Romanian Migrants Research Articles

Romaphobia in the UK Right-Wing Press: racist and populist discourse during the Brexit referendum

ABSTRACT This article investigates contemporary expressions of racism toward Roma in the context of growing populism in the UK. We focus on how and why Romaphobia becomes widespread in times of socio-political crises, especially during the 2016 referendum when the UK voted to leave the European Union. Drawing on content analysis and Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, we provide an in-depth account of how Roma migrants have been represented in two British newspapers during the 2016 so-called “Brexit” Referendum campaign and subsequent vote. The textual and visual analysis demonstrates how racist tropes about Roma identity and culture are embedded into populist rhetoric, often taking subtle forms of expression, yet simultaneously manage to avoid accusations of racism. We argue that the scapegoating and demonisation of Roma migrants in the media contributed to shaping negative attitudes towards Eastern European immigrants and by proxy, to the EU. This plays out in a context of rising nativism and populism where Roma communities come to embody the perceived ills of the European integration project and are regarded as a threat to the fabric of the British nation. We draw attention to the danger of these representations which condemn an already vulnerable community to further socio-economic exclusion.

‘Slaves’ without coercion? Work-related classification patterns among Romanian migrant workers

Tens of thousands of Romanian migrants work in the German construction sector. Their work is often characterised by unpaid wages, long working days and the withholding of sick or holiday pay. The risky and exploitative nature of the conditions under which they work is reflected in their negative evaluation of their engagements as ‘slave labour’. Starting from such a clearly negative evaluation, this article asks how such workers classify their work and what role such classifications have within the context of labour exploitation. Based on qualitative interviews with and participant observation among Romanian construction site workers in Germany and in Romania, the article reconstructs four work classifications, each of which offers a different reason to make hard work plausible in the eyes of workers, while employers actively turn such interpretations into a mechanism of vulnerability. Without direct physical coercion, these ideas motivate workers to take on work that they themselves criticise as ‘slave labour’. The paper concludes by arguing that the recognition of such classifications and their social effects are crucial for an understanding of labour exploitation.

‘Ştiu eu pe cineva’. Self-organised mobility, labour intermediation and the two-fold exploitation of Romanian workers in the Austrian fresh food sector

The workings of Romanian migration networks across western Europe are well documented. Yet, transnational relations have rarely been examined outside of these networks, namely in their potential for value extraction in broader accumulation processes. This article looks at the self-organised mobility of Romanian workers in relation to exploitation in highly segmented labour markets, and substantiates the view that, in the Austrian fresh food sector, it is that self-organised mobility that has become exploitable by Austrian growers. The article shows how growers capitalise particularly on labour intermediation to maintain the resilience and profitability of local agricultural businesses in the Austrian agricultural market. The resulting workplace regime ensnares workers in a two-fold exploitability: not only is their labour power subject to labour extraction but so are their interpersonal relations. This analysis implies the need to move beyond commonplace vocabularies of ‘social capital’ to grasp the persistent exploitation of migrant workers and their reproductive capacities across segmented labour markets.

Homemaking as Homesickness. Romanian Migrants’ Strategies of Coping with Cultural Difference

Homemaking achieved materially and emotionally within a diasporic environment represents an important step in the long process of settling in a foreign country. This paper is devoted to explaining the Romanian concept of “home” as it is perceived by Romanian migrants who lived for long periods of time in western European countries. Interviews with Romanian migrants and Moldovan returned migrants, and participant observation during fieldwork revealed different levels of the psychological state of missing the home they departed from, the emotional underpinnings on having to manage life in two places, the concrete andspiritual significance of homemaking in a foreign country, the psychological undertones of “home” and “host” societies, questions on “identity” and “belonging”, ethnic homeland attachments. The reality of pluri-local and/or trans-local identity, and of multi-located homes and specific transnational lifestyles is compared with Romanian collective memory and imaginary of “home” and the strong territorial attachments that are considered by autochthonous ethnopsychologies as part of the Romanian cultural intimacy. The paper analyses both residence (as the material cultures of home, such as design and commodities, the material world of objects that shape a home environment) and dwelling (meanings, values and beliefs, emotional significance of domesticity). For migrants, the various strategies of homemaking are connected in various ways with homesickness as not only longing for a specific residence, but a feeling of loss of a specific past that is even more accentuated for people in a diasporic condition.

