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This study looks at how ordinary Kurdish refugees and asylum seekers set up self-governing formations to organise their life in border cities on the periphery of European societies. The Kurdish immigrants organise themselves into social communities that serve as autonomous social spaces in which they form and exercise self-governance, navigate through bureaucratic and structural obstacles, and regulate their cultural and social affairs. In this paper, I argue that contextual Kurdish identities and the immigrants' capacity to respond are the fundamental components of four different models of immigrant self-governing establishments. Ideological agendas, kinship relationships, and shared spatial origins are significant contextual elements of collective identities that they use to construct three models of self-governance, whereas their responses to common concerns drive them to form a fate-based model of self-governance. Based on ethnographic field research and 76 in-depth interviews with Kurdish refugees and asylum seekers in bordering cities in Northern, Southern, and Western Europe, the article illuminates four self-governing models of ordinary Kurdish immigrants, their various patterns and identities, as well as internal dynamics. It sheds light on how these self-governing models of the marginalised Kurdish immigrants arise from below to produce and regulate social life without interference from state authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

There has been a strong degree of interest over the last 30 years towards immigrant segregation in Europe. This paper aims to contribute towards the existing body of research by extending the multi-scalar analysis of patterns of immigrant residential segregation into a coherent international comparative study of cities of different sizes. We investigate the patterns of immigrant-native segregation at different geographical scales, along with their correlates, in more than a hundred cities in 2011 across Germany, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Our findings suggest that cities in the UK are the most highly segregated in Europe. The positions of the other countries in the 'European segregation ranking' depend upon the considered immigrant group and spatial scale. The national context is consistently the most important factor in understanding segregation at multiple spatial scales. However, even while taking into account the national contexts, the structural-ecological factors remain important predictors of segregation patterns in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transnational social networks of migrants are extensively studied, but little is known about the associations between transnational social networks and individual migration trajectories over the course of migrants' lives. In this paper, we reconstruct the migration trajectories and transnational social networks of African migrants until their arrival in Europe and develop a typology that reflects the diversity of their trajectories. Based on unique retrospective life-history data of the MAFE project, our comparative perspective highlights the diversity of African migrants residing in Europe, the routes that they took before arriving in Europe and the types of transnational networks they had before, during and after migrating. Furthermore, we discuss the socio-demographic and socio-economic characteristics of migrants within each typology. Consequently, this paper challenges the singular African migration stereotype and draws attention to the associations between transnational social networks and migration trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recognition rates measure how far states afford rights to refugees. Recent developments of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) have supplemented this measure with factors such as population and wealth. Concurrently, laws have developed nationally and Europe-wide regulating 'complementary protection' for those not qualifying as 'refugees' under the 1951 Convention. These two parallel developments in migration governmentality, I argue, are part of a process that increasingly complicates the field of knowledge around refugeehood, raising the level of expertise needed to access protection. This article focuses on the use of complementary protection in Europe since 1999 to explore (i) the legal process of proliferation of protection categories and (ii) the political process of calculating rates. The paper employs a methodological mix of ethnographic observation and critical readings of law and statistics to map various ways of counting recognition rates. This highlights the importance of statistics in feeding a narrative of liberal, Western, European society that protects refugees. Yet it is evident that both protection and its denial are constitutive of a CEAS governmentality that is best described as 'ordered fragmentation'. One of its basic assumptions is the denial of refugee agency, rendering states the subjects of the protection regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internal and international migration form part of the same continuum of population movement but are typically conceptualised, measured and studied separately. Despite early theoretical attempts at conceptualising internal and international migration jointly, existing evidence remains partial and fragmented, reflecting a diversity of traditions in migration research. To address this gap in knowledge, this paper takes a step towards integration by comparing the triggers, constraints and resources that shape internal and international migration decisions at the micro-level. To accomplish this, we analyse retrospective migration histories from a 13-country cross-national dataset (the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, n = 201,061 person-years