Scholarly record

MIGRATION AND NATIONAL IDENTITIES DILEMMAS

E. Stoica

Abstract

Europe has long been a popular destination in global migration waves, the Mediterranean operating as the main route for African or Middle East migrants. This is maybe one of the oldest routes of connection in human history, going back to the Iron Age and the empires of Antiquity. At the very moment, 7 million people are displaced in Syria and in Afghanistan, 4 million refugees are in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon and many more are about to come to Europe. Immigrants often have a positive impact on their host society, creating jobs and contributing to its dynamism but, there is, also, a fear of negative cultural impact, where immigrants are viewed as a diverse group to the nationals who may fail to integrate and threaten social cohesion and even national identity[1]. A 2014 global Gallup poll placed Europe in the top of the regions with the most negative attitude to immigration. Migration is expected to alter the religious landscape of Europe in future decades. A study made by Pew Research Centre [2] forecast the decline of Christian population as a share of Europeans (from 75% in 2010 to 65% in 2050) and a rising of the Muslim share of Europe population from less than 6% in 2010 to more than 10% in 2050. Literature review explore the idea of national identity and cultural diversity with its many dimensions correlated with each other, e.g. language, religion, customs & traditions (c.f. Fearon 2003, Alesina et al. 2003, Shenkar 2001)[3] in the light of migration waves. A countryВ’s cultural diversity is established by the share of the foreign population, used in this study as a main measure to approximate the countryВ’s heterogeneity. Moreover, the consideration of differences in cultural distance between different population groups leads to important changes in the diversity rankings that might become meaningful in the empirical analyses. The study employ the distances between groups as important aspect for the countryВ’s ethnic collect. A use in my research Brunow and Brenzel[4] model using both fractionalization and polarization indices and provide evidence about ethnic and linguistic diversity effect on the national identity. Europe is, at the moment, full of separatist movements looking for autonomy or groups seeking for being recognized as a national minority. Considering that, nationalsВ’ separatist sharing an appropriate culture, refusing to consider it as part of nationВ’s identity should represent a higher treat than the immigrant waves caring with a more distanced culture? Therefore, the aim of this paper is to answer the above question and to investigate some thoughts from the national identity perspective arising from the possibility that certain inflows of migrants can alter the host countries cultural identity.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/SGEMSOCIAL2017/HB11/S12.117

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