The Europeanisation of Everyday Life: Cross-Border Practices and Transnational Identifications among EU and Third-Country Citizens - Romanians' Social Transnationalism in the Making

Abstract

Transnational migration fields emerged in social research as a result of a tentative criticism of methodological nationalism with its focus on the national space as a homogeneous container of all the forms of social life. The new approach of methodological transnationalism is targeted to locate some sociocultural phenomena and processes in the framework of interactions among several societies. Cross-border practices, links and identities in this new approach put in relation not only nation-states but non-state actors that are structured at group, community and regional level. The three chapters of the working paper address the emerging social transnationalism (Mau, 2012) of Romanians by focusing on transnational fields, perceptions of the first trips abroad and the habitus of emigrants in relation with return intentions. Temporary or indefinite time emigration of Romanians abroad for work started, mainly, during the economic recession that hit Romania in 1997-1999. In spite of its young age, it largely contributed to the structuring of a social transnationalism by fields, actors and layers. EUCROSS and non-EUCROSS data at individual or aggregated level, of quantitative and qualitative nature are put to work for capturing the complexity of the Romanian transnationalism in the making.

The key idea of the first chapter is that regions at different levels, at origin and at destination, function as relevant frames in structuring migration fields. Transnational fields are not only dense interactions between pairs of societies having Romania as origin, but a configuration of interactions among clusters of sending microregions in Romania and receiving macroregions, formed by clusters of receiving countries. Changing the unit of analysis from national societies to regions at different levels allows for a dynamic picture of multisited and multilevel regionalism in understanding transnational migration. Survey and census data are aggregated to reach this picture. The multiregional model of transnationalism is developed by four axes or layers on migration streams, cross-border networks, transnational habitus and migration experiences at individual and family levels. This comprehensive, multilayer approach requires the use of multiple data sets (the EUCROSS survey on Romanian natives, the Romanian census data from 2011 and the Romanian subsample from the Eurobarometer 73.3 on New Europeans) that are able to capture the complexity of the model.

The chapter “First trip abroad: expectations, experiences and stories of transnational Romanians” analyses transnational Romanians’ stories about their first trip abroad using the EUMEAN dataset. The concept of physical mobility is seen as a broader framework for understanding transnational and cosmopolitan behaviours as well as international migration. In order to distinguish between different types of travelling for the first trip abroad, the chapter is constructed keeping in mind the structural changes and constraints regarding physical mobility for Romanian citizens. During the transition from a communist country to a EU member state, Romanian citizens’ stories about travelling abroad for the first time fundamentally changed. Labour migrants, asylum seekers, business travellers, students or tourists left the country with different expectations and faced different problems at destination. Their attitudes toward origin and destination framed their images about the first trip abroad. Using a qualitative approach and samples of Romanians who live in Denmark, Germany, Italy, Romania, Spain and the United Kingdom, the analysis emphasizes certain differences between different types of travelling for the first time abroad and reconstructs how Romanians started their transnational careers.

Romanian migration has a temporary and circulatory character: on the one hand, people are moving back and forth to and from a destination and, on the other hand, there are migrants who either resettle in Romania, come back in the home country and then emigrate to a different destination than the initial one or move to a new destination after spending time abroad without returning to Romania. The third chapter is concerned with the factors that shape these distinct possible strategies and types of mobility, with a special interest towards intentions and plans for return. In doing so, we look at the bonds Romanian migrants maintain with their home country and explore the different typologies and categories of migrants as moulded by their experiences, opinions and attitudes towards the country of origin. The main questions of interest concern how the experience of migration shapes the attitude towards the home country and the intention to return, how did the crisis influence such aspects (if it did) and what the main factors that appear as significant to one category of migrants or another from this point of view are. For this purpose, we use fifty one of the sixty one in-depth interviews realized with Romanians as part of the EUCROSS project in Denmark, UK, Spain, Italy and Germany (EUMEAN dataset).