from 6,112 individuals) using multinomial random-effect logistic regression models that account for duration dependence. The results show that internal and international migration are linked to the same life-course events, although economic-related transitions are more strongly associated with international than internal migration. We also find that the same resources (e.g. education) and constraints (e.g. homeownership) shape internal and international migration decisions. Altogether, our findings suggest that there is an opportunity for greater theoretical cross-fertilisation between internal and international migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The waves of migration that hit Europe during 2015 are often labelled as the 'refugee crisis', however the term 'crisis' is doubly understood as that of refugees and that of European politics. Taking the latter view, the present article claims that if one wants to understand the differences between national responses, the concept of social memory is an analytically useful one. We take the case of the Hungarian response to the crisis and explain how the concept of the migrant has been a floating signifier in Hungarian discourse. This is not due to lack of actual migratory movements but because of mnemonic processes typical of Eastern Europe. In the second part of the paper we explain how the floating signifier of the migrant has been manipulated by the Hungarian government and especially Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. We argue that this was made possible by three features: the autocratic transformation of the structure of the public sphere; Orbán's ability to switch history on/off as he pleases; and four deeply rooted historical repertoires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'migration journey' has proven to be a fruitful lens to question the simplistic notion that the outcome of migration solely depends on a momentous go/no-go decision in the countries of origin. At the same time, we argue that the normative/sedentarist principles of migration studies produce the risk to approach the journey as an exceptional phase of mobility, in-between presumed place-based lives. This paper therefore aims to explore the conceptual limits of the migration journey literature. To challenge the notion that the migration journey is fundamentally different from pre- and post-migratory mobilities, we combine two empirical research projects that have followed the im/mobility trajectories of West Africans. The first project focuses on the trajectories of itinerant gold miners within West Africa, the second concentrates on the im/mobility of West Africans within Europe. By juxtaposing the empirical insights of these seemingly different contexts, we stress the need to embed migratory movements in a continuous field of mobility practices across spaces in Africa and Europe. This results in our plea for a research agenda that does not see 'migrancy' as a pre-given marker of difference, but as a normative artefact of mobility regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent Southern European migration is characterised by important flows of higher-skilled young persons. The balance between the risk of a new brain drain and brain waste and the opportunity of brain gain depends on how the young migrants integrate into the labour market of destination, the new abilities they acquire and the possibilities of re-integrating into the labour market of origin, in case of return migration. In this paper we discuss the contribution of international youth mobility to the development of human capital. We focus on the individual gain in origin countries/regions generated by circulation and return and concentrate on total human capital. Our results – based on 120 in-depth interviews conducted in Italy and Spain, in both core (Rome and Madrid) and peripheral (Apennines and Andalusia) areas, with young students and lower- and higher-skilled workers – show that both Italians and Spaniards have acquired soft skills and these informal and tacit competences are considered to be as important as formal and explicit ones. For young Italians, brain circulation predominates and the human capital gained during migration results in better employability and earnings; for young Spaniards, circulation and return are more difficult in spite of their enriched human capital. [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]

Many immigrants in Western countries hail from countries where attitudes towards gender relations and sexual norms are considerably more conservative than in the host countries where they eventually settle. This paper assesses whether immigrants and their children acculturate in this dimension, and how migrants’ cultural practices and economic integration influence this process. Presenting a conceptual and methodological innovation, this paper treats acculturation as a process by which immigrants (and their children) shift from the attitude distribution in the origin country to the one of the host country. Using a cross-classified hierarchical regression model and data on attitudes towards homosexuality in 83 countries of origin and 23 destination countries, I model the relative influence of origin and destination contexts on the attitudes of 15,000 immigrants and children of immigrants in Europe. In line with previous work, I find considerable evidence for acculturation across and within generations, but also important variation: respondents who use the home-country language, who are religious, or who are economically marginalised, show less acculturation in attitudes, though these effects vary between immigrants and the second generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the everyday experiences of welfare provision among EU migrants living in Glasgow, demonstrating how the process of restricting the rights of EU citizens