Transnationalism, Migration and the Challenge to Europe: The Enlargement of Meaning puts forward an alternative outline for thinking about migration in a European context. Moving beyond the agenda of identity politics, the book addresses possibilities more related to the experiential and existential dimensions of migratory – and importantly, post-migratory – lives. Examining the fundamental and radical argument that migrants should be regarded not as a problematical category, but rather as opening up new cultural and imaginative channels for those living in Europe, the book draws on extensive empirical work by the authors undertaken over the past ten years. Grounded in the actual lives and experiences of migrant Turks, the book evaluates how their articulations regarding identity and belonging have been changing over the last decade. The agenda regarding migration and belonging has shifted over this crucial period of time. This shift is counterpoised against the unchanging national positions, and against the supra-national stance of 'official' European approaches and policies regarding migration and identity. Transnationalism, Migration and the Challenge to Europe would be of interest to those involved in sociology, anthropology, transnational studies, migration studies, cultural studies, media studies, European studies.

Increasing interconnections between nation-states across borders have rendered the transnational a key tool for understanding our world. It has made particularly strong contributions to immigration studies and holds great promise for deepening insights into international migration. This is the first book to provide an accessible yet rigorous overview of transnational migration, as experienced by family and kinship groups, networks of entrepreneurs, diasporas and immigrant associations. As well as defining the core concept, it explores the implications of transnational migration for immigrant integration and its relationship to assimilation. By examining its political, economic, social, and cultural dimensions, the authors capture the distinctive features of the new immigrant communities that have reshaped the ethno-cultural mix of receiving nations, including the US and Western Europe. Importantly, the book also examines the effects of transnationality on sending communities, viewing migrants as agents of political and economic development. This systematic and critical overview of transnational migration perfectly balances theoretical discussion with relevant examples and cases, making it an ideal book for upper-level students covering immigration and transnational relations on sociology, political science, and globalization courses.

Every day newspapers in the Western world carry articles about illegal immigrants, asylum seekers and other migrants. The focus of these articles varies greatly from migrants as a threat to one or another important social or societal interest, to migrants as an important asset to those same interests. The tone is most often emotional - whichever way the focus goes. The overall impact is to confuse: is migration good or bad? In this book Guild and van Selm seek to investigate these value assessments regarding migrants in Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia. While looking at issues such as security, human rights, legal systems, identity, racism, welfare, health and labour, the authors also respond to critics of immigration.

This open access book explores the conceptual challenges posed by the presence of migrants with irregular immigration status in Europe and the evolving policy responses at European, national and municipal level. It addresses the conceptual and policy issues raised, post-entry, by this particular section of the migrant population. Drawing on evidence from different parts of Europe, the book takes the reader through philosophical and ethical dilemmas, legal and sociological analysis to questions of public policy and governance before addressing the concrete ways in which those questions are posed in current policy agendas from the international to the local level. As such this book is a valuable read to researchers, practitioners and policy makers as well as to students working on irregular migration in Europe in a comparative and/or country based perspective.

Migrant networks, in the form of families, associational ties and social organizations, stretch across the globe, connecting cultures and bridging national boundaries. The effects of this global networking are vast. This book is the first to stand back and explore the impact. Families living outside of their original national boundaries have had, and continue to have, a profound influence over the flow of people, goods, money and information. More in-depth perspectives reveal how immigrants face troubling issues of cultural identity, economic change, political uncertainty and social welfare. From an examination of nineteenth-century transnational families emigrating from Europe, to the Ghanaian Pentecostal diaspora in Europe today, this book combines broadly based analysis with more unusual case studies to reveal the complexities that immigrants and refugees must contend with in their daily lives. What are the experiences of migrant Turkish women living in Germany? In what ways has religion been hybridized amongst West African Muslim migrants in Paris? What are the gender relations and transnational ties amongst Bosnian refugees? Never has such a topic been more relevant. Problems relating to immigrants' and refugees' situations in their adopted countries continue to grow. This book, wide-ranging in its geographical and thematic scope, is a highly important and timely addition to debates on transnational families, immigrants and refugees.

