Search results - CEJSH

1

From Intermarium to the Three Sees Initiative – Regional Integrations in Central and Eastern Europe and the Hungarian Foreign Policy

100%

Schmidt A.

Politeja : Pismo Wydziału Studiów Miedzynarodowych i Politycznych Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego

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2017

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issue 51

165-189

EN

The aim of the paper is to examine the harmony between the Polish and the Hungarian foreign policy from the early 20th century to the recent decades. Due to their special geographical position both states experienced threats and challenges in the examined period, however their approach to the above was different. Poland was focusing on the problem of the rebirth of the divided state and the uncertainty regarding its borders while Hungary had to struggle with the peaceful revision of the lost territories. Being located between two ambitious great powers Poland and Hungary had to find balance between German and Russian (Soviet) aspirations that influenced the foreign policy of both states. This paper treats Poland as a reference point and examines the Hungarian struggles from this approach. The paper also gives an outline definition of the meaning of borders and their importance in Central and Eastern European region.

2

European borders in turbulent times: the case of the central Mediterranean ‘extended borderland’

100%

Gruszczak A.

Politeja : Pismo Wydziału Studiów Miedzynarodowych i Politycznych Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego

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2017

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issue 50

23-45

EN

This article presents one of the most salient aspects of the migration crisis in the EU, namely the turbulent management of external borders, and analyzing it in the case of the central region of the Mediterranean Sea. The study is focused on risks and threats to the security of the European Union and its member states, particularly Italy, posed by negative aspects of migratory flows and accompanying phenomena such as migrant smuggling, trafficking in human beings, drug smuggling or document frauds. For this purpose, a concept of ‘extended borderland’ is applied as particularly suitable for analyzing border-security policies and actions undertaken by the European Union. The argument developed in this article is that the Central Mediterranean area has been converted into an extended borderland where conventional systems, methods and tools of border management are superseded by spatial taming created by international actors acting through joint maritime operations.

3

PROBLEM POLSKICH GRANIC W BRYTYJSKICH PUBLIKACJACH

100%

Klas W.

Zeszyty Naukowe PUNO

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2016

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issue 4

217-227

EN

This article presents the historic borders of Poland in British publications. Errors or short comings in developing maps have led to a false image of Polish geography throughout - history. The author provides selected negative and positive examples in the specication and drawing of maps

4

Old Boundaries and New Cultural Landscapes of a Multiethnic City in Modern-day Macedonia

100%

Rogoś A. A.

