The authors explore and describe international students' different integration and transnational dispositions and also discuss whether these dispositions could be seen as part of antagonistic or synergetic processes. The interconnection between transnationalism and integration is widely discussed in both sociological and anthropological literature, and most scholars identify them as synergetic processes. In the case of Ukrainian students in the Czech Republic, however, the authors argue that these processes can be understood as both synergetic and antagonistic because what matters is the students' self-identification. Most of the analysis presented in this article is based on in-depth interviews with Ukrainian students conducted between 2012 and 2019. The results of qualitative research are also compared to and discussed in relation to the findings from an on-line survey conducted among 258 Ukrainian students in 2018. The article suggests that Ukrainian students themselves could incline in both directions, towards an antagonistic and a synergetic understanding of integration and transnationalism, because it depends on their self-expressed dispositions. However, most participants most of the participants in the research express the synergy.