Contemporary European Emigration

At a time when European unity is politically challenged by the question of immigration and integration, it is easy to overlook the fact that there are significant numbers of Europeans leaving the continent. Academically, little is known about why Europeans leave the continent, how they chose their destination, and how they experience their migrant life. Drawing on the lived experiences of contemporary European emigrants from a range of different countries, this book sheds light on how global economic, political and social transformations spur new forms of migration and mobility experiences. Contemporary European Emigration explores how Europeans experience economic, cultural or social integration, and the power relations which play out between them and their hosts. By delving through the lenses of national and racial identity, gender, age, and profession, this book provides enticing insights into how Europeans see themselves in the world. By shifting our focus to migrants leaving Europe and observing the emerging challenges to European superiority as they play out in the microlevel of people’s everyday lives, this book provides a nuanced understanding of contemporary migration. Researchers within Migration Studies and European Studies will find this book an important addition to the literature.

This volume explores the rich, evolving body of contemporary cultural practices that reflect on a European project of diversity, new dynamics between and across cultures in Europe, and its interactions with the world. There have been calls across Europe for both traditional national identities and new forms of identity and community, assertions of regionalized identity and declarations of multiculturalism and multilingualism. These essays respond to this critical moment by analyzing the literature of migration as a (re)writing of European subjects. They ask fundamental questions from a variety of theoretical and critical standpoints: How do migrants write new identities into and against old national (meta)narratives? How do they interrogate constructions of identity? What kinds of literary experiments are emerging in this unstable context, e.g. in the graphic novel and avant-garde film?This collection makes a unique contribution to contemporary European literary studies by taking an interdisciplinary, transnational and comparative perspective, thereby addressing readers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and stimulating new research on the ambitious writing and thinking taking place across the borders of Europe today.

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, migration has become a major cause for concern in many European countries, but migrations to, from and within Europe are nothing new, as Klaus Bade reminds us in this timely history. A history of migration to, from and within Europe over a range of eras, countries and migration types. Examines the driving forces and currents of migration, their effects on the cultures of both migrants and host populations, including migration policies. Focuses on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly the period from the Second World War to the present. Illuminates concerns about migration in Europe today. Acts as a corrective to the alarmist reactions of host populations in twenty-first century Europe.

The literature on migration realities in Europe is usually centered around the role played by the EU on member states’ migration policies. In order to offer a comparative cross-country approach, previous research often allows too much to fall through the cracks. Facets of Migration in Contemporary Europe: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Specific Challenges directly addresses this issue. Through its multidisciplinary approach, it includes contributions ranging from policy-oriented chapters dedicated to the role of low-skilled and 'illegal' migrants to the securitization of migration in Europe as well as the role of Diasporas and language policies for the integration of migrants. The central theme of the volume is that experiences of migration in Western European countries can help the emerging countries of immigration in Central and Eastern Europe to improve their migration policies and living conditions.

By gathering analyses undertaken by experts on immigration politics in many of the key countries of immigration, an original and insightful approach to the analysis of immigration-related politics is presented in this work.

At a time when migration is mostly discussed in terms of “conflict” and “crisis”, it is decidedly important to acknowledge the discursive traditions, narrative patterns, and conceptual categories that continue to inform how migration is represented, analyzed and theorized in contemporary Europe. This volume focuses on the potential of artistic and critical practices to challenge hegemonic framings of migration and embrace the ambivalence inherent in migration as a conflictual, often violent, yet also liberating uprooting. By placing special emphasis on “peripheral” perspectives and subject positions, the volume provides new insights into topics such as belonging and exclusion, the “migrant crisis”, and memory. By bringing into dialogue creative practices and academic discourses, it explores how new modes of seeing and theorizing may emerge through experiences and representations of migration. Situated within the field of literary and cultural studies, it complements historical and social analyses in the emerging interdisciplinary field of migration studies.

Developed countries, especially in Europe, face a number of issue related to migration: social and economic disruptions caused by the declining demand for unskilled labour and resulting unemployment, a shortage of skilled labour in many professions, increasing international competition for highly qualified human capital, radical demographic changes, and the forthcoming expansion of the European Union, which will trigger further immigration into major European countries and create new market opportunities in Central and Eastern Europe. This suggests a need for a deeper knowledge of the causes and consequences of increased labour mobility. This is especially important when it is associated with tension and fears among native populations. This book brings together analyses of migration issues in major European countries, and compares evidence with more countries that have traditionally seen the most immigration. First, it studies migration streams since World War II, and reviews major migration policy regimes. Second, it summarizes the empirical evidence measuring wages, unemployment, and occupational choices. Third, it investigates how migrants affects the labour markets of their host countries, and evaluates econometric studies into the wage and employment consequences of immigration. Surprisingly, there is wide evidence that immigration is largely beneficial for receiving countries. There might be phases of adjustment, but there is no convincing evidence that natives' wages are depressed or unemployment increases as a consequence of migrant inflow. However, there is a growing impression that migration does serve less and less the needs of the labour market. This suggests a stronger focus on economic channels of immigration, for which the book provides a conceptual basis and the required empirical facts and institutional background.

European Immigration Policy is devoted to the problems of minorities and immigrants within the European Community. It includes many papers drawn from the Strasbourg Conference of December 1990. An introductory paper argues the problem of immigration as neither prevention nor reduction, but of appropriate development planning for the South and the political management of the migrations which must take place largely due to the economic requirements of the Community itself. Further essays discuss the position of immigrant and migrant peoples in the Community, contemporary immigrant and nationality policies, Christianity and immigration, Spain's illegal immigrants, and the integration or marginalization of immigrants in French society.