Colloquia Humanistica

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2019

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issue 8

EN

Old Boundaries and New Cultural Landscapes of a Multiethnic City in Modern-day MacedoniaIn the context of Macedonian and Albanian ethnonational discourses functioning in Macedonia that constitute a significant component of the system of the city’s symbols and semantics, we come upon confrontational strategies between the Slavic and non-Slavic entities that function in the cultural area of Skopje. On the one hand, these confrontational strategies determine the polemic nature of urban space, understood as both material cultural space established on the basis of places of memory and cultural artefacts, and, on the other hand, they are a product of space as an area of activity of actors and social and political networks, often used to construct incoherent self-defining processes within the space defined by the influence of ethnocultural processes.Based on the two entities in this discourse, one Slavic and one non-Slavic (Macedonian and Albanian), a semantic model of the city, described as a “polemic city”, was created as an outcome of the empirical research performed. This model can also be used for analysing other cultural areas characterised by polycentric interethnic relations. A significant point of reference, a category that constitutes the key component of this analysis, is the transformative nature of the place as an area of stigmatisation by ethnic, cultural and political determinants and subjected to a game with the participation of social and political actors. Anthropological research distinguished semantic categories referring to the place and the contestation of place, all of which I have analysed, drawing special attention to the Slavic and non-Slavic entities in Macedonian and Albanian discourse in Macedonia. Stare granice i nowe krajobrazy kulturowe wieloetnicznego miasta we współczesnej MacedoniiW kontekście macedońskich i albańskich dyskursów etnonarodowych funkcjonujących w Północnej Macedonii, które stanowią znaczący element systemu symboli i semantyki miasta, natrafiamy na strategie konfrontacyjne między komponentami słowiańskimi i niesłowiańskimi, które funkcjonują w obszarze kulturalnym Skopje. Z jednej strony te strategie konfrontacyjne składają się na polemiczny charakter przestrzeni miejskiej, rozumianej zarówno jako materialna przestrzeń kulturowa ustalona na podstawie miejsc pamięci i artefaktów kulturowych, a z drugiej strony są produktem przestrzeni jako obszaru aktywności aktorów, sieci społecznych i politycznych, często wykorzystywanych do konstruowania niespójnych procesów autodefinicyjnych w przestrzeni zdominowanej przez procesy etnokulturowe.W oparciu o dwa komponenty: słowiański i niesłowiański (macedoński i albański) w analizowanym dyskursie powstał semantyczny model miasta, określony jako „miasto polemiczne”, w wyniku przeprowadzonych badań empirycznych. Model ten można również wykorzystać do analizy innych obszarów kulturowych charakteryzujących się policentrycznymi relacjami między etnicznymi. Istotnym punktem odniesienia, kategorią stanowiącą kluczowy element tej analizy, jest transformacyjny charakter miejsca jako obszaru stygmatyzacji przez uwarunkowania etniczne, kulturowe i polityczne oraz poddanego grze z udziałem aktorów społecznych i politycznych. W badaniach antropologicznych wyróżniono kategorie semantyczne odnoszące się do miejsca i kontestacji miejsca, które przeanalizowano, zwracając szczególną uwagę na komponenty słowiańskie i niesłowiańskie w dyskursie macedońskim i albańskim w Macedonii.

5

Introductory Comments

100%

Sujecka J.

Colloquia Humanistica

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2017

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issue 6

EN

Introductory CommentsThe sixth issue (not just in the Thematic Section) is devoted to the borders of civilization in our memory, in culture, in art, in literature, in the arrangement of political objectives. Both their demarcation and their crossing is a matter of the objectives we can and want to set ourselves in the context of the order that exists and into which we try to fit, transforming it or levelling.The value of this survey of “images of borders” is its setting in such varied material, owing to which the theoretical speculations gain a representative illustration and, at the same time, a guarantee of being rooted, even if it is only a “contact zone”. WprowadzenieSzósty numer (nie tylko sekcja tematyczna) jest poświęcony kwestii granic cywilizacji w naszej pamięci, kulturze, sztuce, literaturze, w definiowaniu celów politycznych. Zarówno ich wyznaczanie, jak i przekraczanie, jest kwestią celów, jakie możemy i chcemy postawić sobie w kontekście istniejącego ładu, w który staramy się wpisać, przekształcając go lub dostosowując się do niego. Wartością niniejszego przeglądu "obrazów granic" jest przedstawienie ich poprzez tak zróżnicowany materiał, dzięki czemu rozważania teoretyczne zyskują reprezentatywną ilustrację, a zarazem gwarancję zakorzenienia, nawet jeśli będzie to tylko "sfera kontaktu".

6

Introduction to the Thematic Section

100%

Sajkowski W.

