Agency of Migrant Youth in Hostile Sociopolitical Environments: Case Studies from Central Eastern Europe

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Generally, I evaluated this paper really positively both content and structure wise. The choice of countries for a comparative case study is appropriate, as the immigration policies and the socio-political background of the two countries show similarities but certain differences as well. The introduction of the research project as well as the goal of the paper are clear. The theoretical framework is short but well-focused. I found the agency approach applied throughout the paper convincing, however it was not clear for me how the application of the vignettes were linked to this concept. Firstly, I thought by vignettes the authors meant the tool what are widely used in survey experiments, but later in the discussion section it turned out that vignettes are in fact the cases that were discussed in detailed based on the interviews. The vignette approach therefore was not clear for me, as a reader.  The empirical strategy of the research was also somewhat unclear: It was obvious that the authors relied on semi structured interviews, but neither the recruitment strategy nor the exact method of analysing the interviews was explicitly described.  

Furthermore, I've also missed a more detailed documentation of the research materials from the "Data and methods" part. Finally, a short note on research ethics would be needed, as well. I really liked the idea that the researchers worked in co-operatation with peer researchers from the main migrant target groups. 

I found the discussion part excellent, however I missed a more focused comparison on Poland and Hungary (or a paragraph to better emphasise that these two countries are similar in terms of migrant integration), as the title suggest that these two countries will be discussed as cases.

Recommendation for improvement:

-The title of the paper could be simplified somehow. (E.g  Young migrant agencies in hostile socio-political environments: A qualitative case study from Central-Eastern Europe/A qualitative case study on Poland and Hungary).

-Methods: What type of analytical approach was used exactly for the empirical analysis of the interviews? What was the exact role of the vignette approach in this study? Please specify in the methods part.  

-For the sake of transparency, a more detailed documentation of research materials would be needed; i.e. the interview guideline, the exact design of the vignettes (if they exists?) should be shown in an Appendix, and the most important characteristics of the interviewees could be placed in the main text/or also in the Appendix, in a descriptive table. The ethical principles followed throughout the field research should also be clearly explained, including how the data was handled, anonymised, etc, especially as the researchers dealt with a vulnerable target group and sensitive research topics.

-From a structural point of view, I was not sure that section 3.1 (Agency...) 3.2 etc fits well into the section on Methods. In my view these sections are already part of the Result section, which is completely missing as a section title. What I suggest is to create a separate section for Results and show subsections 3.1, 3.2 etc. under Section 4 as 4.1, 4.2 etc. 

When it comes to the presentation of the results, this analytical part would benefit from some kind of typology or any other method to show the main patterns that can be derived from the interviews. Also, pls make it clear how and on what basis the stories of the individual interviewees were selected as illustrations of the specific agency types and other motives of integration. Was it a "top-down" or a "bottom-up" approach? I.e first you set the types of agencies and other motives or vice versa, you used the contents of the interviews as starting points?  How about the other interviewees (who left out from the analysis)? How their data was used in the analysis?

Minor remarks:

I was not sure about the abbreviation of SI? Special Issue? Pls spell it out (p. 6)

Author Response

Thank you for the review, which allowed us to see the weaker points of our text and argumentation. We have addressed all the comments and thus we think that the article has reached a more improved version. Kindly find below all responses to the points raised in the review.

 

Review 1

Generally, I evaluated this paper really positively both content and structure wise. The choice of countries for a comparative case study is appropriate, as the immigration policies and the socio-political background of the two countries show similarities but certain differences as well. The introduction of the research project as well as the goal of the paper are clear.

The theoretical framework is short but well-focused. I found the agency approach applied throughout the paper convincing, however it was not clear for me how the application of the vignettes were linked to this concept. Firstly, I thought by vignettes the authors meant the tool what are widely used in survey experiments, but later in the discussion section it turned out that vignettes are in fact the cases that were discussed in detailed based on the inter views. The vignette approach therefore was not clear forme, as a reader. The empirical strategy of the research was also somewhat unclear: It was obvious that the authors relied on semi structured interviews, but neither the recruitment strategy nor the exact method of analysing the interviews was explicitly described.