The Integration of Romanian Migrants in the Danish Society

"The reasons for choosing this theme – Integration of Romanians in Danish society – is the fact that it fills a scientific gap in the grid of academic research, not being very much investigated from a sociological perspective, with a well-structured, innovative methodology and with clearly formulated hypotheses from the sociological point of view. The poor knowledge of Romanian communities in the countries of northern Europe, namely Sweden and Denmark, must be replaced by sociological research of excellence, which will ensure recognition of these communities alongside others in Europe and the world, ensure the preservation of Romanian identity, the right to preservation of the Romanian language and culture in the communities of Romanians who gather far from their country of origin. The importance of studying the phenomenon of Romanian migration to Denmark arises from the rights of Romanian communities to maintain contact with their country of origin, with the Romanian language and culture. Researching the level of well-being, the level of social and professional integration, the quality of life of Romanians from the diaspora existing in Sweden and Denmark is a task of Romanian sociology, in the context of a united and coherent Europe, in which the rights of minorities must be recognized, but also the principle of affirming unity through diversity, of preserving the original identity of migrants in the new context of the adopting countries. Considering the chosen topic, the objectives, the goals and the universe of the field research, I chose triangulation as a method of approach, that is, the gathering of three methodologies for investigating the studied phenomenon in order to have a more detailed analysis of it. Therefore, we used the sociological questionnaire – quantitative method, the non-directive interview and the life story or social biography, but also the content analysis of some social documents (magazines published by the community, messages of community members investigated on different forums and social networks, letters, e-mails, photos from respondents' personal archives)."

Repatrierea forței de muncă în contextul pandemiei COVID-19

This article aims at providing information about Romanian emigrants in terms of destinations and integration on the labour market at the destination and, at the same time, at tackling with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mobility and eventual return of Romanian emigrants. For these explorations, we use quantitative data from various sources. The Repatriation of the Work Force is a research conducted in 2020, in which the local authorities from 3,181 administrative units in Romania were contacted and asked a series of questions regarding, among other topics, migration from and return migration to their locality. 742 answers were obtained, which were complemented with statistical information from Eurostat – Romanian citizens residing abroad, and the Romanian Border Police – traffic in an out Romanian borders since the beginning of the pandemic, compared to similar periods in 2019. The data provides an image of Romanian migrants abroad that is in line with what previous studies show, in terms of favourite destinations (Italy, Spain, Germany, Great Britain) and occupations at the destination (constructions, agriculture, housekeeping). Data from the Romanian Border Police show that return to Romania had some spikes in 2020, and suggests circularity and complex mobility trajectories.

“If we Throw the Roma out of the Tent, we Throw Jesus out of the Tent”: Reflections on the Role of Religious Actors in Roma Inclusion in Oslo, Norway

Abstract This article presents reflections on Roma inclusion in the context of intra-European mobility. It begins with accounts of visits to two religious actors running centres providing humanitarian assistance, social services, and opportunities to exercise religion to Roma and other migrants in Oslo, Norway: the Lutheran Church City Mission welcoming Roma migrants as guests in the City Mission Centre at Tøyen Church and the Pentecostal organisation Evangeliesenteret, where Roma migrants receive food and participate in religious gatherings at the Contact Centre. The article reflects on the modes of inclusion represented in these two accounts in relation to three different approaches to inclusion: EU Roma policy, the work of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, and diaconal theology. The article ends with reflections on what inclusion might mean in the context of intra-European Roma mobility.

