Migrants and ethnic minorities in post-Communist Europe

Abstract

Migration movements within Central and Eastern Europe and the development of related migrant diasporas are to date relatively underresearched topics. Also, little attention has been paid to the process of identity negotiation that takes place between post-1989 migrants, their co-ethnic minorities native to the host state and the host state national majority. This article looks into the development of diasporic identities among Ukrainian and Romanian migrants in Poland and Hungary, focusing particularly on members of the political elite of these recent migrations. The informants included in this study form part of a civically and politically active small elite among the recent migrants. They have a double importance for their diaspora group: they play a constitutive part in the making of the diaspora, as they are the ones to set up the diaspora institutions, and they are also the ones who bear the brunt for carving an identity space in the country of settlement: between the native majority and their co-ethnic native minority. Of particular interest is how these first-generation elite immigrants negotiate their national identity within the triangle of country of origin, country of settlement and co-ethnic national minority (native in the host country). The methodology of critical discourse analysis is used to analyse in-depth interviews with 10 first-generation immigrants in the two countries.