Introduction

The phenomena of mass movements of people precede the advent of the nation state. Yet in the twenty-first century, the context in which migrants negotiate their integration within legal, social, cultural, economic and political spaces has changed significantly. The aspiration for equal treatment and integration is no longer synonymous with assimilation into dominant cultural norms and a uniform and codified citizenship status. Traditional representations of ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ have been displaced by a more complex system of legal and political relationships and a richer sense of what it means to ‘belong’ within a diverse society. As a consequence it is becoming increasingly difficult to answer the question: who is an insider and who is an outsider?