Change starts from within: Migration and processes of social and cultural change. A Romanian case

Abstract This paper analyzes Romania’s dynamic migratory process with a focus on the return migration from Norway and the sociocultural changes that it might involve for Romanian migrants and their home societies. The focus on Norway as a case study can bring a valuable, accurate, and deep understanding of Romanian immigration. These indicate that Romanians faced many challenges in their migratory journey in Norway, but that for a source country like Romania, return migration could, in the long term, contribute to its social and cultural changes. This research resulted in three key findings. Firstly, through their migratory experience from Norway, Romanian returnees internalized social remittances, and changed their attitudes, behavior, values, and expectations before disseminating their knowledge in their family -and social environment. Secondly, the prevalence of social remittances might be dependent on the motivation of returnees to transfer their knowledge, ideas, and practices in the scope of contributing to social change. The prevalence of social remittances might also be dependent on the way the societies of origin receive the resources that returnees attempt to transmit and culturally diffuse. Thirdly, Romania, as an emigration society, has had a relaxed attitude towards change. However, repatriated Romanians maintain a confident outlook on the potential of their skills and know-how conferring them influence over certain cultural aspects in the spheres of work and social relationships.

Unequal Citizenship and Ethnic Boundaries in the Migration Experience of Polish Roma

AbstractSince the early 1990s, large numbers of Polish Roma have emigrated, mainly to Germany and Great Britain. Unlike the migration of Polish (non-Roma) citizens there was an intriguing silence regarding the migration of this ethnic group. The absence of Roma in the grand narrative of migrations from Poland, as we argue, suggests that the notion of belonging and citizenship were unequally distributed among Poland’s population. Based on our ongoing ethnographic research among Polish Roma migrants, complemented by an analysis of relevant documents, we argue that these inequalities and hierarchies are deeply rooted and there is an interesting continuity in how they were produced and reproduced prior to and after the 1989 regime change. We argue that one of the key factors in these movements, the collectiveness of the migration project – i.e. migrating as an extended family group as a component of the moral economy of Roma mobility – is mutually produced by unequal citizenship, mobility regimes and strong moral obligations stemming from kinship ties.

CHALLENGES AND SOCIAL VULNERABILITIES FOR ROMANIAN SEASONAL WORKERS IN GERMANY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

In the present study I highlighted the subjective indicators of the quality of life in the Romanian diaspora during the COVID-19 pandemic, using as a case study the situation of Romanians residing in Germany, as well as of Romanians working in seasonal jobs. The data collected were extracted from primary research based on in-depth interviews that I conducted with Romanian respondents living both in Romania and in Germany between April 2021 and August 2021, also with administrative officials from both countries who agreed to present their opinions on the topic under analysis. The secondary databases have largely completed the data specific to a statistical analysis, but without being able to access a complete picture of Romanian migrants in Germany, as many of the specific macro-data for the period 2020 and 2021 are lacking and others are not finalized. An important part of the secondary data comes from statistical sources provided by Eurostat and the National Institute of Statistics. The increasing presence of Romanians in Germany in recent years has become a topic of interest for both countries, involving joint diplomatic efforts, closer communication and a streamlining of legislation and bureaucracy. In order to strengthen administrative and diplomatic relations between the two countries, the need for research on the proposed topic is a major priority for both Romanian and German academic society. 

Labour Mobility and Informality: Romanian Migrants in Spain and Ethnic Entrepreneurs in Croatia

Post-Weberian definitions see the state–individual relationship as a “do ut des” one. The state grants protection, education, medical care, and its citizens contribute labour, compliance, and taxes. When this does not occur, it is generally accepted that the citizens are deviating from state goals. However, there are cases where lack of compliance stems from the fact that society members do not feel protected by formal structures, and they rely on informal ones to replace, supplement, or even compete with state institutions. The starting point of this article is that this lack of support may result from enhanced labour mobility (and migration) across Europe, and may enhance the creation and persistence of informal practices. Taking advantage of two case studies, Romanian migrants to Spain and ethnic entrepreneurs in Croatia, we observe how governance is constructed and provide two novel interpretative frameworks. First, we explore the use of informality (informal practices) to suggest that apparently insignificant actions that are repeated routinely and without much thought, are a way to contribute to the construction of the political and that everyday governance should receive more attention. Second, we use this claim to argue that a better understanding of informality can help identify governance areas where interventions are more urgent. These are the spheres of public life where it is possible to identify a larger gap between the wishes of a state and the ways citizens actually act as they informally avoid or bypass its rules.

