Migration has always been there, regardless which ways of travelling
people could make available. Today, in times of struggles for
(economic) resources, migration especially from south to north is
regarded as a problem from a north-western perspective. A system of
borders and control was established, which should regulate and where
applicable even block streams of migration. Groups of good migrants
(e.g. flexible, cheap and skilled workers) and problematic migrants
(e.g. refugees) are created.
Within the context of migration,
different groups and individuals can experience individual and social
inequalities simultaneously – this is particularly true of groups and
individuals who are refugees and asylum seekers. The change of
environment mostly means to adjust one’s identity to the new
surrounding, e. g. by processes of self-ethnicising and external
ethnicising.
Cases of intrastate migration have also to be taken
into account as causes for far-reaching changes in one’s life and as
processes with impact on identity constructions.
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