Torsello, Davide - Pappová, Melinda: Social Networks in Movement. Time, interaction and interethnic spaces in Central Eastern Europe - Nostra Tempora 8. (Somorja-Dunaszerdahely, 2003)
Interaction, migration and change
218 Zdenëk Uherek - Katerina Plochová guest workers have had some personal experiences with people in the Czech Republic, and so, on average, know more about the Czech Republic than the average Czech knows about Ukraine. Compared to these guest workers, re-settlers are not so closely associated with their jobs and are less focused on earning money. Because they are accompanied by their families, they cannot devote so much time to work and thus have more time for social and cultural life and for learning something about the environment surrounding them. In addition, they not only want to earn money, but they also want to spend it on housing, furnishings, and cars. They also visit their children’s schools. This means that these individuals have richer social contacts than the guest workers on all social levels. As such they are valuable local resources not only because they provide a steady labour pool, but also because they are potential customers, neighbours, and parents. They can cover the entire spectrum of social contacts within all age groups. Children have their friends at school, and elderly pensioners have contacts with their senior counterparts. These families can thus be strongly associated with local society quite soon and are thus protected from the effects of disorganisation. Re-settlers’ social position provides them more possibilities to integrate themselves into the majority society and thus avoid marginalisation.8 By contrast, temporary workers are more vulnerable to social isolation. 2. Networking in migratory groups The arrival of resettlement groups from areas afflicted by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and from Kazakhstan preceded a broad networking activity. In 1990, Czechs from Kiev (members of this group recently established a Czech-Slovak J. A. Commenius Cultural Enlightenment Society) began negotiating with the President of the Czechoslovak Republic about resettlement. In 1990, the initiators of this negotiation were few in number and had to convince their relatives that reset-