We agree that the word “vignettes” may have been misleading and thus we decided to change it to “case study”, which better reflects our approach. Focusing on several case studies and describing them in a detailed manner was necessary to illustrate the interplay between structural constraints stemming from “hostile environment” and migrants’ agency. We have added additional information about sampling, analysis and selection of the cases in the method section (see p.8)

Furthermore, I've also missed a more detailed documentation of the research materials from the "Data and methods" part. Finally, a short note on research ethics would be needed, as well. I really liked the idea that the researchers worked in co-operatation with peer researchers from the main migrant target groups.

We have added a table with detailed characteristics of the sample in the Appendix. Apart from that we have expanded the “Data and methods” section and included a paragraph on ethics.

I found the discussion part excellent, however I missed a more focused comparison on Poland and Hungary (or a paragraph to better emphasise that these two countries are similar in terms  of migrant integration), as the title suggest that these two countries will be discussed as cases

The title was somewhat misleading and it has been changed. While we indicate both similarities and differences between the two countries, our main argument is that they create ‘hostile environments’ for migrants. Thus, the aim was not to conduct comparative analysis, but to treat data from both countries as complementary. The ideal types identified in the course of our analysis may be applicable to both countries. 

-The title of the paper could be simplified somehow. (E.g Young migrant agencies in hostile socio-political environments:/A qualitative case study on Poland and Hungary).

Thank you for this suggestion. In line with it, the title has been changes into: Young migrant agencies in hostile socio-political environments: case studies from Central-Eastern Europe

-Methods: What type of analytical approach was used exactly for the empirical analysis of the interviews? What was the exact role of the vignette approach in this study? Please specify in the methods part

We have substantially expanded the methodological section. We have added a paragraph about our approach to the data and analysis (see p. 8 and 9). As mentioned above, we have decided to change the word “vignettes” into “case study” which better reflects our approach.

Focusing on several case studies and describing them in a detailed manner was necessary to illustrate the interplay between structural constraints stemming from “hostile environment” and migrants’ agency. We have also added additional information about sample, analysis and selection of the cases in the method section.

-For the sake of transparency, a more detailed documentation of research materials would be needed; i.e. the interview guideline,the exact design of the vignettes (if they exists?) should be shown in an Appendix, and the most important characteristics of the interviewees could be placed in the main text/or also in the Appendix, in a descriptive table. The ethical principles followed throughout the field research should also be clearly explained,including how the data was handled, anonymised, etc, especially as the researchers dealt with a vulnerable target group and sensitive research topics.

We have added the missing information: listing the main themes in the interviews, the table with the characteristics of the interviewees as well as a paragraph about ethical principles.

Basically, the section “Methods and data” have been reworked and substantially expanded for the sake of transparency of our research both at the stage of fieldwork and analysis. 

-From a structural point of view, I was not sure that section 3.1(Agency...) 3.2 etc fits well into the section on Methods. In my view these sections are already part of the Result section, which is completely missing as a section title. What I suggest is to create a separate section for Results and show subsections 3.1,3.2 etc. under Section 4 as 4.1, 4.2 etc.

We numbered the sections/subsections as suggested.

When it comes to the presentation of the results, this analytical part would benefit from some kind of typology or any other method to show the main patterns that can be derived from the interviews. Also, pls make it clear how and on what basis the stories of the individual interviewees were selected as illustrations of the specific agency types and other motives of integration. Was it a "top-down" or a "bottom-up" approach? I.efirst you set the types of agencies and other motives or vice versa, you used the contents of the interviews as starting points? How about the other interviewees (who left out from the analysis)? How their data was used in the analysis?

The purpose of the analysis was exactly the one suggested by the reviewer. We strived to establish ideal-types of migrant agencies (informing our understanding of successful coping in a hostile political-discoursive environment). To establish such ideal-types across the two countries (which in fact represent multiple locations, and we emphasize the role of locality too), we scanned through our entire stock of interviews conducted under the label of young migrants’ successful coping strategies, and selected the most telling and instructive ones. We definitely cannot claim that they would be representative, instead they tell something about the various agency potentials against all odds. In other words, it wasn’t out goal to say anything summarizing about the totality of our interviews, instead we tried to make different small claims, empirically informed contributions, on potentials of migrant agencies in hostile environments.

