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This article situates Van Gennep's Rites de passage in the contemporary field of migration studies, arguing that his second and third chapters allow us to reformulate how we conceptualize contemporary migratory encounters. Rather than reading Van Gennep's classical text through the prevalent Turnerian lens of "liminality" in migration, I reread it as offering a conceptualization of migration as deriving from society's establishment on a delimited piece of earth, constituting itself against and in relation to its own limits. Society's limit then becomes the center of social inquiry, while the strangers at the gate are seen as an integral part of these fundamental relations between a social grouping and the delimited space it occupies. The article further suggests that Van Gennep's sociology of the limit offers the field of migration studies three practical analytical contributions: (a) its notion of the multiplicity of limits and sublimits emerging throughout the migratory encounter; (b) its emphasis on the sanctification of the limit, which opens up the possibility of analyzing the relations between migration and emotions; and (c) its pointing to the potential cycle of dread elicited by this sanctification—a notion highly relevant to analyzing contemporary migratory encounters.

"The History of Migration in Europe belies several myths by arguing, for example, that immobility has not been the "normal" condition of people before the modern era. Migration (far from being an income-maximizing choice taken by lone individuals) is often a household strategy, and local wages benefit from migration. This book shows how ssuccesses arise when governments liberalize and accompany the international movements of people with appropriate legislation, while failures take place when the legislation enacted is insufficient, belated or ill shaped. The first part of this book addresses mainly methodological issues. Past and present migration is basically defined as a cross-cultural movement; cultural boundaries need prolonged residence and active integrationist policies to allow cross-fertilization of cultures among migrants and non-migrants. The second section collects chapters that examine the role of public bodies with reference to migratory movements, depicting a series of successes and failures in the migration policies through examples drawn from the European Union or single countries. The third section deals with challenges immigrants face once they have settled in their new countries: Do immigrants seek "integration" in their host culture? Through which channels is such integration achieved, and what roles are played by citizenship and political participation? What is the "identity" of migrants and their children born in the host countries? This text's originality stems from the fact that it explains the complex nature of migratory movements by incorporating a variety of perspectives and using a multi-disciplinary approach, including economic, political and sociological contributions"--

AbstractMigration for begging and informal street work in Western Europe has become a common livelihood strategy in many Romanian Roma communities, and over the last decade, Scandinavia has emerged as an important new destination. Using a combination of quantitative survey data on Romanian migrant beggars and street workers in Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen, and qualitative fieldworks in Scandinavia and Romania, this article presents a framework for studying migration for begging that goes beyond widespread narratives rooted in either culture or poverty. I argue that migration for begging is a purposeful economic adaptation, embedded in three distinct sets of social phenomena. First, the social and economic processes of marginalization of Roma communities in post-socialist Romania can help explain the motive for migration in terms of poverty and lack of alternative options. Second, the structure of social capital within Roma households and communities can help explain why they are able to engage in transnational migration under extremely difficult conditions despite lacking economic and educational resources. Third, 'oppositional' Roma identities can help to explain why some are willing to engage in 'transgressional' activities that others perceive as shameful, thus allowing the exploitation of marginal economic resources in times of economic hardship.

This article places under critical and reflexive examination the theoretical underpinnings of the concept of lifestyle migration. Developed to explain the migration of the relatively affluent in search of a better way of life, this concept draws attention to the role of lifestyle within migration, alongside understandings of migration as one stage within the ongoing lifestyle choices and trajectories of individual migrants. Through a focus on two paradigms that are currently at work within theorisations of this social phenomenon—individualisation and mobilities—we evaluate their contribution to this flourishing field of research. In this way, we demonstrate the limitations and constraints of these for understanding lifestyle migration; engaging with longstanding debates around structure and agency to make a case for the recognition of history in understanding such the pursuit of 'a better way of life'; questioning the extent to which meaning is made through movement, and the politics and ethics of replacing migration with mobilities. Through this systematic consideration, we pave the way of re-invigorated theorising on this topic, and the development of a critical sociology of lifestyle migration.

Politics is an underdeveloped topic in migration studies, a lacuna that derives from prevailing intellectual biases, whether having to do with those that focus on individual action or those that emphasize social processes. This paper identifies the central issues entailed in the study of migrant politics, whether having to do with receiving society immigrant politics or sending society emigrant politics, reviewing and assessing the ways in which scholars have tackled this problem.

Migration is a form of spatial and social transplant from one local and national context to another. Migration trajectories often expose the underlying intersections of social relations and social hierarchies that underpin cultural and social national environments. Migrants who encounter those complex structural inequalities must learn to negotiate classed, gendered and racialised social relations and seek the most suitable social positions within new systems. This article builds on Amartya Sen's capability approach to conceptualise migrants' embeddedness in the framework of social inequalities and explores the relationship between individual choices, resources and entitlements. It points towards patterns of advantage and disadvantage that frame migrants' opportunities and draws tacit analytical, theoretical and methodological links that have the innovative potential for the study of migration. Building on the parallels between studies in the fields of social inequalities and migration, this article argues that Sen's analytical and conceptual approach provides innovative insights into migration experiences, and Sen's unique reasoning opens up new avenues for the discussion of migrants' social justice.