Defining Who Is Who in the Politics of Immigration

Abstract

As noted in the introduction, this book asks why different responses to the presence of Romanian immigrants have arisen in public and official debate in Italy and Spain. In doing so, it will also explore what it means to be an immigrant and to become a ‘new’ citizen of an enlarged EU. This meaning is, as succinctly stated by Richard Jenkins, concerned with ‘the human capacity — rooted in language — to know “who’s who” (and hence “what’s what”)’ (2008: 5). The analytical puzzle is, however, not to simply describe what the characteristics of immigrant populations are, but rather to account for how, when and why claims to who is who gain popular resonance and dominance as legitimate views of the world (Castells, 2010: 7; Malesevic, 2011: 272).