This book focuses on the experiences of temporary movements between Asia and Europe from the perspective of migrants and mobile people. It raises important questions such as: Why do people migrate on a temporary basis and what does this actually mean? How are these trajectories shaped? What are the implications of temporary moves for migrants and non-migrants? And how are transnational ties and practices characterized in the context of temporary migration? By shedding light on the practices and experiences of individual migrants, the book provides useful insights into understanding the challenges arising in an increasingly interconnected and mobile world. The chapters indicate that temporary migratory movements are on the rise: on the one hand on a voluntary basis such as reflected in labour migration, lifestyle migration and international student mobility, and on the other hand in an involuntary way as expressed in different forms of forced migration. Either way, temporary migration has diverse political. legal, economic, social and cultural implications, including the emergence of novel transnational networks and practices. The book is based on the findings of the international research project Transnational Migration in Transition: Transformative Characteristics of Temporary Mobility of People (EURA-NET), funded by the European Union’s 7th Framework Programme for period 2014-2017.

This volume presents the latest research by some of the world's leading figures in the fast growing area of immigration studies. Relating the study of immigration to wider processes of social change, the book focuses on two key areas in which nation-states are being challenged by this phenomenon: sovereignty and citizenship. Bringing together the separate clusters of scholarship which have evolved around both of these areas, Challenge to the Nation-State disentangles the many contrasting views on the impact of immigration on the authority and integrity of the state. Some scholars have stressed the stubborn resistance of states to relinquish territorial control, the continued relevance of national citizenship traditions, and the `balkanizing' risks of ethnically divided societies. Others have argued that migrations are fostering a post-national world. In their view, states' immigration policies are increasingly constrained by global markets and an international human rights regime, membership as citizenship is devalued by new forms of postnational membership for migrants, and national monocultures are giving way to multicultural diversity. Focusing on the issue of sovereignty in the first section, and citizenship in the second, this compelling new study seeks to clarify the central stakes and opposing positions in this important and complex debate.

Drawing on unique research and rich data on cross-border practices, this book offers an empirically-based view on Europeans’ interconnections in everyday life. It looks at the ways in which EU residents have been getting closer across national frontiers: in their everyday experiences of foreign countries – work, travel, personal networks – but also their knowledge, consumption of foreign products, and attitudes towards foreign culture. These evolving European dimensions have been enabled by the EU-backed legal opening to transnational economic and cultural transactions, while also differing according to national contexts. The book considers how people reconcile their increasing cross-border interconnections and a politically separating Europe of nation states and national interests.

In a world grappling with refugee crisis, political unrest and economies on the verge of collapse, temporary migration has become an increasingly common phenomenon. This volume presents a comprehensive picture of the transformative and development potential of temporary transnational migration in political, legal, economic, social and cultural aspects. This book: analyses how temporary migration is distinct from more permanent and circular forms of migration; brings together case studies from five Asian countries (China, India, the Philippines, Thailand and Turkey) and six European countries (Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands and Ukraine); is based on exhaustive interviews of over 800 migrants, returnees and migrants’ family members, along with about 300 field experts, politicians, authorities and actors in civil society; illustrates the diverse nature of temporary migration, the continuing globalisation of the labour market and the interrelated changes to immigration, integration and emigration policies on local, national and international scales. This volume will be indispensable to scholars and researchers of development studies, international politics, international relations, migration and diaspora studies, public policy, sociology and social anthropology. It will also be of importance to government think tanks and non-governmental organisations working in these areas.

The Southeast Europe and Black Sea region presents fertile terrain for examining recent international migration trends. The contributions to this book cover a range of examples, from Ukraine and Moldova in the north, to Greece and Albania in the south. By intersecting the three key concepts of migration, transnationalism and development, they offer new insights based on original empirical research. A wide range of types of migration can be observed in this region: large-scale emigration in many countries, recent mass immigration in the case of Greece, return migration, internal migration, internal and external forced migration, irregular migration, brain drain etc. These migratory phenomena occur within the context of EU migration policies and EU accession for some countries. Yet within this shifting migration landscape of migrant stocks and flows, the fundamental economic geography of different wealth levels and work opportunities is what drives most migration, now as in the past. This book was previously published as a special issue of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies.