The Good, The Bad The Women: A gendered analysis of European labour migration regimes in the Fish processing sector, Scotland

This paper will present an analysis of the changing labour regimes of European labour migrants employed in the fish processing industries of the Northeast of Scotland. Whilst migrants from across Europe are included within this study, the results represent primarily labour migrants from the Baltic states ( Lithuania and Estonia). The paper explores the transcalar nature of Scotland’s Industrial Fishing and fish processing sector through the migrant labour systems which support them, and how these have changed over time.
The research presented is taken from a qualitative mixed method case study design, sampling three coastal towns and villages in Scotland, UK. The three case study locations are representative of the three dominant types of coastal pla ces from the Scottish Typology of Coastal Communities (Duffy and Stojanovic, 2018; Scottish Government,2020). The mixed methods approach included data from
(1) In depth Interviews, n=36, with migrants, employers within the sector, the local community, and key informants across the local government organisations and third sector support services. Secondly (2) Ethnographic data collected in situ over a period of 11 months, and (3) supplementary documentary analysis from local and regional policy documents, and NGOs supporting migrants
within the Northeast of Scotland. This paper focuses on the results from one of the three case studies Peterhead, the UK's number one and one of Europe's largest white fish ports, which is of particular importance to the migrant labour in question.
The findings presented in this paper offers an understanding of the changes in the mechanisms of migrant labour flows in the sector from pre-accession until the early stages of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union in 2016 and 2017(also known as the Brexit process). The findings show how these mobility practices have resulted in the social (re)production of perceived waves of labour
migration within these coastal spaces through the shift from international recruitment agencies to informal recruitment practices which relied on existing migrants’ family and community networks.
The paper explores the impact of this shift on the social, demographic, and gendered aspects of the migrant labour flows and lived experience of migrants in Peterhead. In doing so the paper explores how shifting mechanisms of employment recruitment impact the role of, and settlement intentions of
migrant women.