Transforming the European migrant crisis into rural developmental opportunities : the case of Latvia

Abstract

The European migrant crisis has been accentuated as the most momentous challenge that the European Union has faced since its establishment in 1993. The magnitude of this migration crisis is been amplified by political instability in the Middle East, wars, limited economic opportunities, and climate change. Migration analysts have viewed this “polycrisis” from an optimistic and pessimist perspective. The paper however pursues that of optimism and explores how the integration of skilled political migrants can be integrated into shrinking Latvian communities with an agendum to transforming the economically stagnated rural communities into viable rural spaces. The researcher interviewed 91 immigrants from nine countries to gain an insight into perception of political migrants amongst other variables. Furthermore, inductive and deductive approaches were used in synthesizing pertinent information from official records and reports on the above subject matter. A core emphasis of the paper was that the shrinking population of Latvia will adversely impede its future economic development. Hence, the paper advocates a systematic integration of skilled political migrants into the Latvian rural economy as an agendum to accelerating rural development.