Rethinking Roma migration in the light of recent flow of refugees to Canada from three Central Eastern European countries: The Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia

CPS Research Fellow Zsuzsanna Vidra published an article about the research results of a pilot project on the (forced) migration of Roma in the International Journal of Arts & Sciences. 

The paper presents the research results of a pilot project on the (forced) migration of Roma from three Central Eastern European countries – the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia – to Canada in the course of the last ten to fifteen years. Roma migration is posited as being motivated by various factors that include both discrimination and social deprivation. This premise held by researchers working on Roma migration is backed by the theoretical literature of the sociology and anthropology of forced migration. The paper, however, looks for new approaches ('mid-range' theories) with the aim of re-thinking Roma forced migration. The research project delved into the whole migration process through narrative interviews that enable us to find theoretical frameworks that account for more than just the motivational side of Roma forced migration. With a special focus on how migration starts, how it develops and how migrant networks come about through weak and strong ties, we aimed to shed new light on the forced migration of Roma while we raised new questions and hoped to break new grounds for further studies.

Keywords: Asylum-seeking, Culture of migration, Labor migration, Forced migration, Migration industry, Migration network, Negative social capital, Refugee, Weak and strong ties.

Available at: http://universitypublications.net/ijas/0603/html/T3N266.xml

International Journal of Arts and Sciences (CD) (ISSN: 1944-6934) 6: (3) pp. 529-540. (2013)