has occurred well before Brexit. It is based on 12 months of ethnographic research conducted in 2012 with Czech and Slovak nationals who came to the UK after 2004. Introducing the migrants' notion of zkancelovali, the paper highlights a heightened sense of insecurity in their everyday lives, which arises from the increasingly common experiences of rejections of their benefit applications and payment delays. Various state practices are discussed which raise questions about the limits of EU citizenship and show how the latter is affected not only through policies and discourses but also in everyday encounters with state officials, where boundaries between 'us' and 'them' are being redrawn. Drawing on sociological/anthropological perspectives on state, it is argued that the migrants' experiences of welfare provision can be considered as constitutive of statecraft and nation-building processes, processes which turn (EU) citizens into immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing political concern over segregation, extremism, and value conflicts subject Muslim civil society organisations to a great deal of critical attention across Europe, both as problematic and as potential partners for policy interventions. Both national and local authorities seek out organisations that can represent Muslims and other minority groups in policy development and delivery, yet politicians discredit multiculturalism as a political project. This paper uses the implementation of a Norwegian grant scheme as an opportunity to investigate how local implementation of national policy may explain why multiculturalism, while discredited, can continue at different policy levels or under other names, and how local adaptation shapes relations with Muslim civil society organisations. The analysis builds on a review of the grant scheme's historical transformation, a dataset of applications and grant distributions in each municipality, and interviews with all 20 local administrators who implement the scheme today. It shows how municipalities mainly use the grant to promote a convivial multiculturalism of cross-ethnic individual mixing, but also engage in cooperation with Muslim organisations through a pragmatic form of multicultural governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on majority populations throughout Europe showed strong attachment and exchange of support between parents and their adult children. Studies on migrant families are limited yet needed in light of the increasing share of older people of migrant origin in European populations. One of the main sources of intergenerational support and care is via coresidence of (older) parents and their adult children. In this paper, we first analyse whether co-residence of adult children with their parents differs between migrants and non-migrants across Europe. Second, we assess the potentially differential effect of resources and socio-demographic factors among the migrant and non-migrant population as well as migrant-specific factors (migrant generation and region of origin). Data on five countries, with different migration patterns and histories, covered in the first wave of the Generation and Gender Survey are used (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands). Results show that levels of adult child–parent co-residence do not vary significantly by migrant status but do differ across Europe. Furthermore, we find that socio-demographic factors are important and have a similar association with parent–child coresidence for migrants and non-migrants. Our study does, however, suggest differences in co-residence by region of origin and migrant generation. [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]

This paper examines how competitiveness has been framed rhetorically and politically by interested actors in France, Germany, and the UK. Skilled rhetorical advocacy clothes particular political demands in the language of competitiveness and purported exigencies of the global economy, thus advancing political goals more easily that might otherwise encounter significant political opposition. In theoretical terms, the paper analyses the ideational framing of policy discourses. Empirically, the emphasis rests on exploring how governments, organised business, and business think tanks have attempted to advance demands for liberalised labour migration schemes in Europe by linking them rhetorically to the prerogative of economic competitiveness. Despite an adverse political climate, sceptical public opinion, and persistent unemployment, it has thus been politically possible to liberalise the regulation of labour migration considerably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pre-arrival integration tests used by European countries suggest discriminatory measures subtly persist in immigration laws. This paper draws on a comparison across the Americas and Europe to identify and explain historical continuities and discontinuities in ‘assimilability’ admissions requirements. We attribute legal shifts at the turn of the twenty-first century to the institutionalised delegitimisation of biological racism and the rise of permanent settlement immigration to Europe. Efforts to reduce Muslim immigration largely motivate contemporary European policies, but these policies test putative individual capacity to integrate rather than inferring it from a racial group categorisation, as did historical precedents in the Americas. [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]