Some of this answer has been added to the introduction of the analytical part making our point more clear.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The title promises a significant and original contribution to migration scholarship: how can migrants in countries known for their hostility to immigration nonetheless prosper? The material presented in the paper holds promise, but in order to answer the question implied in the title it may have to be approached differently.

Firstly, Poland and Hungary are presented as comparable cases characterised by low immigration, hostile immigration policy and discourse. However, the Introduction glosses over the a more complex picture that includes fundamental differences. Poland reached an "immigration transition" (high emigration, high immigration) by the early 2000s, and the reception of immigrants from the former Soviet Union was not hostile; there was a left-right consensus that supported some of them because they were seen as fleeing a hostile regime. Thus, Poland became a hub of Chechen exiles. In contrast, Hungary's policy and discourse towards immigration has been largely hostile since the 1990s, so that the 2015 crisis did not represent a true turning point: only ethnic Hungarians received some measure of welcome (see Judit Tóth's work on this). It is inaccurate to suggest that both countries implemented EU "integration" measures before the 2010s: they went along with its language and legal framework because of EU requirements, but hardly implemented any practical measures. These differences may seem marginal to the argument of the article, but a deeper analysis of the similarities and differences is necessary because establishing in what ways the two societies are hostile to immigrants is central for the argument.

As it stands, the article is set up to make a contribution to the discussion of migrant agency. I suggest the authors reconsider this. There is hardly anything new to be said on this subject. Of course migrants can exercise agency even in hostile environments. The interesting question would how certain forms of hostility--which may differ between the two coutnries--influence their options and what coping mechanisms can help overcome them. The material is probably there, so I suggest to restructure the article to make this line of argumentation explicit. This also requires a better introduction to both countries' immigration situation (numbers, national makeup, types of immigration) that would help situate the cases presented in the article.

Finally, the choice of interviewees requires better justification. The cases presented seem random, which can be all right, but only if we understand where the profiles of these migrants are situated within the broader picture of immigration. In particular, the choice of "peer interviewers" in Hungary seems odd as they come from ethnic groups that account for very small shares of immigration. Of course, the stories need not be representative, but readers must understand what sort of marginality we are dealing with here, and what other sorts are we leaving out.

Author Response

Thank you for the review, which allowed us to see the weaker points of our text and argumentation. We have addressed all the comments and thus we think that the article has reached a more improved version. Kindly find below all responses to the points raised in the review.

Review 2

The title promises a significant and original contribution to migration scholarship: how can migrants in countries known for their hostility to immigration nonetheless prosper? The material presented in the paper holds promise, but in order to answer the question implied in the title it may have to be approached differently.

The article does not give a promise of being original regarding agency as a concept, it simply cannot, since, as the reviewer rightly points out, the concept is with us for quite some time. What we do promise is an empirically informed examination of migrant agencies in a hostile environment, and that, we believe, has been delivered in the article. “Prosperity”, though we do not use this term, instead speak about coping and embedding, is a relative term. Each case of ‘successful’ coping turns out to be a phase/ or situation, often overshadowed by new or re-emerging difficulties, by ‘getting stuck’. Yet, these individuals manage to get education, obtain a job, learn the language, open a small business, enroll into higher education etc, small acts of regaining individual agency in a difficult political and discursive terrain.

Therefore, we contribute to the existing academic discussions on agency by implementing it in an analysis of cases emerging from illiberal political contexts of CEE, and by examining the limits and potentials of individual agencies through asking similar questions to the reviewer: how come that there is coping/ success, to what extent can an individual (with all the preexisting disadvantages and encountered hostility) still cope and actively participate in processes of social embedding?