‘You are Romanian. This is going to be a problem': class, desire, and educated migrant women in France

ABSTRACT Despite the growing scholarship on Romanian migration after the fall of state socialism in 1989, Romanian women’s migration to France remains largely unexplored. Studies have tended to focus on economic, rural, and low-skilled women’s migration to destinations with gendered labour demands. Based on ethnographic research, this article examines urban, student, and educated women’s migration, by exploring their aspirations and desires to migrate and their everyday experiences in France. Overall, France has attracted a diverse group of Romanians whose migration cannot be explained by push and pull factors alone. Student and educated women of different ages, social statuses, and skill levels invoked migration desires shaped by both personal and political reasons. This article examines women’s drivers of migration and shows that parents, fellow citizens, and social class play decisive roles in their decisions to migrate, enable their departures, and facilitate their arrivals in France. However, social class, including its associated symbolic capital, becomes less prominent in shaping women’s everyday lives in France, where their nationality and its related negative stereotypes can expose women to discrimination and exclusion.

On the formation of content for 'political remittances': an analysis of Polish and Romanian migrants comparative evaluations of 'here' and 'there'

ABSTRACT Migration may affect migrants’ ideas as they become exposed to different contexts over time. But how does such exposure and opportunities for comparative evaluation of origin and settlement contexts, translate into content for potential political remittances? To answer this question, we analyse 80 interviews with Polish and Romanian migrants living in Barcelona (Spain) and Oslo (Norway). Starting from the established ‘social remittances’, literature, our contribution is to unpack the process of their formation by focusing on what happens at the content-creation stage. We do so through analysis of migrants’ comparative evaluation of their ‘origin’ and ‘settlement’ contexts in regard to three explicitly political issues: corruption, public institutions and democracy. We analyse how exposure to, and comparative evaluation of, different contexts inform migrants’ views, and find non-linearity and inconsistency between migrant groups’ and in individuals’ own patterns of views. This underscores the salience of, first, recognising how the change that migration prompts in migrants’ outlooks may or may not be stronger than preceding political preferences, anchored in ongoing processes of (re)socialisation; and second, of better understanding how migration impacts migrants’ outlooks, by considering the specifics of exposure and comparative evaluation, whether or not ultimately articulated in forms traceable as ‘political remittances’.

Romanian Migration. The Italy Syndrome and the Other Side of the Coin

Abstract In Italy, most female immigrant workers, mainly Romanians, are employed in care sectors. This is the reason why many scholars have dealt with the impact of domestic work in Romanians’ lives: looking after our family results, according to them, in depression, anxiety, panic. Our job, on the contrary, aims at demonstrating that working in this sector improves post-soviet women’s social status, rescuing them from a subordinate condition in their native country.

Aspirations, agency and well‐being of Romanian migrants in Greece

AbstractMigration is considered a meaningful strategy whereby both migrants and nonmigrants can improve their well‐being and their livelihoods. The paper emphasizes the migrants' own perspective and sheds light on movers' noneconomic drivers. The concept of aspirations is treated as a ‘missing link’ that allows research into migration at its intersection with social inequalities, hierarchies and diversity. The paper's main aim is therefore to elucidate Romanian migrants' aspirations and to illustrate how these aspirations are informed by their agency and reflect their well‐being both during and after the economic recession in Greece. Romanian migration provides sufficient grounds to invoke a more nuanced approach to migrants' well‐being, which takes their ‘dreams of fantasy’ into account, along with their subjective experiences of inequalities and multiple belonging. This paper frames migrants' well‐being theoretically as a relational process, but also in terms of the socio‐spatial arrangements of migrant mobility/immobility acts. Romanians' narratives are analysed in relation to their social trajectories, spatial movement(s) and settlement patterns during their international and internal journey(s).

Romanian migration reflected in recent Portuguese literature: the Roma ethnicity as a case in point

This article focuses on three contemporary Portuguese literary works that feature Roma characters and culture-specific elements within a wider selection of authors who mention or delve into past and present Romanian realities. This selection was aimed at determining which are the themes, historical events, lived or narrated memories, symbols, images, and ethnotypes that interest contemporary Portuguese authors in relation with the Romanian immigrant segment, a population fairly representative in Portugal (ninth largest minority group, with some 31,000 residents and an annual immigration rate of 2,000 new arrivals). My exploration (through several channels: library catalogues, oral sources, databases) revealed ten literary works which tackle elements related to: the Roma ethnic group and the negative ethnotype of prostitution, crime and begging; the former elite (aristocracy, intelligentsia), above all, temporally anchored in the early years of the 20th century; and the Communist regime, its apparatus (party and secret police) and its fall at the end of the eighth decade of the 20th century. In this article I shall focus on the analysis of the first group, basing this on the concept of “ethnotype”, observing how the image of a given immigrant population is constructed, and how this image affects its members in the public and private spheres.

