PATTERNS OF MIGRATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTHERN DANUBE MICRO-REGION
PATTERNS OF MIGRATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTHERN DANUBE MICRO-REGION

Summary/Abstract: Being theoretically located within the debate regarding the positive or negative consequences of the migrant’s remittances for local development, the paper is the result of field research in the rural area of Southern Danube Micro-region, from Teleorman County, Romania. The main contribution of the paper resides in challenging the general assumption that transnational migration from rural Eastern Europe is always caused by underdevelopment, and in proving instead that the local process of development itself, in its particular post-socialist-cum-neoliberal form, may determine and enhance migration. As the argument goes, the paper gives an assessment of the extent and the general causes of transnational migration from this region to Spain, and reveals the formation of different patterns of migration along the generational, confessional and ethnic lines. The statements of the paper are illustrated ethnographically with instances from the village with the highest rate of migration. Among the important findings of the research are that the emergence of entrepreneurial behavior, as result of migration, tends to be linked with the minority group of the Adventists, and that the mass migration of the Ursari Roma has resulted in a geographical and a social repositioning of this ethnic group within the villages.

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