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Romanian Identity and Immigration in Europe

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The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity

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Abstract

In the past 20 years, Romanian migration has grown from small numbers to one of the largest migratory flows in Europe. Much of the literature on this topic covers case studies of the labor migration of ethnic Romanians. In the past few years, there has also emerged a literature focusing on the migration of the Romanian Roma. As these two broad topics rarely meet, this paper seeks to provide a more comprehensive view of Romanian migration, focusing on migrants’ social identities and putting together studies on the migration of people with different ethnic backgrounds.

Romania is a rather diverse society, with significant ethnic and religious minorities; therefore, we took into account the diversity of ethno-religious identities rather than considering Romanian identity as a homogeneous category. In order to provide a comprehensive view of migration, the paper distinguishes between ethnic migration, where migrants migrate to their kin states, labor migration of the majority, where migrants use their social capital in order to migrate, and migration of minorities, where migrants belonging to minorities use ties and networks in the same ethnic group. For the first case, the study analyzed the migration of Romanian Germans and Hungarians; for the second, that of ethnic Romanians; and for the third, the migration of Romanian Roma, a migratory flow that has attracted much attention in the past decade. Using this typology, the paper not only provides a more comprehensive and accurate image of migration from Romania but also discusses how identity and ethnicity can be meaningful categories in migration studies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities, Cluj Napoca, Romania

    Remus Gabriel Anghel, Stefánia Toma & László Fosztó

Authors
  1. Remus Gabriel Anghel
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  2. Stefánia Toma
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  3. László Fosztó
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Remus Gabriel Anghel .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept of Socio & Anthro, Rm 309, Univ of Canterbury Dept of Socio & Anthro, Rm 309, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Steven Ratuva

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  1. No affiliation provided

    Lyndon Fraser

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Anghel, R.G., Toma, S., Fosztó, L. (2019). Romanian Identity and Immigration in Europe. In: Ratuva, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0242-8_124-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0242-8_124-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-981-13-0242-8

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