Abstract
The article can be included in the contemporary debate about the role that transnational migrations play in modifying the European social order. There is general agreement about the fact that, in the modern-day global framework, while transnational migration can improve the living conditions of some, they can also make things worse for others and can contribute to creating new forms of inequality rather than curtailing old ones. Scholars agree that international migration can lead to profound social changes through social remittances or cultural mobilities, but they are skeptical about the possibility of considerable re-stratification both in receiving and origin countries.
 The article therefore investigates changes in status within some Romanian Roma migrant networks in Italy based on a set of qualitative and ethnographic data compiled during the European project The Immigration of Romanian Roma to Western Europe: Causes, Effects and Future Engagement Strategies – MigRom.
 This article demonstrates how Romanian Roma migration is only able to produce status changes in migration partially, and highlights how these changes are the result of a diverse combination of factors, such as Roma migrants' motivation, ambition, and opportunities, but above all migration policies and anti-Gypsyism in the origin and receiving countries.
Highlights
The aim of this article is to investigate the social transformations induced by contemporary transnational migration by analyzing the case studies of several networks of Roma migrants from Roma migrants in Italy originated (Romania) to Italy
This article is based on data collected during fieldwork with two Roma family networks originating from Oltenia (Southwestern Romania), who migrated to Milan (North Italy) and Bari (South Italy) and with whom a significant part of the MigRom research was conducted by the Italian study team between April 2013 and December 2015
While in the initial phases of their stay in Italy these families left their children in Romania, once allowed to stay in the authorized camp in Bari they were joined by all their family members
Summary
A new and more balanced combination of quantitative and qualitative methods could be part of the ongoing analysis of social and cultural change, together with that of macro and micro structural factors, top-down and bottom-up processes, structural violence in exercising power and the coping strategies of those who are systematically excluded from power (Bertaux and Thompson, 2006; Favell and Recchi, 2011) From this point of view, socio-cultural anthropology, and the anthropology of migratory processes, whose approach centers on studying the global/local connection and social and cultural changes in their historical dimensions (Brettel, 2015), can make a significant contribution to the study of connections between social mobility and transnational migrations. I introduce five family stories that represent a selection of very different social (im)mobility cases to highlight how status change opportunities can be conditioned by different factors Among these are the migrants' desires and motivations, but above all local reception policies and levels of antiGypsyism in both receiving and origin societies. I highlight some trends that I consider relevant to the migratory processes under discussion, such as the negative impact of local policies on Roma social mobilities and the Roma's efforts to overcome obstacles through strategies like ’multifocal migration.’
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