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Accompanied by public demands to reduce migration by creating perspectives 'at home', employability projects have become an important component of migration and development policies. While research has revealed the sedentarism underlying these policies and questioned the effectiveness thereof, more recent work has found that stakeholders are, in fact, aware of the potential increase of migration. However, contrary to analyses that hold that such interventions are carried out because they meet the different interests of both migration and development actors, this paper argues that migration and development interventions are mutually implicated. Examining European employability projects in Tunisia and drawing on interviews with representatives of donors and implementing organisations as well as policy documents, this paper argues that employability activities operate through twofold depoliticised logics. Whereas the focus on employability enables isolating migration from politicised debates across Europe, these interventions promote depoliticised logics of neoliberal selectivity. In centring skills in these interventions, some subjects are rendered employable for the Tunisian and, potentially, European labour market. Others, in turn, are excluded from the participation in migration and development due to a lack of sought-after skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of the categories ‘refugee’ and ‘migrant’ to differentiate between those on the move and the legitimacy, or otherwise, of their claims to international protection has featured strongly during Europe’s ‘migration crisis’ and has been used to justify policies of exclusion and containment. Drawing on interviews with 215 people who crossed the Mediterranean to Greece in 2015, our paper challenges this ‘categorical fetishism’, arguing that the dominant categories fail to capture adequately the complex relationship between political, social and economic drivers of migration or their shifting significance for individuals over time and space. As such it builds upon a substantial body of academic literature demonstrating a disjuncture between conceptual and policy categories and the lived experiences of those on the move. However, the paper is also critical of efforts to foreground or privilege ‘refugees’ over ‘migrants’ arguing that this reinforces rather than challenges the dichotomy’s faulty foundations. Rather those concerned about the use of categories to marginalise and exclude should explicitly engage with the politics of bounding, that is to say, the process by which categories are constructed, the purpose they serve and their consequences, in order to denaturalise their use as a mechanism to distinguish, divide and discriminate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the concept of symbolic boundaries and ethnic boundary-making is well established in social research, the direct consequences of these boundaries for the integration of migrants have not received much attention. This paper thus analyses whether religious and secular boundaries of national belonging among the majority population have an impact on perceived discrimination among Muslim minorities in Western Europe. To analyse this linkage, data from the International Social Survey Programme measuring the importance of religion as a symbolic boundary of national belonging among the majority have been aggregated as a regional context condition and combined with a Muslim minority subsample from the European Social Survey. The results of the multilevel models reveal that the salience of religious boundaries is associated with less perceived discrimination among Muslim minorities, while secular orientations among the majority seem to be more decisive for subjective perceptions of feeling discriminated against. Overall, the results thus challenge the role of religion as an ethno-religious demarcation and point to the relevance of secular boundaries of belonging for immigrant integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gendered Mobilities and Work in Europe is an interdisciplinary collection of papers that, together, analyse the gendered aspects of migration and the labour market in Europe. The empirical research presented in this special issue of JEMS incorporates labour market sectors designated as both high- and low-skilled and points to shifting gendered employment opportunities and working conditions for contemporary labour migrants. The papers demonstrate how both national and regional policy frameworks intersect with specific employment sectors and different typologies of migration to produce varied outcomes for male and female labour migrants even when employed in the same sector. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

What are the contemporary 'limits of the liberal state' with respect to immigration, citizenship and the rights of ethnic and religious minorities in contemporary Europe? The papers in this special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies examine how recent developments in Europe raise new questions regarding the relationship between liberalism, migration, identity and belonging. In this introduction, we identify three major themes that run through the papers in the issue-the use of liberal norms by states for exclusionary purposes; the possibility of the emergence of 'illiberal liberalism'; and the extent to which identity politics and policy-making may be increasingly transcending and transforming the limits of the liberal democratic state in Europe. After briefly presenting these three themes, we summarise the arguments of the individual authors and suggest possible directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introductory paper to the special issue of JEMS on the second generation in Europe reviews some of the key themes underpinning the growing interest in the second generation, and asks what 'integration' actually means in contemporary debates about immigration and settlement. The authors attempt to place these debates within their specific national contexts, in particular by applying US-developed theories of second-generation integration to Europe. In this way, we build on the embryonic transatlantic dialogue about which factors potentially account for different patterns of second-generation integration in different countries. Integration, in this sense, refers both to structural aspects such as educational and labour-market status as well as to a broader and at times fuzzier concept that includes ideas of culture, ethnic or religious identity and citizenship. The paper also sets the scene for the various articles in this special issue which together illustrate the thematic breadth of European-based research on the children of immigrants. We conclude by offering two theoretical avenues for future research on ethnic minority groups and their settlement patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies focuses on the role of the media in an increasingly multicultural Europe. It investigates the significance of a diversity of media through an analysis of a diversity of cultures and cultural practices. It links often-small-scale specific empirical studies of particular media or minorities with big questions that go to the heart of current intellectual debates on the present and future character of fluid societies and conflicting identities. In so doing it takes media seriously. Without presuming their centrality, contributors nevertheless take as their starting-point the reasonableness of inquiring into the ways in which engagement with media—with print, broadcast, internet media—may be seen as key resources in the struggles for visibility, presence, community, influence and symbolic power which many, if not all, minority groups seek. This introductory paper identifies key questions and issues for debate, and presents an integrated summary of the papers that follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper forms the introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies on 'Islam, Transnationalism, and the Public Sphere in Western Europe'. Taking as its starting point the seminal volume edited by Gerholm and Lithman-- The New Islamic Presence in Western Europe (1988)--the paper reviews continuities and changes in European Muslim communities and their relationship with others. Drawing extensively on case studies based on anthropological research in four European countries (Britain, France, Germany and Italy), the paper first examines the problematic character of the category 'Muslim', and identifies ways in which Islam in a European context can be considered transnational. It then explores how the question of living as a Muslim in Europe is being addressed in the context of transnationalism, considers whether there is an emergent 'European Islam' or 'European Muslim' identity, and ends with consideration of the problems and prospects for Islam in European public spheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The background to this paper is the need to reconcile at theoretical and political levels the quest for recognition of Muslims in the West with skepticism towards essentialist and uncritical understandings of Islam. Whereas in Europe there is a growing tendency to celebrate the challenges that the presence of transnational Muslim identities pose to the presumed universal nature of the liberal nation-state, Middle Eastern feminists are denouncing relativistic approaches towards Islam as the expression of an emergent alliance between multiculturalism, neo-orientalism and fundamentalism. My contribution to the unfastening of this theoretical and political deadlock is to demonstrate the multiple meanings and practices of being Muslim in Europe, and reveal the contradictions and contestations embedded within them. The paper sheds light on the unease that some young Muslims feel about the dichotomous constructions which mark the debate on Muslim identities in both the academic and political arena, and shows that Muslims' experience in the West is inscribed in, and cross-cuts, diverse socio-political identities, challenging the presumed dichotomy which opposes universalism to difference. Yet, far from simple acts of bricolage , these processes of identity renegotiation are deeply painful and conflictual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper measures the impact of immigration on migrants' involvement in associations across Europe. Using multilevel analysis on European Social Survey (ESS) data, we address three questions: Are immigrants likely to become members in voluntary associations? Does this likelihood change with the length of stay in the host country? Does the type of the association make a difference? The findings show that the likelihood of migrants participating in associations increases with the length of stay, while second-generation migrant participation is similar to that of the host society. The relation is stronger for expressive associations and weaker for instrumental-utilitarian ones, while religious organisations are more likely to attract new immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Two demographic challenges confront Europe today: population ageing and population decline. These challenges are two sides of the same demographic coin. While low fertility and increasing longevity cause populations to rapidly grow older, low fertility also leads to population decline. This paper describes recent and expected changes in the size and composition of the European population and the underlying demographic trends in fertility, mortality and migration. Although international migration is now the major cause of European population growth, it is questionable whether migration can prevent population decline. International migration spurs population diversity in different ways across Europe and is the most volatile demographic phenomenon as it depends on both push and pull factors that are difficult to manage. From a demographic perspective the challenges of international migration for citizenship, both from intra-European migration and more particularly from migration from outside Europe, are likely to increase in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction to the special issue entitled ‘Africa<>Europe: Transnational Linkages, Multi-Sited Lives’ outlines the history of the African migrant presence in Europe, gives an account of the contexts which shape contemporary migration, and surveys the approaches to international migration from Africa which have influenced researchers since the 1960s. Linking the contributions to the special issue is the theme of migrants’ transnational ‘double engagement’ with both Africa and Europe. The paper examines this theme across three domains of the lived experience of African migrants and refugees in Europe: ‘Livelihoods’, ‘Families’, and ‘Identities’. We conclude with an assessment of what can be learned (theoretically and methodologically) from the study of African transmigration, and suggest future lines of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being the dominant mode of legal entry for the past two decades in European Union states, the study of family migration has been marginalised theoretically, methodologically and empirically. In settler societies, family migration has been interpreted more loosely and has been encouraged. The definition of who constitutes the family is determined by the state and is generally interpreted in highly restrictive terms in EU states. Family-related migration has been neglected because of the emphasis in migration studies on the individual, a heavily economic focus, and an association with female migration based on the dichotomy of male producer and female reproducer. In policy terms it is treated as a secondary form of migration subordinate to and divorced from labour markets. However since the late 1980s family-related migrations have become the subject of scholarly research, especially North American and Asian-Pacific, using network analysis and, more recently, concepts of transnationalism. In this paper I firstly explore the reasons for the relative neglect of family-linked migration in European research which has focused on the integration of migrant families in receiving societies and the legal and policy conditions of family reunification. Secondly, I examine some of the implications of changing family-led migration, especially at key moments and stages of the lifecourse, and the increasing restrictions imposed on this form of migration, highlighting the continuing role of the nation-state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines new migration to Europe in the context of EU enlargement and debates about fortress Europe, framing the general agenda for the papers that follow in this special issue. We argue that the (normatively informed) image of fortress Europe is an inadequate account of migration and migration policy in Europe in three respects: the movement of family members, asylum-seekers and labour migrants has been substantially positive; enlargement itself generates dynamics of inclusion as much as exclusion; and there exists a significant component of intra-European circulatory migration. Against the fortress account, the article offers a market-driven analysis of new migration to Europe. In developing this account, we stress how existing theoretical accounts of immigration policy - dominated by a state-centred institutionalist and political focus - offer at best only partial explanations of the new European migration scenario. Both neo-liberal and older Marxian theories of the international immigration labour market need to be re-introduced to explain the selective, expansive and reconfiguring effect of market forces on European immigration policies. Our aim is to underline how new tendencies in East-West migration in Europe challenge and transform the traditional migrant trajectory from migrant to citizen that lies at the heart of state-centred accounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]