Since the outbreak of the crisis in Southern Europe, young highly educated Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese and Greeks have been taking their talents and expertise to other countries in search of a better quality of life and career prospects. This paper explores the characteristics of these new emigrants, the reasons for which they are leaving, and whether these reasons are shaped by the economic crisis, by pre-crisis grievances, or by other factors. We analyse original data from 6377 questionnaires collected in 4 countries through an e-survey we ran in 2013. We refer to the existing literature on the drivers of highly skilled emigration and the (un)employment situation in the four aforementioned Southern European countries which have been hardest hit by the economic crisis. We suggest that while gender is not important, age, marital status, education and satisfaction with current employment (both income related and with regard to future prospects) are important factors predicting emigration. Non-economic factors, notably career opportunities, quality of life and future prospects supersede all other considerations in the decision to emigrate for these highly educated Europeans. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses recent profound transformations in the post-socialist governance of welfare states and their impact on the Roma, Europe's most marginalised and vulnerable minority. Discussing the consequences of the recent transition of social policy in East Central Europe from the angle of a shift from Communist welfare societies to post-1989 active societies shows how these changes have simultaneously inaugurated new approaches to the region's Romani minorities. Through an analysis of how neo-liberal forms of governmentality have ambiguously been cross-fertilised with new and renewed patterns and techniques of welfare governance in Slovakia, this paper calls into question the current emphasis on activating supposedly ‘inactive’ Roma. This examination reveals that the introduction of allegedly politically neutral technologies and forms of expertise to improve the Roma's socio-economic mobility has actually resulted in disputable forms of Romani minority governance, including the dehumanisation of some of the most marginalised members of this minority. To challenge these practices, this paper advocates a break with the persistent policy-centric trend in Roma-related research. Redirecting research beyond the dominant focus on discrepancies between policies and their implementation, it is argued, potentially offers valuable insights into our understanding of the complex relationship between policy failures and the revitalisation of marginalising practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the issues of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (JEMS), and its predecessor, New Community, published during the period 1991–2010. Its main focus is on the changing geographical distribution of content, both for the ‘host’ countries of immigrants and the ‘sending’ countries of emigrants. Evidence is presented to show a shift away from a focus on the UK and Europe, with more material on other host-country contexts (North America, Australia); nevertheless, even at the end of the two-decade period, Europe still accounted for three-quarters of the host-country papers. A broadly similar pattern is evident when authors’ countries of institutional affiliation are tabulated. Concerning the geography of sending countries, we find a decline in articles on ‘traditional’ sending regions such as the Caribbean and South Asia, and a rise in the number of articles on the ‘newer’ sending regions—Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. We also note a progressive feminisation of the authorship of JEMS articles: from two-thirds’ male authorship during the 1990s to parity by the end of the 2000s. The final part of the paper makes selective comparison, based on authors’ geographical affiliation, between published and rejected papers. [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]

Questions of minority ethnic settlement and integration have recently moved up the political and policy agenda across Europe. This paper re-examines the way in which minority ethnic housing segregation and integration are currently represented in political discourse across the European Union and reviews their implications for housing policy, inclusion and the social rights of citizenship. The paper draws on the RAXEN project reports of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia to provide a comparative investigation of housing segregation and integration across the 15 member-states of the European Union prior to its enlargement in 2004. The paper concludes that political discourses on ethnic segregation tend to accentuate the pathological characteristics of ethnic clustering, and to privilege explanations based on ethnicity and cultural difference at the expense of racialised inequalities in power and status. Such discourses are founded on a limited understanding of the link between ethnic segregation and integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to contextualise the papers in this special issue, this paper presents an overview and framework for understanding the importance of East-West migration in Europe associated with the EU enlargement process. The new patterns and forms of migration seen among East European migrants in the West—in terms of circular and temporary free movement, informal labour market incorporation, cultures of migration, transnational networks, and other phenomena documented in the following papers—illustrate the emergence of a new migration system in Europe. Textbook narratives, in terms of standard accounts of immigration, integration and citizenship based on models of post-colonial, guestworker and asylum migration, will need to be rethought. One particularly fertile source for this is the large body of theory and research developed in the study of Mexican-US migration, itself a part of a regional integration process of comparative relevance to the new European context. While the benefits of open migration from the East will likely triumph over populist political hostility, it is a system that may encourage an