Colloquia Humanistica

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2017

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issue 6

EN

Introduction to the Thematic SectionThe images of the borders of civilizations is the main topic of the thematic section of this issue of Colloquia Humanistica. In the call for papers it was emphasised, that this issue is particularly important, because the notion of civilization is strictly related to the issue of borders since it would became meaningless without the opposition to another civilization, or the lack of it. The juxtaposition between the notion of civilization and its different antinomies seems easier to display when seen from its centre, however the shape of its border is not always clear, even if it has a foundation in clear geographical or political divisions. Thus, this border can be represented as a linear frontier between a civilized state and barbaric lands, or as a borderland which encompasses some kind of fluent transition. The civilization border can be also represented in a macro scale, shaping geographic divisions of the continents (as it was in the case of the Balkans), but its depiction can also concern the micro scale, for example the difference between an urban and a natural landscape. The notion is even broader, because it is not only treated in the context of space but also social behaviours and their evolution (which is bound with notion of the progress since the Enlightenment). The question establishing the difference between the civilized and the uncivilized is still shaping the identity of modern societies, and thus it is worth attention. Wprowadzenie do sekcji tematycznejTematem przewodnim szóstego numeru rocznika Colloquia Humanistica są obrazy granic cywilizacji. Temat ten wydaje się niezwykle istotny, ponieważ pojęcie cywilizacji ściśle wiąże się z kategorią granicy, skoro traci ono znaczenie, gdy nie zachodzi opozycja wobec innej cywilizacji. Zestawienie pojęcia cywilizacji i jego różnych antynomii najłatwiej przejawia się, jak się wydaje, z perspektywy centrum, jednakże kształt jej granic nie zawsze rysuje się wyraźnie, nawet gdy wywodzi się ona z jasnych podziałów geograficznych czy politycznych. Granicę może zatem reprezentować linia między cywilizowanym państwem a krajami barbarzyńskimi lub też pogranicze, stanowiące coś w rodzaju płynnego przejścia. Granicę cywilizacji można też przedstawić w makroskali poprzez podziały geograficzne na kontynencie (jak ma to miejsce w przypadku Bałkanów), lecz jej obraz dotyka również mikroskali, na przykład różnicy między krajobrazem miejskim a naturalnym. Pojęcie to ma wręcz szerszy charakter, ponieważ porusza kontekst nie tylko przestrzenny, lecz również kwestię zachowań społecznych i ich ewolucję (od czasu oświecenia związaną z pojęciem postępu). Kwestia ustanowienia granicy między cywilizowanym a niecywilizowanym wciąż wpływa na kształt tożsamości współczesnych społeczeństw i dlatego warto podjąć się jej zbadania.

7

Border Metaphors in the Polish Sociology of Borderlands

100%

Kurczewska J.

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2009

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vol. 166

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issue 2

193-212

EN

This paper treatises Polish sociology of borderlands (mostly Eastern) as the rich resources of metaphors of borders, especially national and political ones. It shows how these metaphors are linked to different sociological imagery-modern and postmodern. Its aim is to reconstruct analytical strategies and research projects from this sub-discipline, focusing on metaphors of borders. These strategies and projects are based on very different approaches to metaphors. The first operation is an instrument which the theoretician uses to reconstruct the theoretical typology of borders and borderlands. The second operation is a tool which the researcher uses to reflect more deeply on the empirical data concerning individual and collective reactions to borders and borderlands. The third operation is a narrative tool used by examinees who inhabit the borderlands. The paper provides a broad and intensive discussion of the functions of different metaphors about borders in relation to the different intellectual approaches to problems of borderlands and borders. It stresses the needs for equal treatment in Polish sociology of borderland problems of borderlands and problems of national borders. Especially emphasizes the positive functions of academic interest in borders metaphors in this scientific treatment. Generally speaking, this analyse enhances many links between sociology of borderlands and cultural anthropology and is closely connected to the question of where these intellectual operations on metaphors belong in the project of an interdisciplinary approach to borders and borderlands.

8

Konflikt o Górski Karabach i próby jego rozwiązania

100%

Zieliński J.

Annales Universitatis Paedagogicae Cracoviensis. Studia Politologica

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2014

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issue 12

131-172

EN

The article discusses one of the key problems of the post-Soviet area in respect of broadly understood security. Although almost two decades have passed since its beginning, the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan still remains unregulated. It is a serious obstacle to normalizing relations between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia. The stance of the latter is particularly important to the possibility of peacefully resolving the conflict.

9

Hybrydowość granic Unii Europejskiej w środowisku międzynarodowym

89%

MORACZEWSKA A.

