Racialisation of central and east European migrants in Herefordshire

European enlargement has led to a well-documented increase in immigration from the new Europe to rural and semi-rural areas of the United Kingdom. The publication of two major reports in early 2007 - by the Audit Commission and by the Commission for Rural Communities - on migrant workers in rural Britain, also points to increased interest in this area by policy makers. While academic researchers have recently begun to study migration to rural areas and
migrant agricultural work, they have focused mainly on the labour process, on exploitation and on the economic structures which have created the need for migrant labour (Rogaly, 2006; Stenning, 2006; McKay et al, 2006, Portes and French, 2005; Anderson et al, 2006), rather than on the interface between migrants and local communities.