exploitative dual labour market for Eastern movers working in the West, as well as encouraging a more effective racial or ethnically-based closure to immigrants from South of the Mediterranean and further afield. [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 paper discusses special admission rules for ministers of religion, focusing on admission policies for Muslim ministers of religion. The paper situates admission policies in the wider context of the political accommodation of Islam in Western Europe and analyses to what extent such policies are linked to other dimensions of the political accommodation of religion in general, and Islam in particular. It asks why admission rules have recently drawn the attention of policies despite the fact that a very small number of persons are affected. The main reason why admission policies for Muslim clergy are considered important by some governments is a general concern about Muslim leadership, particularly 'radical' Muslim leadership, and the desire to 'control' and monitor community leaders. In addition, changes in policy have to be seen against the wider background of attempts to 'Europeanise' Islam, notably in the context of increasingly assimilative integration policies. At the same time, several features of Muslim religious leadership, such as the transnational nature of 'employment' of religious leaders and the relatively low share of full-time, professional Muslim clergy, seem to contradict state policies and, perhaps most importantly, militate against a state's attempts to control Muslim religious leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief paper introduces the special issue on mosque conflicts in Europe, which draws on research results of the Network of Comparative Research on Islam and Muslims in Europe. The paper first provides basic data on the numbers and distribution of Muslim immigrants in Europe. Reflecting a dialectical approach in which Muslims both affect, and are impacted by, European culture, the paper introduces the issue of the islamicisation of European public space, with special reference to mosque construction, which represents the evolution of Islam from the private to the public sphere. Sources and causes of resistance to mosque-building are identified, and various national contrasts—based on the papers that follow—are drawn. [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 examines the relationship between care and mobility. It does so within the specific context of intra-EU migration and the development of European citizenship. Citizenship of the Union bestows valuable social rights on mobile community nationals. Entitlement under the provisions is not, however, universal but conditional and privileges those in paid work. The paper considers the implications of this emphasis on paid work in two related respects:firstly, the impact on those people who move as part of the `male breadwinning family' but are not engaged in paid work (the partners and families of workers); and secondly those community citizens whose migration decisions are shaped by the need to provide unpaid care to family members. Drawing on empirical research with migrant families, the paper concludes that the concept of work in Community law places those people who are not engaged in paid work (and family carers in particular) in a highly vulnerable and dependent position. Furthermore, the assumption of fixed and predictable dependency relationships within migrant families that underpins the law (and to some degree migration theory) fails to take account of the fluid and complex nature of dependency and caring relationships over the life-course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our aim in this concluding paper is to provide a synthetic comparative approach to the four country studies included in this special issue. We therefore outline the main values and ideologies guiding the implementation practices of each service within each country; and where relevant we identify the internal differentiation of such ideologies, in relation to different administrative services. We also highlight how these ideologies underpin and justify specific types of discretionary practices in each country. We thus identify the nationally specific ways of combining national preference with market ideologies at the micro level of immigration policy implementation. In this paper, we revise critically our initial comparative dimensions. These were based on the 'old' versus 'new' host countries; rational and efficient versus clientelistic and inefficient administration systems; and ethnic versus civic views of the nation. We propose an alternative set of dimensions paying attention, on the one hand, to the different interpretations of how immigration management can give national advantage in economic competition under conditions of globalisation; and on the other hand, to the prevalence of a market-driven ideology that puts emphasis on values such as efficiency, flexibility and user-friendly public service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of transnationalism has largely bypassed refugees, or in rare cases has focused specifically on their political activities. Proceeding from recent perspectives in international migration studies which suggest that there may be at best only a blurred conceptual distinction between refugees and other migrants, this article subjects two refugee groups - Eritreans and Bosnians in various European countries - to the type of transnational analysis more commonly found among labour migrants. It extends the focus from political activities to show how refugees can become involved in a range of economic, social and cultural transnational activities. At the same time, the paper identifies a range of obstacles which differentially influence the desire and capacity of the study populations to participate in these activities. On