The ‘back-stepper’ and the ‘career diplomat’: turning points of labour market integration

‘Delving into everyday experiences of a range of migrants and hearing their own voices, this chapter discusses how newcomers exercise agency to seize opportunities offered by their country of settlement and mitigate the effect of the turbulent social, political and economic circumstances they often meet with. To understand migrants’ capabilities and agency, we not only look at their lives over the last five years but also explore their more distant memories long before their migration. Analysis of their past experiences enables our better understanding of their motivation for emigration, of barriers and opportunities they were facing and of their individual capacity for change and resistance. Looking back into their past also enables us to explore in-depth the reciprocal relationship between their agency and the sociocultural context. The analytical accent is specifically placed on the turning points and emerging epiphanies of migrants’ lives as well as on issues of intersectionality which heavily determine migration outcomes. We mostly emphasise the narrative thematic analysis (composite biographies) and its combination with data from other levels of inquiry, or cross-level analysis.