W prezentowanej książce autorki poruszają kwestię migracji ludności z najnowszych państw członkowskich Unii Europejskiej. Temat ten jest często przedmiotem głębokiej refleksji politycznej i akademickiej, ale niewiele z tych rozważań poświęconych jest geografii poszczególnych ruchów ludności. Niniejsza książka stara się to lukę zapełnić. Zasadniczo, jej zadaniem jest połączenie dotychczasowych badań w nowej perspektywie zjawisk społecznych: ponadnarodowość, tożsamość lokalna i regionalna, lokalne rynki pracy, spójność i integracja społeczna, mobilność i przepływ ludności.

Książka obejmuje materiał wykraczający poza ramy typowej pracy naukowej, autorzy poszczególnych rozdziałów opierają swoje refleksje na obserwacji polityki i aktualnych ruchów społecznych.

The issue of migration from the recent accession states to the older EU member states has attracted considerable attention from both policy and academic spheres, but relatively little of this work has focused explicitly on the geographies of this migration. This book seeks to connect ongoing work on postsocialist migration within Europe to an exploration of key geographical themes, such as community, transnationality, local and regional identities, mobility and movement, networks, diasporas, local labour markets, cohesion, and integration. It includes papers which reflect not only on academic work, but also on policy and practice engagements within communities, and part of the book will be given over to short articles by practitioners.

The papers published here were first presented at a seminar organised in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University in June 2009, when Aneta Słowik was based in Newcastle as a visiting lecturer. In addition to financial and administrative support from the School, we gratefully acknowledge the support of the Centre for Russian, Central and East European Studies (CRCEES) in the organising of this seminar. We are also very grateful to all those who presented their work at the seminar, and to the others who attended and participated in the engaged discussions during the day.

We are, of course, especially grateful to those who submitted chapters to this publication; without their encouragement and engagement, this book would not have reached publication. Dr Kathy Burrell acted as discussant during the seminar and subsequently reviewed and commented on the submitted chapters. We are tremendously grateful to her for contribution to this volume.

Alison Stenning, Newcastle University, UK
Aneta Słowik, University of Lower Silesia, Wrocław, PL