Life Strategies of Migrants from Crisis Regimes by Olga Oleinikova

Author:Olga Oleinikova
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030398392
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

This way of thinking is evident in the stories of the other five participants (Fedir, Andriy, Kateryna, Bohdan and Anatolyi). This cohort reveals a certain level of flexibility, the ability to feel as though they themselves are the subjects of the change, and the ability to actively use every opportunity to improve their situation. Bohdan’s behaviour, like that of the other migrants mentioned above, is characterised by consistent decision-making, leadership and a clear understanding of his perspectives. He said: “I tend not to avoid problems, but solve them. I realised that Ukraine was a dead-end for me in terms of development and self-realisation”. Bohdan showed that he neither avoids problem situations nor falls into an escape strategy, and uses the situation to carry out his aims, needs, and values for the purpose of self-realisation.

The second manifestation of a strong sense of agency is the internal capacity to take responsibility rather than rely on external circumstances. Following the developments of attribution theorists (Langer and Roth 1975; Stipek and Weisz 1981) and the developments of Zlobina and Soboleva (2011), the term ‘internals’ is used here to mean the group of participants who adopt all the responsibility themselves. Likewise, the term ‘externals’ will be used for those participants who believe that their lives are predominantly determined by external circumstances.

The narratives of 17 migrants (Andriy, Simon, Oksana, Maksym, Lyudmila, Borys, Zoya, Zoryana, Alla, Bohdan Anatolyi, Panas, Mykola, Fedir, Daryna, Tamara and Marko) show that these participants exercised personal control over their circumstances, and took responsibility for their choices and actions to achieve their aims, values and needs, and thus form the group of ‘internals’. Their narratives have shown that they were able to separate the important from the secondary. As Andriy said: “I realised that for me self-realisation is important, while economic wealth comes secondary; thus I left Ukraine, and in a way liberated myself from degrading circumstances”. Similar to Andriy, the interviews of the other 16 participants proved that with the help of migration, participants took responsibility and guaranteed a certain degree of independence, liberation and freedom for themselves. This sense of responsibility is what gives ‘achievement migrants’ the opportunity to build strategies aimed at achievement, to try different ways of achieving their goals and search for the most optimal ones.

An interesting fact that was revealed in the narrative analysis of the interviews across the cohorts of ‘survival migrants’ and ‘achievement migrants’ was that the number of ‘internals’ (participants who adopt all the responsibility themselves) per migration period is increasing with each year of arrival to Australia, while the number of ‘externals’ (those participants who believe that their lives are predominantly determined by external circumstances) is progressively decreasing. The narratives of the cohort of ‘survival migrants’ are dominated by externals (Hanna, Leonid, Svyatoslava, Lyubov, Serhyi, Ivan, Taras, Yehor, Oleh, Oleksandra, Artem, Solomia, Vasyl, Nadiya and Pavlo) who more often believe that their desired aims are unachievable and too complicated. They therefore express greater passivity in their realisation compared to internals. Such a discovery

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