IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ijurrs/v31y2007i4p819-835.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mobility across Borders: Contextualizing Local Strategies to Circumvent Visa and Work Permit Requirements

Author

Listed:
  • ROOS PIJPERS
  • MARTIN VAN DER VELDE

Abstract

This article focuses on the structuring capacities of mobility strategies that are oriented towards, and seek to challenge, institutional borders. Positioned within the debate on the role of context in the ‘new’ economic geographies, and tempted to adopt elements of the Marxist‐inspired strategic‐relational approach to the geographical study of institutions, it emphasizes the creative entrepreneurial ability of mobile and immobile actors to influence prevailing border contexts. It further aims to continue work on the ‘primitive’ mobility typical of the early years of post‐Iron Curtain economic restructuring by discussing two timely cases. The first is that of the larger bazaars, or open‐air markets, in the Polish city region of Lodz. The functioning of these bazaars very much depends on the openness of Poland's eastern border, since many buyers and sellers come from such countries as Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. The prospect of Poland's admission to the Schengen area has had major consequences for its eastern border, and hence for the visa circumvention strategies of the protagonists in the bazaar economy. The second case concerns Polish migrant workers in the Dutch‐German Lower Rhine border region. Until recently, the Netherlands denied free movement of labour to citizens of new EU member states, and Germany still does. However, due to a strong demand for cheap migrant labour in the region, Polish workers are able to enter thanks to circumvention strategies at the margins of accounting and labour law. It is argued that the local strategies oriented towards Schengen and the restrictions on free movement are far from ‘primitive’. Instead, they imply creative, sophisticated legal and negotiating techniques of a kind that may indeed have structuring effects. Résumé Cet article s'intéresse aux capacités structurantes des stratégies de mobilité qui visent et défient les frontières institutionnelles. S'inscrivant dans le débat sur le rôle du contexte dans les ‘nouvelles’ géographies économiques, ce travail tend à adopter certains axes d'une approche stratégico‐relationnelle d'inspiration marxiste. Ce faisant, il souligne l'aptitude créative et entrepreneuriale dont font preuve les acteurs mobiles et non‐mobiles pour influer sur les contextes frontaliers existants. De plus, à partir de deux cas, il cherche à pousser l'étude de la mobilité‘primitive’, propre aux débuts de la restructuration économique qui a suivi la disparition du Rideau de Fer. Le premier cas concerne les grands bazars (ou marchés de rue) de la région urbaine polonaise de Lodz, dont le fonctionnement dépend beaucoup de l'ouverture de la frontière polonaise à l'Est, de nombreux acheteurs et vendeurs venant de pays comme la Biélorussie, l'Ukraine et la Russie. La perspective de l'entrée de la Pologne dans l'espace Schengen a eu de sérieuses conséquences sur la frontière orientale, donc sur les stratégies de contournement des visas pratiquées par les acteurs de ces marchés. Le second cas porte sur les travailleurs migrants polonais dans la région frontalière germano‐hollandaise du Rhin inférieur. Jusqu'à ces derniers temps, les Pays‐Bas refusaient la libre circulation de la main‐d'œuvre aux citoyens des nouveaux États membres de l'UE (l'Allemagne persiste quant à elle). Cependant, compte tenu de l'importante demande en main‐d'œuvre migrante bon marché dans la région, les travailleurs polonais peuvent entrer grâce à des stratégies de contournement à la limite de la réglementation comptable et du droit du travail. Les stratégies locales à l'égard de Schengen et des restrictions à la libre circulation sont loin d'être ‘primitives’. Elles exigent au contraire des techniques juridiques et de négociation à la fois créatives et élaborées, et peuvent tout à fait avoir des effets structurants.

