Introduction

In the last two decades we have witnessed a massive movement of people across Europe in response to economic and political reforms and social upheaval. Many of the dislocated are victims of war but even more are casualties arising from recent decades of economic reforms, with their situation exacerbated more recently by the global recession. Migration is one important response to local problems of economic marginality (there are of course numerous others, discussed briefly later in this chapter). Rural-urban and transnational movement from poorer to wealthier areas is an obvious response by those who have the resources to migrate. As our volume shows, however, such movement is not all in one direction. Those who stay behind may also be incorporated into transnational processes, not only through their on-going contacts with migrants but also as ‘targets’ for receiving help from outside forces (governments, NGOs etc). Such movement of populations backwards and forwards, within and between nations, as poorer people move to wealthier areas, and poor areas become the target of state and non-state funded intervention projects, is central to the migration-poverty story.

This volume explores the connections between migration and poverty in the context of the restructuring (and expansion) of global capitalism. It comprises a series of essays examining migration and poverty from a local perspective through case studies from across the continent. In this introductory chapter the topic of poverty and migration in Europe is divided into three parts.