Publications

Monographs

[2]

Moreh (2025) Mobility citizenship: Migration, identity and nationality in a restructuring Europe.

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan ISBN: 978-3-031-77032-6 258 pages

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This book aims to trace the development of a new conception of 'mobility citizenship' in Europe historically, demographically and experientially. To this aim, it adopts a 'constellationist' approach applied to the intra-European mobility space and uses the case studies of Hungarian and Romanian migration to the United Kingdom to develop a multidimensional meso-level comparative empirical analysis of mobility-citizenship constellations. The main theoretical proposition of the book is that citizenship has undergone a noticeable change in meaning and valuation, with mobility rights becoming a more central component in the structure of opportunities it provides citizens. The logic of 'mobility citizenship' is thus changing long-held perceptions around the social functions of citizenship, and consequently, the nature of contemporary transnational society. The multifaceted analysis presented in the book will appeal to readers with backgrounds in various disciplines such as political sociology, migration studies, citizenship studies, nationalism studies, or European studies.

[1]

Moreh (2014) Alcalái Románok. Migráció és társadalmi differenciálódás.

Budapest: L'Harmattan ISBN: 9789632367903 259 pages

Published in Hungarian. English title: Romanians of Alcalá. Migration and Social Differentiation

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A nemzetközi migráció a kortárs társadalomtudományok egyik központi kérdésköre, a Romániához köthető népvándorlás pedig az Európán belüli migrációs folyamatok egyik fő jelensége. Jelen kötet e komplex kutatási területet ismerteti meg az olvasóval a románok migrációjának sajátos esetén keresztül. Jelenleg több mint kilencszázezer román él Spanyolországban, a változatos társadalmi hátterű migránsok különböző okokból döntöttek a kivándorlás mellett, és különféleképp ítélik meg jövőjüket is. Már sokan megállapították, hogy a román migráció 'totális társadalmi tény', a társadalom valamennyi rétegét átfogó jelenség. Általa 'leolvasható a román társadalom múltja és jövője, történelme, lehetőségei és problémái'. Az Alcalái románok ezen összetett társadalmi valóság 'leolvasására' tesz kísérletet egy spanyolországi bevándorló 'közösség' vizsgálatával. Az érdeklődő magyar olvasó így a mai román társadalom egészéről képet alkothat, megismerkedhet a migrációkutatás antropológiai szemléletével és a tudományág jelen állásával. Ugyanakkor az útleírások kedvelői is örömet lelhetnek a szövegben, mely elkalauzolja az olvasót a migránslét rejtelmeibe, saját élettörténeteiken keresztül nyújtva betekintést a migránsok mindennapjaiba.

Edited volumes

[1]

Moreh, Pietka-Nykaza and McGhee (eds.) (In preparation) Handbook on Brexit and Migration.

Cheltenham: Edward Elgar

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Migration has played a crucial role in the United Kingdom’s decision to exit the EU, and Brexit has significantly impacted the whole nation, particularly the lives of EU nationals and their families living in the UK as well as British nationals residing in the other 27 EU countries. A significant body of social scientific literature has documented these processes since 2016. However, “Brexit”, far from representing solely a unique and historically specific event, raises various and more general questions about how states, political establishments, the EU, citizens and migrants navigate the challenges posed by radical socio-political transformations and “unsettling” events. It also highlights the changing relations between citizenship, identity and the sense of belonging. Analysing migration processes - past, present and future - through this broader analytical lens can tell us about the emerging social cleavages and tensions that will likely dominate the first half of the 21st century. This handbook proposes to pull together these various aspects to provide an authoritative interdisciplinary research-driven statement on the Brexit-migration nexus both as a historically conjunctural sociological experience and as a conceptual tool for framing changes in mobility patterns, policy and legal structures, and European politics. The overall approach of the handbook - as reflected in its structure - is to take the reader on a journey, starting from the question of whether and how migration affected the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, through exploring the migration trends and policy frameworks shaped by the Brexit event, the social reactions to the yet unsettled changes engendered by the Brexit process, and finally the complex ways in which migrants of various backgrounds are affected by radical socio-political restructuring.

Journal articles

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Moreh, McGhee and Vlachantoni (2023) "Transnational Healthcare Preferences Among EU Nationals in the UK: A Qualitative Assessment", Sociological Research Online, vol. 28, issue 2, pp. 462-481.