Suggested Citation

  • Roos Pijpers & Martin Van Der Velde, 2007. "Mobility across Borders: Contextualizing Local Strategies to Circumvent Visa and Work Permit Requirements," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 819-835, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:31:y:2007:i:4:p:819-835
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2007.00753.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2007.00753.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2007.00753.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Krystyna Iglicka, 2000. "Ethnic Division on Emerging Foreign Labour Markets in Poland during the Transition Period," Europe-Asia Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(7), pages 1237-1255.
    2. Scott, Allen J, 2000. "Economic Geography: The Great Half-Century," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 24(4), pages 483-504, July.
    3. Wolfgang Zierhofer, 2002. "Speech Acts and Space(s): Language Pragmatics and the Discursive Constitution of the Social," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 34(8), pages 1355-1372, August.
    4. Endre Sik & Claire Wallace, 1999. "The Development of Open‐air Markets in East‐Central Europe," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(4), pages 697-714, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Miguel Atienza & Guillermo Armando Ronda-Pupo & Nicholas Phelps, 2019. "Bridges over troubled water? Journals, geographers and economists in the field of economy and space 1980–2017," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(8), pages 1800-1823, November.
    2. Yi-Min Chen, 2008. "How Much Does Country Matter?," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 31(4), pages 404-435, October.
    3. Haddad, Eduardo & Araújo, Inácio, 2022. "Regional Science Meets the Past: What Do Coin Finds Tell Us About the Ancient Spatial Economy?," TD NEREUS 2-2022, Núcleo de Economia Regional e Urbana da Universidade de São Paulo (NEREUS).
    4. Al James, 2005. "Demystifying the role of culture in innovative regional economies," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(9), pages 1197-1216.
    5. Petrovic, Mina, 2005. "Cities after socialism as a research issue," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 23378, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Huib Ernste, 2004. "The Pragmatism of Life in Poststructuralist Times," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 36(3), pages 437-450, March.
    7. Karel Van den Berghe & Martijn Vos, 2019. "Circular Area Design or Circular Area Functioning? A Discourse-Institutional Analysis of Circular Area Developments in Amsterdam and Utrecht, The Netherlands," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-20, September.
    8. Don Manson & Sean Markey & Laura Ryser & Greg Halseth, 2016. "Recession Response: Cyclical Problems and Local Solutions in Northern British Columbia," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 107(1), pages 100-114, February.
    9. Oikonomou, Vlasis & Patel, Martin & Worrell, Ernst, 2006. "Climate policy: Bucket or drainer?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(18), pages 3656-3668, December.
    10. Hamidi, Shima & Zandiatashbar, Ahoura & Bonakdar, Ahmad, 2019. "The relationship between regional compactness and regional innovation capacity (RIC): Empirical evidence from a national study," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 394-402.
    11. repec:dgr:rugsom:02d31 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Duszczyk, Maciej & Góra, Marek & Kaczmarczyk, Pawel, 2013. "Costs and Benefits of Labor Mobility between the EU and the Eastern Partnership Countries: The Case of Poland," IZA Discussion Papers 7664, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Ruta Aidis, 2003. "Officially Despised Yet Tolerated: Open-air Markets and Entrepreneurship in Post-socialist Countries," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(3), pages 461-473.
    14. Christoph Kober, 2010. "Enhancing Knowledge-Based Regional Economic Development: Potentials and Barriers for Technology Transfer Offices," NEURUS papers neurusp139, NEURUS - Network of European and US Regional and Urban Studies.
    15. Henrik Egbert, 2024. "Reuse Markets - Embedded in Capitalism," Bulgarian Economic Papers bep-2024-03, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski - Bulgaria // Center for Economic Theories and Policies at Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski, revised Apr 2024.
    16. Kandogan, Yener, 2014. "The effect of foreign trade and investment liberalization on spatial concentration of economic activity," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 648-659.
    17. Liam Clegg, 2019. "Economic geography and the regulatory state: Asymmetric marketization of social housing in England," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(7), pages 1479-1498, October.
    18. Vertova, Giovanna, 2002. "A historical investigation of the geography of innovative activities," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 259-283, September.
    19. Roberto Rocco, 2012. "Location Patterns of Advanced Producer Services Firms: The Case of São Paulo," Chapters, in: Marina van Geenhuizen & Peter Nijkamp (ed.), Creative Knowledge Cities, chapter 15, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Pedro Marques & Kevin Morgan & Ranald Richardson, 2018. "Social innovation in question: The theoretical and practical implications of a contested concept," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 36(3), pages 496-512, May.
    21. Weidong Liu & Dadao Lu, 2002. "Rethinking the Development of Economic Geography in Mainland China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 34(12), pages 2107-2126, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:31:y:2007:i:4:p:819-835. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0309-1317 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.