Wage Differences between Polish and Romanian Intra-EU Migrants in a Flexi-Secure Labour Market: An Over-Time Perspective

By merging longitudinal register data and a customised survey, this article explores whether sectoral segmentation, migrants’ pre- and post-migration human capital and social structures, shape wages of Polish and Romanian long-term migrants to Denmark. Pronounced wage differences in favour of Polish migrants are evident in the first two years in Denmark, notwithstanding the same regulatory context under the free movement of labour in the EU. Wage differences persist – albeit at a considerably lower level – throughout the eight-year period, mainly because of significant sectoral segmentation. Sectoral segmentation not explained by demographics, pre-migration human capital or crisis effects, might indicate categorical stereotyping by employers. Regarding (co-ethnic) social networks, at least for the early stages of migration, the study does not find significant effects on wages. While the evidence shows a positive return on wages of formal higher education taken post migration, this is not the case for further training and Danish language education.

Structural Embeddedness in Transnational Social Fields: Personal Networks, International (Im)Mobilities, and the Migratory Capital Paradox

In this article we focus on individuals’ structural embeddedness in transnational social fields (TSFs) and examine how this is related to patterns of international mobility. The main argument is that the structure of TSFs matters for (im)mobility trajectories, and thus all actors (migrants, non‐migrants, and returnees) need to be examined as a whole to obtain a deeper understanding of the role of social networks in processes of transnational mobility. Taking the case of Romanian migrants in Spain as a TSF connecting their place of origin (Dâmbovița in Romania) with their destination (Castelló in Spain), we analyze survey data for 303 migrants, non‐migrants, and returnees, sampled through an RDS‐like binational link‐tracing design. We then categorize types of personal network using an international mobility scale to assess the degree of structural embeddedness in the TSF. An important contribution is the rigorous operationalization of TSF and assessment of the level of migratory capital of each individual. Our results reveal that migratory capital is not always linked positively with high mobility patterns and that its role is strongly related to the overall composition and structure of the TSF.

Now-casting Romanian migration into the United Kingdom by using Google Search engine data

Short-term forecasts of international migration are often based on data that are incomplete, biased, and reported with delays. There is also a scarcity of migration forecasts based on combined traditional and new forms of data.

Praying through the pandemic: Religion, uncertainty, and care

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, Roma Pentecostal converts in England continued to meet for religious gatherings and communal prayer, either outdoors or in private homes of church members, despite measures put in place by the British government that limited the number of social contacts between individuals and at times forbade visiting other households. Among the members of the Life and Light church are many who belong to one of the high-risk categories for complications from Covid-19. Why would converts take part in activities that involved increased risk of virus transmission and increase their possibility of getting ill? This paper draws on informal online and in-person conversations with Roma that took place during the summer and autumn of 2020 and reflects on religion and communal prayer as a strategy of coping with the heightened uncertainty brought by the pandemic. It argues that participating in religious meetings where people jointly pray for others, both those who present and those who are absent, is an intangible form of care that helps to forge, shape, and maintain social relationships and creates a sense of belonging and continuity. In addition, praying is an embodied expression of one’s relationship to a transcendental entity, Jesus, and of placing oneself into the caring hands of God and Jesus. Lastly, the Church provides material support for members who are in a difficult financial situation. Participating in Church activities like prayer meetings is an expression of belonging to a religious collectivity and can help gain access to this material help in situations when access to state-provided care and material support is limited or absent, thus opening for church members the possibility of tangible forms of care. The paper looks at the role of religion in dealing with the uncertainty that Roma migrants experience when dealing with the state and going about their everyday lives and the upheaval and increased uncertainty brought by the pandemic.