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This article explores the motivational factors behind preferences for medical care in the country of residence or the country of origin among EU nationals living in the UK. Undertaking a thematic analysis on a large-N qualitative data set, the article aims to establish a data-driven typology of motivations inductively. This provides an intermediary analysis between qualitative depth and quantitative operationalisability, contributing to the existing literature on healthcare location preferences among transnationally connected social groups. This article finds that preferences for medical care in the country of origin are driven overwhelmingly by quality considerations, while preferences for the UK have more to do with convenience and financing. These perceptions result from negative personal experiences, lack of trust, and often concealed cultural differences, and the analysis identifies various nuances and connections between attitudes that previous in-depth qualitative studies could not systematise.

[14]

Troccoli, Moreh, McGhee and Vlachantoni (2022) "Diagnostic testing: therapeutic mobilities, social fields, and medical encounters in the transnational healthcare practices of Polish migrants in the UK", Journal of Migration and Health, vol. 5, issue 100100, pp. 1-9.

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While diagnostic tests are a fundamental component of contemporary medical practice they are seldom considered in studies of transnational healthcare. This article investigates the little-studied role played by diagnostic testing in the healthcare-seeking practices of migrants. It is concerned with the experiences of Polish migrants living in the UK and who access a variety of health services in their host and origin countries across the public and private sectors. We analyse data from semi-structured phone interviews conducted in 2020 with 32 adult Poles living in the UK who identified as having themselves, or non-professionally caring for someone with, a long-term health condition. The article contributes to the literature on migrants’ transnational healthcare practices by showing the centrality of diagnostic technology in their health management and sense-making through the creation, modification, and maintenance of ‘transnational social fields’ (Levitt and Schiller 2004). By emphasizing the role of tests in the patient-doctor relationship the article exposes the therapeutic outcomes of the mobilities of patients and tests as they intersect with physicians in multiple medical encounters.

[13]

Troccoli, Moreh, McGhee and Vlachantoni (2022) "Transnational healthcare as process: multiplicity and directionality in the engagements with healthcare among Polish migrants in the UK", Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 48, issue 9, pp. 1998-2017.

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Drawing on a mix-methods study comprised of an online questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, this article presents findings about the complexity and development in time of health service use by Polish migrants living in the United Kingdom. The article contributes to the analysis of transnational healthcare practices by operationalising a framework that considers service access within and beyond national borders, and between private and public sectors. By categorising engagements with healthcare providers based on their occurrence in time it argues for an understanding of transnational healthcare as a process. It finds that Polish migrants manage their health by accessing a variety of different providers. This complexity is also reflected in the multiple ways in which access to services with regards to specific health issues unfolds in time. By focusing the analysis on specific health issues rather than individuals the article finds that multiple ways to access healthcare services coexist for the same participant, who does not necessarily move towards particular healthcare providers unitarily, but adopts ad hoc solutions on the basis of their experiences within specific medical areas. Understanding migrants’ patterns of accessing healthcare can contribute to more effective policy solutions supporting migrants in the UK today.

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Troccoli, Moreh, McGhee and Vlachantoni (2022) "At the junctures of healthcare: a qualitative study of primary and specialist service use by Polish migrants in England", BMC Health Services Research, vol. 22, issue 1316, pp. 1-12.

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Background: Polish people are the biggest migrant group in the UK and the scholarship shows that they are attentive to their healthcare needs and seek to fulfil them by using various services both within and outside the British public healthcare system. This article explores the role of junctures within healthcare systems in the connections migrants realize between healthcare systems and sectors. The article argues that in a transnational context, migrants enact these junctures by joining different levels of care within the same sector, between sectors and across national borders. In particular, the article explores how Polish migrants’ healthcare seeking practices within and beyond national borders are enacted given the features, availability and relationship between primary and specialist care for how they are articulated between private and public sectors. Methods: This article is based on the second phase of a mixed-methods study on how Polish people in the UK manage their health transnationally. The participants were purposefully sampled from survey respondents (first phase) who identified as having a long-term health condition or caring in a non-professional capacity for someone who is chronically ill. Thirty-two semi-structured audio-call interviews were conducted with Polish migrants living in England between June and August 2020. Transcripts were analysed by applying thematic coding. Results: Key findings include a mix of dissatisfaction and satisfaction with primary care and general satisfaction with specialist care. Coping strategies consisting in reaching specialist private healthcare provided a way to access specialist care at all or additionally, or to partially complement primary care. When Polish private specialists are preferred, this is due to participants’ availability of time and financial resources, and to the specialists’ capacity to fulfil needs unmet within the public healthcare sector in the UK. Conclusion: Polish migrants join with their practices systems which are not integrated, and their access is limited by the constraints implied in accessing paid services in Poland. This shapes transnational healthcare practices as relating mostly to routine and ad-hoc access to healthcare. These practices impact not only the wellbeing of migrants and the development of the private market but also the public health provision of services.

