UNIT 5. Multiculturalism and migration

Step 1: Overview

Introduction

In the first 4 units of this course we discussed both personal and collective identities, focusing on the latter and its multiple meanings and levels of development in the European context. In this unit we focus on the space of intersection between different collective identities through the prism of migration. Migrants represent both the Other, what we fear and what we do not understand – the stranger – as well as Ourselves and the potential for change, cultural diffusion, hybrid identities and a mirror through which collective identities are reflected. Migration is a vector of change whilst at the same time migrants individually undergo a process of change – migration in itself is a transformative action.

We first start off with an overview of migration as a social and historical process, and we then go to quantify different flows in order to grasp their magnitude, before proceeding to understand certain migratory phenomena and their effects on collective identity.