Beyond mechanistic and material approaches to migration: Transnational subjectivity, cultures of migration and notions of modernity and normality.

There is nowadays a renewed interest in the scholarship of migration to identify the determinants of migration decision making. Albeit with different terms, most of the research theorizes migration as resulting from circumstances, opportunities and practices. This paper suggests shifting attention to how people "read" and navigate circumstances and opportunities, which may result in practices, from a microsociological and culture orientated perspective. Drawing on various strands of literature, i.e. cultures of migration, neoliberal subjectivity and conceptions of modernity, this paper explores the ways in which culture "enters" peoples' lives. The example of Polish migration to Germany, due to its long-standing tradition of migration and post-socialist transition to Western capitalism, is particularly telling for an examination of the ways in which cultural meanings of migration shape peoples' conceptions of subjectivity and life course considerations. Challenging reductionist conceptions of migrants' subjectivity, the analysis reveals that people do not mechanically respond to structures, nor is their migration solely determined by material aspects, even if people commonly refer to "economic" motifs as the driving reasons. Instead, as a legacy of the cultural history a particular frame of reference has emerged, through which migration is assessed in relation to expectations of a normal life, inasmuch as to becoming normal through migration. In doing so, this paper provides a more nuanced understanding of migrants' subjectivity by illustrating that people's rationality is shaped by socially accepted life-making options and their interrelations with hegemonic concepts of subjectivity, which reflect local and international trends related to migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]