the basis of this empirical evidence, we make the case for a fuller incorporation of refugees in the contemporary study of transnationalism. At a more conceptual level, the paper charts the evolution of transnational characteristics among the study populations. The implication, which extends beyond the refugee context alone, is that transnationalism is not a 'state of being', as is sometimes implied by the existing literature, but rather that transnationalism is a dynamic process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an alternative explanation of Muslims’ endorsement of secular values based on their belonging to religious minorities. We argue that, contrary to what is often asserted in both the academic literature and the public debate, Muslims’ endorsement of secular values is not simply a matter of strong individual religiosity, but may also result from belonging to a religious minority. We suggest that this group-level variable may explain differences in the support for democratic values by Muslims in Europe, in addition to the individual-level variable pertaining to individual religiosity. Our findings show that belonging to a religious minority in the country of origin positively affects the degree of support of secularist values. More generally, they suggest that denominational Muslim identities should be investigated by taking into account the role of belonging to religious minorities. Moreover, the article will show how belonging to a religious minority can moderate the negative effect of religiosity on secular values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on the work of Granovetter [1973. “The Strength of Weak Ties.”American Journal of Sociology78 (6): 1360–1380.], weak ties are assumed to play a vital role in processes of integration. In this paper, the focus lies on weak ties that cut across ethnic boundaries, connecting Muslim immigrants to members of the ethnic majority in six European host societies. The aim is twofold: a descriptive analysis of the existence of those crosscutting weak ties amongst different groups of Muslim immigrants and an explanatory analysis focusing on the structural factors that make the establishment of such ties more likely. In the latter part, the native populations are also taken into account, allowing for a bidirectional perspective. Using ordinal logistic regression models, we found that emancipatory factors such as education and language skills are positively associated with having weak ties, whereas conservative values and religiosity decrease the likelihood of establishing many weak ties. A diverse neighbourhood appears to play a pivotal role in the formation of weak ties from both a native and an immigrant perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the hypothesis that the electoral participation of Muslims varies according to two main types of opportunities, namely, institutional and discursive opportunities (DOs), characterising their country of residence. More specifically, we assess the impact of institutional opportunities (IOs) in terms of civic and cultural dimensions. We then add up the analysis of DOs in their quality of legitimating public debates over Muslims. We conduct our study by relating survey data to standardised contextual indicators of institutional and DOs in four European countries. The results show that both institutional and DOs have an impact, under control of a number of individual characteristics. However, while the civic and cultural dimensions of IOs have an equally important effect, we find that DOs are less crucial for Muslims’ electoral participation. A number of broader implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of an original survey among native Christians and Muslims of Turkish and Moroccan origin in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Sweden, this paper investigates four research questions comparing native Christians to Muslim immigrants: (1) the extent of religious fundamentalism; (2) its socio-economic determinants; (3) whether it can be distinguished from other indicators of religiosity; and (4) its relationship to hostility towards out-groups (homosexuals, Jews, the West, and Muslims). The results indicate that religious fundamentalist attitudes are much more widespread among Sunnite Muslims than among native Christians, even after controlling for the different demographic and socio-economic compositions of these groups. Alevite Muslims from Turkey, by contrast, show low levels of fundamentalism, comparable to Christians. Among both Christians and Muslims, strong religiosity as such is not (among Christians) or only mildly (among Muslims) related to hostility towards out-groups. Fundamentalist believers, however, show very high levels of out-group hostility, especially among Muslims. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyses differences in rural and urban origin in visits from natives and the occurrence of interethnic marriages of Turkish immigrants in six European countries. We argue that values and human capital explain the relationship between rural-urban origin and contact with natives. The value-based hypothesis stipulates that differences in contact with natives are due to values and predispositions that correlate with people's rural and urban origin. The human capital hypothesis predicts that variation between rural and urban origin can be ascribed to differences in human capital accumulation. Using the Six Country Immigrant Incorporation Comparative Survey (SCIICS), the results show that Turkish immigrants with a rural origin have fewer visits from natives and are less likely to intermarry. Furthermore, educational attainment, destination country language proficiency, religious identification and identification with the origin culture explain a substantial part of the rural origin effect. However, also when accounting for values and