Firstly, Poland and Hungary are presented as comparable cases characterised by low immigration, hostile immigration policy and discourse. However, the Introduction glosses over the a more complex picture that includes fundamental differences. Polandreached an "immigration transition" (high emigration, high immigration) by the early 2000s, and the reception of immigrants from the former Soviet Union was not hostile; there was a left-right consensus that supported some of them because they were seen as fleeing a hostile regime. Thus, Poland became a hub of Chechen exiles. In contrast, Hungary's policy and discourse towards immigration has been largely hostile since the 1990s, so that the 2015 crisis did not represent a true turning point: only ethnic Hungarians received some measure of welcome (see Judit Tóth's work on this). It is inaccurate to suggest that both countries implemented EU "integration" measures before the 2010s: they went along with its language and legal framework because of EU requirements, but hardly implemented any practical measures. These differences may seem marginal to the argument of the article, but a deeper analysis of the similarities and differences is necessary because establishing in what ways the two societies are hostile to immigrants is central for the argument.

 

While we agree that there are differences between both countries, and we have added a paragraph saying it explicitly, there are also many similarities, particularly after 2015 and this is the period on which we focus in the analysis. Of course the detailed analysis would show many nuanced differences, but in this part we wanted to briefly explain the context of both countries as ‘hostile environments’. Due to the length of the article we are not able to expand this section.

In terms of “migration transition” of Poland, we would not agree that this happened in the early 2000. While indeed migrants from former Soviet Republics, including Chechen asylum seekers, arrived, the numbers remained rather low. For instance, the number of Chechen refugees oscillated around several hundred persons per year. Our argument is that until 2014 Poland remained one of the most homogenous countries in Europe, even after joining the EU, and that this picture (both in terms of scale of immigration and in terms of the shift in the discourse) has changed radically around 2014-2015.

As to Hungary, we maintain that 2015 was a turning point. Until 2015 the Hungarian state, though was not a welcoming space to asylum seekers but basic infrastructure and legal framework for the asylum system (asylum reception centers, basic integration measure such as the “integration contract”) were maintained and immigrants crossing the border were free to submit an asylum application (see on this for example Árendás and Messing 2015). As to the discursive field, academic studies suggest the lack of any discourses: immigrants were missing from the media coverage and the general political discourse (MHB 2014) As we argue in the paper legal and political changes in 2015 and 2017 brought about significant changes with constructing militarized physical and legal borders that restricted immigrants to enter Hungary and submit asylum application. In addition all infrastructure of refugee/asylum integration support were dismantled: the integration contract was ceased in 2017 (2017/CXLIII) In parallel to these measures the HUngarian government launched a systematic anti-immigrant propaganda including political and media discourses, push polls and the general public discourse. (reference) Based on these, we maintain our claim that 2015 brought about a significant change in all regards: from a negligent to an anti-refugee regime.

However we included in the text a few notes to compare the differences between the two countries.

As it stands, the article is set up to make a contribution to the discussion of migrant agency. I suggest the authors reconsider this. There is hardly anything new to be said on this subject. Of course migrants can exercise agency even in hostile environments. The interesting question would how certain forms of hostility--which may differ between the two coutnries--influence their options and what coping mechanisms can help overcome them. The material is probably there, so I suggest to restructure the article to make this line of argumentation explicit.This also requires a better introduction to both countries'immigration situation (numbers, national makeup, types of immigration) that would help situate the cases presented in the article.

 

As stated above, the article makes a contribution in the area of agencies in hostile environments. The cases introduced from the two countries complement each other, and since local contexts may vary within the broader context of ‘hostility’, any sort of comparison would be lacking real grounds. Instead, we speak about ideal types, introducing in the analysis processes of evolving agencies via coping mechanisms and processes of social embedding.In other words, we focus exactly on the question ‘how do agencies evolve in hostile contexts’ as pointed out by the reviewer. We made some changes to emphasize this central aspect of the article.

Finally, the choice of interviewees requires better justification.The cases presented seem random, which can be all right, but only if we understand where the profiles of these migrants are situated within the broader picture of immigration.

We have substantially expanded the methodological section. We have added a paragraph about our approach to the data and analysis (see p. 8 and 9), as well as the rationale behind the case selection. We have decided to change the word “vignettes” into “case study” which better reflects our approach.

Focusing on several case studies and describing them in a detailed manner was necessary to illustrate the interplay between structural constraints stemming from “hostile environment” and migrants’ agency.

The table added in the Appendix allows to see the characteristics of the whole sample, from which case studies representing “ideal types” of agency were purposefully selected.