[11]

Danjo and Moreh (2020) "Complementary schools in the global age: A multi-level critical analysis of discourses and practices at Japanese Hoshuko in the UK", Linguistics and Education, vol. 60, issue 100870, pp. 1-12.

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Hoshuko are Japanese government approved complementary schools operating in many countries outside Japan and providing Japanese-medium education. Although originally established for children of tempo- rary professional expatriates, increasing emigration has diversified the family backgrounds and educa- tional needs of the pupils. This article explores how the Japanese government, hoshuko , as well as the teachers and parents accommodate to the challenges and opportunities of diversification, looking specif- ically at the context of the United Kingdom. It combines discourse-analytic conceptual tools and ethno- graphic methods to explore discursive practices at the macro-level of governmental policy, the meso–level of institutional policies of nine UK hoshuko , and the micro-level of situated practices at one UK school. We demonstrate how governmental discourses pursue specific coercive aims using discursive strategies, and how these are recontextualised in institutional and individual practices. At each level, we also identify mechanisms through which the official dominant discourse is negotiated. Based on the findings, we ar- gue that a more purposeful policy realignment acknowledging local diversity would benefit the overseas communities involved in hoshuko.

[10]

Moreh, McGhee and Vlachantoni (2020) "The Return of Citizenship? An Empirical Assessment of Legal Integration in Times of Radical Sociolegal Transformation", International Migration Review, vol. 54, issue 1, pp. 147-176.

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Intra-EU migrants have traditionally faced few pressures or incentives to formalize their “permanent” residence or to naturalize in their EU host countries. Focusing on the United Kingdom and combining an analysis of secondary administrative data and primary online survey data (N = 1,413), this article examines practices and attitudes toward such legal integration in the context of the 2016 EU Referendum among five major EU nationality groups. The analysis reveals that British citizenship is the main legal mechanism of integration among intra-EU migrants in the United Kingdom and that while there is continuity in this respect with pre-Brexit processes, Brexit also has a strong but differential effect as a driver of legal integration. The article identifies some of the main decision-influencing factors shaping legal integration, making a significant contribution to understanding the complexities of integrative processes in times of radical structural change.

[9]

Moreh (2019) "Online survey design and implementation: targeted data collection on social media platforms", Sage Research Methods Cases (Part 2).

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This case study describes an exploratory research project undertaken in a short period of time using online survey methodology. The project aimed to understand the attitudes and potential actions of European Union migrants living in the United Kingdom in the months before the 2016 British referendum on European Union membership. The case describes in detail the context of the project, the reasons for the chosen research design, and practicalities involved in designing the questionnaire, recruiting participants on online platforms such as Facebook, and the use of survey administration software.

[8]

McGhee, Moreh and Vlachantoni (2019) "Stakeholder Identities in Britain’s Neoliberal Ethical Community: Polish narratives of earned citizenship in the context of the UK’s EU Referendum", The British Journal of Sociology, vol. 70, issue 4, pp. 1104–1127.

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This article examines the narrative strategies through which Polish migrants inthe UK challenge the formal rights of political membership and attempt to rede-fine the boundaries of ‘citizenship’ along notions of deservedness. The analysedqualitative data originate from an online survey conducted in the months beforethe 2016 EU referendum, and the narratives emerge from the open-text answersto two survey questions concerning attitudes towards the referendum and theexclusion of resident EU nationals from the electoral process. The analysis identi-fies and describes three narrative strategies in reaction to the public discoursessurrounding the EU referendum – namelydiscursive complicity,intergroup hostil-ityanddefensive assertiveness– which attempt to redefine the conditions of mem-bership in Britain’s ‘ethical community’ in respect to welfare practices.Examining these processes simultaneously ‘from below’ and ‘from outside’ thenational political community, the paper argues, can reveal more of the transfor-mation taking place in conceptions of citizenship at the sociological level, and thearticle aims to identify the contours of a ‘neoliberal communitarian citizenship’ asinternalized by mobile EU citizens.