human capital, we find a significant direct effect of rural origin, suggesting that rural and urban immigrants build social relations differently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the dichotomies and gendered invisibilities underpinning the concept of the knowledge economy and society through a closer examination of two emblematic and contrasting figures working in Information and Communication Technology and domestic/care work as bearers of different configurations of knowledge and skills in the contemporary circuits of globalisation. Such knowledge can be broken down into different types—such as embrained, encoded, embodied and encultured—which are valued differentially and with consequences for gendered labour markets. These gendered differences are reflected in current immigration policies which privilege migrants in scientific and information technology sectors and discount those engaged in care work, associated with embodied knowledge and skills. The impact of these differences has been reinforced during a period of economic recession when immigration has become increasingly restricted, even amongst the skilled. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

A number of European governments have pronounced multiculturalism a failure and opted for more aggressive means of integrating immigrants into their societies. This paper asks what we are to make of this trend: does it reflect deeply rooted illiberal prejudice or a novel shift in liberal-democratic states' approaches to nation-building? I suggest that aggressive integrationism is reflective of a distinctly 'Schmittian' liberalism, which aims to clarify the core values of liberal societies and use coercive state power to protect them from illiberal and putatively dangerous groups. In contrast to liberal multiculturalists, who counsel accommodation, compromise and negotiation among majority and minority groups, Schmittian liberals see the task of immigrant integration as part of a broader campaign to preserve 'Western civilisation' from illiberal threats. Their framing of the problem in existentialist terms allows them to justify policies that might otherwise be seen to contravene liberal principles of toleration and equality. As such, Schmittian liberalism complicates our understanding of liberal states' approaches to immigration and immigrant integration policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

In the new millennium there has been a shift away from multiculturalism and the politics of difference towards integration, assimilation and a gradual 'thickening' of political belonging. The alleged weaknesses of the multicultural model and advantages of thicker, communitarian notions of community are highlighted in recent discourses on migrant incorporation and increasingly reflected in citizenship and migration policies across European countries. In this paper I critically examine citizenship reform and civic integration policies in the United Kingdom and argue that the fashionable language of integration represents a politically dated and normatively deficient approach to ethnic diversity. I furnish the basic tenets of an alternative pluralist mode of inclusion based on respectful symbiosis and the 'letting be' of groups of migrant origin, and examine the conditions for such a model's empirical implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of JEMS deals with the challenges of migration for citizenship attribution in Western Europe. In this introductory paper we analyse recent developments in citizenship attribution across Western Europe over the past 25 years. Despite the contradictory impact of the instrumentalisation and politicisation of citizenship policies, and the fact that countries have different citizenship traditions and migration experiences, we observe six broad trends. These relate to the descent-based transmission of citizenship by women, men and emigrants; ius soli provisions for second- and third-generation immigrants; the acceptance of multiple citizenship; the introduction of language and integration requirements for naturalisation; the avoidance of statelessness; and the increasing relevance of EU membership. We describe the background and core features of each of these six trends and provide empirical examples from citizenship policies in 18 West European countries since the early 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several countries in Europe have recently adopted obligatory language and country-knowledge requirements for settlement, naturalisation and immigration. Integration tests, courses and contracts are only a few examples of the new 'civic integration policies' states are using to promote individual autonomy and common values for newcomers. Are these requirements in response to concrete problems of immigrant integration? Do they enable, or actually inhibit, integration? This paper examines the various pressures behind attaching mandatory integration requirements to status acquisition. To systematically examine these policies, I develop a civic integration index (CIVIX) to measure language, country-knowledge and value-commitment requirements across the EU-15. While there is a general shift toward civic requirements across Europe, evidence reveals important differences in the degree of policy change. Finally, I explore how new civic requirements complement or challenge existing citizenship practices, identifying where integration is facilitated and rewarded with citizenship. I also show where civic requirements fill strategic goals, mainly controlling the inflow and impact of immigration. The arguments made here support a critical rethinking of the conventional wisdom about national models of integration and a dynamic understanding of state citizenship strategies, where policies define not only the rules but also the content of national