Paper short abstract:

This ethnographic study of immigrants from Latvia living in Ireland focuses on the complexities surrounding migrants' construction of 'home'.

Paper long abstract:

In the years of the Celtic tiger (from 1994) the Irish economy grew rapidly. The country urgently needed migrants to fill in the gaps in the labour market. Unlike most other member states of the European Union, Ireland immediately opened its labour market to citizens of the ten accession states, which entered the EU in 2004. The estimates of Latvians who took the chance to migrate to Ireland, run from 13,300 to 30.000. My ethnographic study of the lives of immigrants from Latvia living in Ireland focuses on the complexities surrounding migrants' construction of 'home'. 'Home' can refer to different fields of sentiment and belonging in which individuals engage simultaneously. These different fields hold different meanings and salience for them. My doctoral research project aims to explore in what fields migrants from Latvia in Ireland participate or identify with and how these fields are shaped by emigration. In this paper, I follow three individual migrants from different ethnic backgrounds and of different ages, to places that matter to them