Romanian migration as multiregional building of transnational fields

Abstract

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.