International migration has a major impact on the economy of Moldova and its inhabitants. Nevertheless, it belongs to the poorest countries in Europe and its every third economically active inhabitant of this post-Soviet country is working abroad. These migrants send financial remittances, which consist of a part of their income or material goods to their families from target countries including Czechia. The theoretical background of this thesis is the type of remittances, namely the concept of social remittances, which in contrary to financial remittances draws attention to non-financial transfers - ideas, behaviours, identities and social capital flowing from receiving to source country communities. The concept was based on observation of development potential and impacts within the migration-development nexus paradigm. The basic qualitative research in this work examines the concept of social remittances within example of research Moldovan migrants working in Czechia with semi-structured deep interviews. Acquired authentic responses of the informants were processed by inductive analysis of qualitative data. The results have shown the existence of the potential for receiving social remittances by migrants and their transfer to Moldova due to ongoing circular migration. However, neither potential...

This thesis explores the effects of return migration on development through the case of returnees from Sweden to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Based on thirteen in-depth interviews and observation, it examines returnees’ ‘social remittances’, which consist of ideas, practices, and social capital (or social connections) that migrants bring to their countries of origin. The thesis adopts a transnational perspective highlighting returnees’ simultaneous connections in their host and home countries. It identifies various types of social remittance transfers such as ideas and practices in the areas of health, the environment and work, as well as social connections with investors, business partners, and political and academic actors in Sweden. One major finding is that returnees’ knowledge of the Swedish language, the market, work and business culture contribute to building trust with actors in Sweden, which facilitates trade and investment between the countries. The thesis also highlights a number of economic, political and personal constraints faced by returnees in their return process which, in turn, affect their capacity to transfer social remittances. It concludes that returnees can potentially contribute to development, but their contributions are largely conditioned by the existing social, economic, legal and political environment.

In the field of migration and development the economic impact of remittances is emphasized more often. The thesis examines remittances regarding social aspects as an important part of migration and development. The main aim is to understand the process of transfer of social remittances between Vietnamese living in the Czech Republic and their family members living in Vietnam. The important theoretical background of this thesis is the concept of social remittances. The process of transferring social remittances is scrutinized through semi- structured in-depth interviews with Vietnamese migrants and their family members in Vietnam. The paper describes the social remittances that are generated by transnational Vietnamese migrants in the Czech Republic and under what conditions the remittances were or were not accepted by their family members in Vietnam. The work uses a qualitative approach for data analysis that allows an insight into the lives of examined individuals. The results reflect the perspective of migrants and their family members. It is apparent that the context of migrants and their personal characteristics and skills - language abilities, length of stay in the destination country, extent of financial stability and level of education - plays an important role in the process of...

This master thesis examines migration issues, focuses on the potential of social remittances, and explores the links between social and financial remittances. The qualitative approach to the research uses the method of semi-structured and in-depth interviews to collect the data in the context of Czechs living in the United Kingdom. This research falls under the concept of transnationalism, uses transnational lenses for exploring processes, and is mainly based upon the concept of social remittances, thus is concerned with flows of norms, know-how, systems of practice, ideas, or social capital from one country to another. This thesis also builds on the expanded conceptualization of social remittances by other researchers. Linking social and financial remittances is done by using the concept of remittance scripts and related activities of migrants. Verbal data from the interviews were analyzed using primarily the inducted method and the method of content analysis. The analyzed results meet the aims of the research and bring a deeper understanding of the potential of social remittances. The factors influencing the potential of social remittances are mainly the work environment of migrants, the importance of unskilled positions, social skills, or intensive transnational links. The key role is also...