A fascinating article in Eurozine on Bulgarian migrant workers examines the ways global capitalism demands a deep rethinking of the very concept of home.
Basically, a huge percentage of Bulgarians are displaced laborers across the European Union, quite often "without papers." Their fate in many respects resembles that of undocumented Mexicans in the US: forever in danger of being deported, they end up under the control of coyotes, sometimes as near-slaves.
As illegal residents, they have a relationship to the host society that is ambiguous at best, and certainly offers no chance at integration.
Here's the question that kept returning to my mind as I was reading: to what extent are American citizens, in full possession of citizenship, thrown into the exact same cultural no-man's-land? How many condos are mere bedrooms for a transient class of professionals, whose belonging to their place begins and ends with their current job?
How many of us would suffer very little loss if our entire cities were to burn to the ground, forcing us to up and relocate?
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