301050 Migrant Employment Mechanisms from the Perspectives of Economic Sociology and Migration Studies (S) (WiSe 2025/2026)

The objective of the course is to equip participants with the theoretical tools necessary to examine the social conditions that either promote or hinder the employment of migrants. Such theoretical tools will be drawn from two fields of knowledge: economic sociology and migration studies. The dialogue between these two fields enables a comprehensive economic perspective on mobile workers, while also accounting for migrants’ viewpoints on labour markets.
What economic sociology and anthropologically informed migration studies have in common is that they consider labour markets to be embedded in social orders. Studying the various mechanisms of job and spatial (im)mobility sheds light on how these orders are arranged. The course is designed to facilitate an understanding of the theoretical sources that underpin the most influential economic sociologists’ and migration scholars’ conceptualizations of such mechanisms.
Theoretical tools introduced in the course will be applied to specific cases, including those based on the teacher’s own empirical research. His research focuses on migration caused by economic and political transformations in former socialist countries in Northern Eurasia.

Bibliography

General knowledge of social theory is required to participate successfully in the course. Familiarity with key approaches in economic sociology and the sociology of labour is also helpful.
The following books are recommended as an introduction to the course:

- Granovetter, Mark (1995) Getting a job: A study of contacts and careers. 2nd Edition. University of Chicago press. https://katalogplus.ub.uni-bielefeld.de/title/HT007604260

- Bauder, Harald (2006) Labor Movement: How Migration Regulates Labor Markets. Oxford University Press. https://academic.oup.com/book/40855