[7]

Moreh (2017) "Az Egyesült Királyságba irányuló magyarországi elvándorlás a magyar és a brit migrációs rendszerek átalakulásának tükrében", Ügyészségi Szemle, vol. 2, issue 3, pp. 86–101.

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Migration from Hungary to the United Kingdom from the perspective of the transformation of the Hungarian and British migration systems (in Hungarian)

[6]

McGhee, Moreh and Vlachantoni (2017) "An undeliberate determinacy? The changing migration strategies of Polish migrants in the UK in times of Brexit", Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 43, issue 13, pp. 2109–2130.

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This paper reformulates classical questions regarding the plans and strategies of Polish migrants in the UK – such as decisions to leave or remain in the host country, or be ‘deliberately indeterminate’ about future plans – from a sociologically situated ‘rights-based’ perspective. This approach considers migrants’ attitudes towards specific ‘civic integration’ measures in a medium-term time frame, as well as in the new context created by the UK’s vote to leave the EU. Based on the quantitative analysis of original survey data, we investigate the factors behind Polish migrants’ migration strategies, and we argue that basic socio-economic and demographic factors are inadequate, on their own terms, to explain future migration and civic integration plans. Instead, we find that aspects such as interest in and awareness of one’s rights, as well as anxieties about the ability to maintain one’s rights in the future are stronger determinants.

[5]

Moreh (2016) "Inhabiting heritage: living with the past in the Albayzín of Granada", Open Library of Humanities, vol. 2, issue 1, pp. 1-33.

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This paper is an exploration of the ideological struggles reflected in the urban conflicts taking place in an inhabited World Heritage site, the ‘old Moorish’ neighbourhood of Albayzín in Granada. Centring its discussion on a theorisation of ‘heritage’, the article introduces the concept of ‘heritagification’ as a useful way of understanding the local historical-political dimensions of urban conflict in populated World Heritage Sites, defining it as the localised material and empirical manifestation of a universal ideological principle. In the Albayzín, the article argues, the main struggle develops around providing the neighbourhood with a future meaning, function and inhabitants. Competing perspectives are heavily influenced by visions of the past, the main divide stretching between Muslim and Christian interpretations of the neighbourhood’s historic heritage. The article describes, using qualitative data, how heritagification ascribes its own logic and value system to processes of urban change, promoting a version of historical truth that is best able to capitalise on the urban heritage of the neighbourhood.

[4]

Moreh (2016) "The asianization of national fantasies in Hungary: a critical analysis of political discourse", International Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 19, issue 3, pp. 341–353.

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This article presents a critical analysis of the Hungarian government’s ‘Asian’ political discourse. It argues that in the wake of the economic recession, Hungary became more radical in its turn towards Asia, promoting a discourse that goes beyond economic relations and touches on sentiments of national identity and belonging. Via a discourse-historical analysis of three interrelated discursive events, the article shows how economic, cultural and racial discourses are reinforcing one another in building on the myth of cultural and racial affinity with Inner Asia and the Far East. This process is similar to the Eurasianist discourse in Russia and other ex-Soviet republics, and may have serious social and geopolitical repercussions.

[3]

Moreh (2014) "Magyar bevándorlók az Egyesült Királyságban: demográfiai, földrajzi és szociológiai körkép", Demográfia, vol. 57, issue 4, pp. 137–172.

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This paper examines Hungarian migration to the United Kingdom following EU accession. Migration from Hungary has generally been low both before and after accession, but trends have recently started to change. Based on the available statistical data, the first part of the paper explores the volume, key demographics and geographical distribution of this migration. The author estimates the current number of first generation Hungarian migrants in the United Kingdom to be at around 86,000, more than one third of whom reside in London. Hungarian migrants are also shown to be young, balanced in terms of gender, and mobile – with more than half of the migrants registering for National Insurance Numbers re-migrating in less than two years. To give a human face to the phenomenon, the second part of the paper analyses narrative interviews collected during a 2013 ethnographic fieldwork in London, highlighting the role of economic decline, policy miscalculations, language competence and the online migration industry in shaping the motivations, aims and accommodation of migrants. The data analysed in the paper also suggests that migration from Hungary is likely to intensify in the years to come, and that the freedoms and rights conferred by EU membership are allowing a highly complex configuration of migration patterns and modalities, urging a reconsideration of the dialectic between temporality and settlement.

[2]

Moreh (2014) "A Decade of Membership: Hungarian Post-Accession Mobility to the United Kingdom", Central and Eastern European Migration Review, vol. 3, issue 2, pp. 79-104.

