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This introductory paper sets the scene for the special issue. It describes the rationale for the collection – which has to do with the multiple geopolitical, economic and health-related events of the past 30 years – and summarises some of the overarching changes in East–West migration dynamics within and beyond Europe over this period. However, this introductory article and the nine papers that follow also challenge and nuance the predominant East–West framing of recent intra-European migration. They identify numerous other trends: return migration and immigration into CEE countries, intra-CEE migrations and a range of issues relating to the impacts of migration on children and youth.

Since the early 2000s, the concept of ‘the ghetto’ has been used excessively in Danish public debate and national policies targeting the integration of non-Western immigrants. This study, theoretically inspired by historian Reinhart Koselleck’s conceptual history approach '(Begriffsgeschichte)', explores what can be learned from historicising the meanings and political implications of the ghetto concept to understand its present-day influence and implications. Empirically, the article builds on an investigation of how the concept of the ghetto has been used in Denmark over the last 170 years. The analysis underlines the multiple meanings of the ghetto, providing an opening for understanding its concurrent political implications. Why and how did a concept – one that less than one hundred years ago was affiliated with the mass atrocities of the Third Reich – become a tool in Danish integration policies?

Folkeudstillinger med arabere og muslimer i København og Aarhus i perioden 1876-1909.