Labour migration above the arctic circle
Summary
2004 marked the largest expansion of the European Union to date. The eastern European countries that joined caused a wave of migration to western European countries. Contemporary intra-European legal labour migration has a much more temporary nature compared to its predecessor. Migrants are quick to find opportunities and remain flexible enough to grasp them. Fish factories in northern Norway are one of the places contemporary migrants work seasonally for a relatively short period of time. The one great catalyzer for migration is necessity. Necessity works its way through all facets of migration and creates a huge impact in the dynamics of migrants lives, as well as how industries operate that work primarily using migrant labour. This thesis aims for a deeper understanding of contemporary migration, both as a process of which its characteristics can be approached and explained rationally, and as a force that produces reactionary behavior to shortcomings in specific migratory circumstances. The thesis demonstrate that dynamics between employer and employee can be easily redefined in distorted power relationships, and how temporality, necessity and other factors contribute to a difficult sense of grounding, or belonging, for migrants in relation to place and social entities.