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[1]

Moreh (2014) "Prestige and status in the migration process: the case of social differentiation in a Romanian ‘community’ in Spain", Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 40, issue 11, pp. 1758–1778.

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This paper explores status relations in a Romanian migrant ‘community’ in Spain, developing a model of social differentiation within the ‘community’ based on ethnographic material. On a theoretical level, the paper builds on the distinction between ‘class’ and ‘status’, emphasising the latter's significance for migration research. Empirically, it aims to complement the study of status in the localities of origin, with a focus on status in the ‘communities’ at the destination. The paper suggests the existence of a developmental line in differentiation practices, from the most basic strategies of economic status improvement through the complex mechanisms of ‘prestige’ status recovery to the first occupational advancements with an associated status relevant in the receiving society, shaped by internal factors and external structural forces. Based on this, the paper proposes the model of social differentiation as a schematic tool that could become helpful in examining other phenomena related to migrant communities, especially their ‘adaptation possibilities’.

Book chapters

[4]

Moreh (2021) "Harm and Migration", pp. 421-452 in Davies P, Leighton P and Wyatt T (eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of Social Harm. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan

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The chapter uses the conceptual framework of social harm analysis to explore harms associated with international migration. Explicitly zemiological appreciations of migratory phenomena have generally limited themselves to addressing the effects of exclusionary immigration and asylum policies targeting vulnerable migrants. This chapter aims instead to provide a broad overview of a great variety of migration processes. It argues that migration is a complex phenomenon rife with paradoxes and this often allows it to become a vehicle for social harms across different societies. It describes and examines critically three dimensions of migration-related harms: those associated with the causes of migration, those involved in migration itself and the harms associated with the management of migration by nation-states.

[3]

Moreh (2019) "Towards an illiberal extraterritorial political community? Hungary’s ‘Simplified Naturalisation’ and its ramification", pp. 105–142 in Feischmidt, M and Majtényi, B (eds.) The rise of populist nationalism: social resentments and capturing the constitution in Hungary. Budapest and New York: Central European University Press

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"Chris Moreh opens the second part of the book, which deals with the political community and antiRoma policies. He argues that to understand what is at stake in Hungary today, it is necessary to direct the discussion towards the connection between citizenship law and constitutional changes. Specifically, the new citizenship law, being applied by Fidesz in 2010, has resulted in what is described in the current volume as ‘the anti-constitutionalist turn’. It is the end of Hungary’s post-communist transition process to a liberal West-European democracy favouring an ‘illiberal democracy’. Moreh, acknowledging the ideological background of that transformation, focuses on how it shifts the meaning of ‘political community’ while discussing extraterritorial ethnic citizenship by putting at its core the principle of ius sanguinis. Only then will anyone who wants to understand what is at stake in Hungary nowadays be able to create the general framework of the Hungarian transformation: an ongoing transition from previously adopted liberal values to the now popular illiberal values. That transition can be better understood by focusing on the clash between Hungary and the EU, the defender of liberal values, while illiberal democracies, namely China and Russia, have gained significance for Orbán’s government" (Kordas 2021).

[2]

Moreh (2016) "Magyar bevándorlók az Egyesült Királyságban", pp. 68-71 in Blaskó Zs and Fazekas K (eds.) Munkaerőpiaci Tükör 2015. Budapest: MTA, Közgazdaságtudományi Intézet

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[1]

Moreh (2016) "Hungarian immigrants in the United Kingdom", pp. 69-72 in Blaskó Zs and Fazekas K (eds.) The Hungarian Labour Market 2016. Budapest: Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences

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Briefs

[8]

Moreh (2019) "İngiltere’de Göçün Değişen Yüzü [The Changing Face of Migration in England]", Perspektif, 2 December.

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The United Kingdom’s immigration and integration system is on the cusp of radical change. The complex patterns of mobility and settlement which had characterised the British migration system for over six decades had begun shifting at the turn of the millennium and within a decade the country’s migration landscape changed dramatically. This change was one of the principal factors contributing to the outcome of the 2016 Referendum on European Union membership, which has triggered an ongoing ‘Brexit’ transition period with yet unsettled legal and political outcomes, but which nevertheless is already affecting the UK’s demography and policy landscape.
This brief magazine article summarises the main changes undergone in the UK's migration system since the second half of the twentieth century. Publishd in Turkish.

Monographs

Edited volumes

Journal articles

Book chapters

Briefs

Reviews

Working papers