Both Hundred Bucks and Hundred Friends: Role of Self-organization and Social Networks for Social Inclusion of Ukrainian Migrant Women

Abstract

The objective of this article if the study and conceptualization of forms of self-organization of labour migrants in countries of work and the role of social networks for the integration into recipient societies at different stages of migratory process. The study is grounded on a complex multi-cited field research in combination with the analysis of secondary sources. The results of the research showed that social networks of women-migrants play a decisive role in their search of placement and sources of income, enabling them at the same time to build complex trajectories of integration, combining in a paradoxical way a higher level of social inclusion with the accelerating degree of personal autonomy and spatial independence. Meanwhile, the principles of trust, group solidarity, constituting social networks, may not necessarily be used for altruistic purposes, being aimed at reaching selfish interests of some individual member of these networks.