In particular, the choice of "peer interviewers" in Hungary seems odd as they come from ethnic groups that account for very small shares of immigration. Of course, the stories need not be representative,but readers must understand what sort of marginality we are dealing with here, and what other sorts are we leaving out.

In the MIMY project, peer researchers could be young people (aged 18-29) with a migration background living in a research location selected as a case study in each country. We did not define rigidly what nationality peer researchers should be to be able to cooperate with us. There are several reasons for this decision. First of all, the group of project participants (young migrants), as we write in the article, was very diverse in terms of country of origin. Although the majority of interviewees in Poland were from Ukraine, Belarus and Tajikistan, there were also some people from more distant countries. Interviewees in Hungary also had very diverse national backgrounds, including African origin and countries from the MENA region. Therefore, it was impossible to cooperate with peer researchers from so many different countries.

Second, we assumed that peer researchers are people with similar experiences to the study participants, which in this case meant that they are young migrants who may be in difficult life situations related to living and working in precarious conditions. As young people, they faced various challenges related to combining different social roles (often new to them) related to education, work, or family. Therefore, mainly due to time constraints resulting from many other duties, they had difficulties with full involvement in project activities. Therefore, we struggled a lot with peer researchers' recruitment for the project, so we had to be flexible regarding recruitment criteria.

Finding peer researchers was especially difficult in Hungary. This was for multiple additional reasons:

• The vulnerability of humanitarian migrants in the Hungarian context, as well as the illegalization of programmes supporting or training immigrants (including CEU's HE Access Program called OLive) by the government.
• The dismantling of CEU's educational operations in Budapest made immigrant youth in vulnerable conditions uneasy about joining the CEU team.
• Immigrant youth in Hungary have no access to integration support schemes and are extremely vulnerable on the labor market. Most of them leave the county at the first opportunity. Those who stay need to take up precarious jobs, working over 12 hours/day and thus have no time to join research. This meant high risk of fluctuation and difficulty to recruit someone from the target group.
• Bureaucratic processes of employing a third country national at CEU (a long process of work permit application) was an additional factor that discouraged potential applicants.

All the above-mentioned reasons meant that peer researchers in some cases differed in their origin from the study participants, but still shared the experience of being a young migrant.

references:

Árendás, Zs and Messing, V. (2015) Integration of Vulnerable Migrants: Women, Children and Victims of Trafficking (Hungary). National report on HUngary. ASSESS Project (https://cps.ceu.edu/sites/cps.ceu.edu/files/cps-research-report-assess-hu-integration-of-vulnerable-migrants-2015.pdf)

Magyar Helsinki Bizottság (2014), Pánik a sötétben: migránsok a magyar médiában, Budapest: MHB.

Messing V, Bernáth G (2015)

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

While the authors addressed my questions on method in a satisfactory manner, the other changes are cosmetic--as they are bound to be given the short time within which they were made. So my earlier suggestions still stand. To reiterate, the article is of some interest, but in its current form of limited value to scholars not working on this particular question. I think a lot more could be brought out of this material.

Author Response

Thank you once again for your further comments.

For the comment on the Polish and Hungarian contexts: as we emphasized in our response earlier, we did not intend to make any direct comparison, instead introduce the two ’hostile environments’ in the CEE region (which are in a structural- discursive sense hostile, yet contain positive micro-environments), out of which our individual cases emerge. When it comes to the comparability of our cases, we emphasize that individual cases complement each other to the extent they inform the concept of agency (in hostile environments) in multiple ways. For that end, we establish ideal types (e.g. limited agency, evolving agency) set in hostile environments of CEE. Therefore, our article and its main argument is an empirically informed contribution to the general concept of agency(s): enriching our understanding of the ways in which (migrant) agencies operate in hostile environments.

The reviewer him/herself suggested this approach in the first round of reviews, suggesting it as a potential area of contribution.

However, in the second round we received a comment from the same reviewer suggesting that this kind of contribution is very limited, and the article should look for a broader relevance. We need to argue against such an approach, as it would go directly against the particularity and specificity of our contribution as we examine (boundries of) migrant agencies in restricted/ hostile environments.