Some aspects of Romanian Migration
in Italy and Spain
Ana Bleahu, PhD student, University of Bucharest, Romania, e-mail: a_bleahu@yahoo.com
Background and Objectives/Introduction
The official statistics estimate that 2 to 2.5 million Romanian people
(Sandu, coord. 2006) work legally or illegally abroad.
Most of them are in Europe, especially in Italy and Spain.
Labor migration of the skilled workers is the most important reason
for Romanians to move to a foreign country.
Before 2007 most migration was an informal, illegal, clandestine
migration, which tends to transform into a semi-permanent or
enduring migration.
In 2006, there were
around 15,000 recorded
people, the most of them
Romanians or Gypsies
from Romania, who used
to live in informal camps,
on public or private land.
They where more or less
accepted.
Scientific Approach/Methods
The research will be focused on:
- official data and official institutions involved in the
phenomenon of migration (local administration, Romanian church in
Italy and Spain, Romanian non-governmental organizations)
- and qualitative data collected during my fieldwork and I will
refer myself to the ad hoc, hierarchical structures or informal
“institutions”, based either on free association or else on power,
blackmail or violence.
From quantitative analysis…
Anuario Estadistico de
Extranjeria 1996, 1997,
1998, 1999, 2000, 2001,
2002, 2003, 2004, 2005,
2006
Immigrazione – Dossier
Statistico - 2005, 2006, 2007
… to qualitative approach:
Interviews with Romanian
migrants (2003, 2005, 2006,
2007) in Spain, Italy and
Romania
Interviews with Spanish and
Italian authorities (2006)
Interviews with Romanian
authorities (2005, 2006, 2007)
(Expected) Results
2005
63926
2000
10983
4012
1999
4423
3048
1998
3013
2414
1997
1989
1459
1996
1386
1078
Oltenia, Maramureş, Moldova etc.
„To the right is the trail leading to the Olteni, they are higher on the hill side, only some 20 of them,
in the valley there are Moldoveni, some 40 of them, and here we are, the Satmareni, we are the
largest group, some 100 people. The youngest is 4 months old, the child of Crina…her husband left
her for another woman and she came here to her parents…the oldest is 64, he doesn’t work, he
hangs around and watches the huts while we are out to work.” (immigrant, aged 37)
…and they became a hot
topic for political debate
Fig. 1 In Spain: The
number of Romanian
migrants increases
year by year
24856
18626
2001
Fig. 2 Inside La Fripta the inhabitants are grouped according to their region of origin from Romania:
83372
33705
39373
2002
Romanians in “La Fripta”
In Italy: Gypsies from Romania
under the bridge….
54688
46251
2003
Map of Roma, Informal camps with Romanian and Gypsies from Romania 2006,
Comune di Roma, Dipartmento, UO Emergenza Sociale ed Accoglienza
192134
126298
2004
(data from Dipartmento, UO
Emergenza Sociale ed Accoglienza)
w ith permit f or w ork
residents
Number of Romanians immigrants on sector of activities
Fig. 2 In Spain: the
trend of employment
is moving from
agriculture to
services
2005
2004
2002
0
20000
AGRICULTURA
40000
60000
CONSTRUCCIÓN
80000
INDUSTRIA
100000
120000
SERVICIOS
Motivation for migration
“…for our future” migrant’s house in Borsa,
in the North of Romania, a small town
with 7000 migrants in Italy
Discussion/Conclusion/Significance
• among the Romanian migrants informal forms of self-organization
arise in order to organize and manage the challenges of being in a
foreign country
• the semi-tolerated illegality determines the forms and uses of
networks both in the organization of the migration and in the forms
of integration into the labor and housing markets.
• migrants have to face a system that needs their labor but refuses
to acknowledge this need publicly or institutionalize it openly.
• it emerges that the Italian and Spanish states are caught between
toleration and repression, arbitrarily switching from one mode to the
other.
Acknowledgement
“…we are here for our children…”
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/mariecuriesocanth/
This research project has been supported by a Marie
Curie Early Stage Research Training Fellowship of
the European Community’s Sixth Framework Programme under contract number MEST-CT-2005020702 within the project European Partnership for
Qualitative Research Training (Social Anthropology).