This chapter synthesises key findings from this edited volume to outline a substantive theory of international labour migration to Europe’s rural regions. To achieve coherence in this endeavour we employ the meta-theoretical framework of practice stories, informed by strong structuration theory. Our starting point is the generally poor wage, working, and living conditions experienced by rural migrant workers, as described both in several of the present volume’s chapters as well as in the wider literature. These general conditions appear to be reproduced irrespective of the efforts of migrants or others to improve the situation. We argue that the practices of international rural labour migration are strongly informed by large-scale societal forces that the migrants respond to by utilising available strategies of mobility to enhance their overall life conditions. However, we find that the characteristics of both the jobs offered to migrants in rural industries such as agriculture (which often are ‘dirty, dangerous, and degrading’) and of rural communities (which often ignore the presence of the migrants) generate exploitative conditions. This is reinforced by migrants’ (and other agents’) perspectives, and their practices work to ‘normalise’ the marginalised and subordinate status of the migrant. The outcome is reproduction of the exploitative nature of rural migrant labour.