membership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unfavourable evolution of social conditions and housing patterns of immigrants in contemporary Southern Europe challenges the association of social inclusion and integration with spatial dispersal. Recent housing and socio-urban changes, involving limited public-housing production and few opportunities for self-build housing, have triggered additional processes of socio-residential exclusion associated with peripheralisation, de-segregation in the context of urban renewal, and gentrification. Finally, the strength and specific composition of the major waves of immigrants in the 1990s and early 2000s have also contributed to narrowing migrants' access to the housing market and promoting distinctive patterns of settlement. Focusing on the six metropolises of Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, Turin, Milan and Rome, we explore patterns and dynamics of socio-ethnic segregation in Southern Europe, paying particular attention to the processes of marginalisation through dispersal, and questioning the orthodox association between residential de-segregation and social inclusion. Despite data limitations and the fact that these examples may not be representative of all Southern European metropolises, this paper aims at a more accurate interpretation of the contemporary socio-urban dynamics associated with the presence of immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how integration policies and welfare-state regimes have affected the socio-economic integration of immigrants, focusing on eight European countries: Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Austria and Belgium. It presents comparative data on integration policies and welfare-state regimes. The expectations derived from this comparative policy analysis are tested with cross-national data on integration outcomes regarding labour market participation, spatial segregation and incarceration. The results suggest that multicultural policies—which grant immigrants easy access to equal rights and do not provide strong incentives for host-country language acquisition and interethnic contacts—when combined with a generous welfare state, have produced low levels of labour market participation, high levels of segregation and a strong overrepresentation of immigrants among those convicted for criminal behaviour. Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands, which have combined multicultural policies with a strong welfare state, display relatively poor integration outcomes. Countries that either had more restrictive or assimilationist integration policies (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France) or a relatively lean welfare state (the United Kingdom) have achieved better integration results. These differences are highly consistent across the three domains of integration that are examined, with the exception of segregation rates in the United Kingdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I explore similarities and differences between the first major scheme to rely on migrants from Central and Eastern Europe to fill vacancies in key sectors of the British economy—the so-called European Volunteer Worker (EVW) schemes introduced in 1946—and current economic migration from the same countries of origin, following the expansion of the EU in 2004. The first scheme was in part a response to postwar dislocation in Europe and the huge problem of displaced peoples. However, the recruits were admitted to the UK as economic migrants rather than as refugees and had to accept allocation to particular sectors of employment as a condition of entry. In the period since 2004, large numbers of migrants from similar parts of Europe have been recruited to work in the UK, largely in low-wage sectors, and in the most recent version of New Labour's managed migration policy are seen as replacements for low-skilled migrants from other regions of the world. Both the early and later groups are white, raising interesting questions about the social construction and meaning of 'whiteness' and its status as a marker of privilege in the UK. [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]

A specific case of group threat theory states that the size of a given minority has a direct bearing on anti-immigrant attitudes amongst the majority, a hypothesis that has been shown to have some merit, especially in the USA. This article embarks on group threat theory by focusing on the actual as well as the perceived size of a minority under different political circumstances. Data are drawn from the European Social Survey. After using multilevel analysis for 20 European countries, the paper concludes that neither actual nor perceived size matter for anti-immigrant attitudes in Europe. Nor does size have any effect under different economic or political contexts. This challenges both the theoretical foundation of this specific case of group threat as well as the European political discourse that claims that immigration needs to be reduced in order to lessen tension and, in the long run, preserve a stable democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With more than 10 million Muslims living in Western Europe, states are struggling to accommodate the religious needs of Muslims in state-supported institutions. Such issues include whether to fund separate Islamic schools and how or whether to teach Islam in state-supported schools. Despite these common concerns, national governments vary widely in their response to the religious needs and practices of Muslim citizens and permanent residents. This paper looks at how Britain, France and Germany have resolved these issues. We explore how pre-existing Church-State practices and institutional arrangements structured the politics of state accommodation of Muslims' religious needs in each country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]