Rocznik Integracji Europejskiej

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2017

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issue 11

27-38

EN

The border is a key element in the security strategy of the state. The EU as an entity of international relations has contributed to a qualitative change in the essence of state borders. On the one hand, it takes into account the role of border in organizing the legal systems of sovereign states, and on the other “detaches” borders from their territorial dimension. The idea of borders within the European Union matches with the concept of the hybrid structure of the EU itself. They are a unique phenomenon in international law with no equivalent in any other current integrating structure. EU borders are a hybrid form of their traditional perception form the state perspective and they are characterized by heterogeneity, variability and high sensitivity to the turbulence of the international environment.

PL

Granica jest kluczowym elementem strategii bezpieczeństwa państwa. UE jako podmiot stosunków międzynarodowych przyczyniła się do jakościowej zmiany istoty granic państwowych. Z jednej strony uwzględnia jej funkcję porządkowania dwóch systemów prawnych na poziomie suwerennych państw, a z drugiej „odrywa” granicę od jej jedynie terytorialnego wymiaru, wyznaczającego zakres owej suwerenności, i umieszcza w przestrzeni, gdzie zachodzi synteza interakcji między różnymi podmiotami stosunków międzynarodowych. Idea funkcjonowania granic Unii Europejskiej wpasowuje się w koncepcję hybrydowej struktury samej Unii. Jest unikalnym bytem w kategorii prawa międzynarodowego, nie mając swojego odpowiednika w żadnej innej aktualnej strukturze integracyjnej. Granice UE są hybrydową formą tradycyjnie rozumianego określenia granicy w odniesieniu do państwa, cechuje je nie jednorodność i zmienność funkcjonalna oraz wysoka wrażliwość na turbulencje środowiska międzynarodowego.

10

Rada Europejska i granice projektu integracyjnego. Kreowanie działań zewnętrznych Unii Europejskiej w kontekście wyzwań politycznych

89%

Jańczak J.

Środkowoeuropejskie Studia Polityczne

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2017

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issue 3

215-229

EN

The European Union’s development has been causing modifications in its institutional model. It refers – in the context of external activities – to the formal competences distribution on the one hand, and practice of the European institutions’ functioning on the other. Especially with regard to informal mechanisms. The aim of this contribution is the analysis of the European Council involvement in the European Union’s external actions creation. The research questions regard sources and manifestations of the European Council institutional dynamics, in the field of external actions. The answer is based on analysis of its behavior with regard to the construction of borders of the European project in cooperation with the external partners. Methodologically itemployes the analysis of the European Council Conclusions in the years 2011–2017.

PL

Rozwój Unii Europejskiej powoduje zmiany w jej modelu instytucjonalnym. W kontekście działań zewnętrznych dotyczy to z jednej strony rozkładu kompetencji formalnych, z drugiej praktyki funkcjonowania instytucji unijnych, szczególnie w zakresie mechanizmów nieformalnych. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest analiza zaangażowania Rady Europejskiej w kreowanie działań zewnętrznych Unii Europejskiej. Pytania badawcze stawiane w analizie dotyczą źródeł i przejawów dynamiki instytucjonalnej Rady Europejskiej w zakresie działań zewnętrznych. Odpowiedź na nie udzielona została w oparciu o analizę zachowania Rady Europejskiej w odniesieniu do sposobu konstruowania granic projektu integracyjnego w kontekście relacji z partnerami zewnętrznymi. Metodologicznie tekst opiera się na analizie konkluzji posiedzeń Rady Europejskiej w latach 2011–2017.

11

The performative effects of the European War on migrants : masculinities and femininities at the Moroccan-spanish border

88%

Tyszler E.

Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research

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2019

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vol. 20

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issue 1

40-66

EN

This article ethnographically explores how Central and West African masculinities and femininities are shaped and reshaped at the Moroccan-Spanish border in the context of the increased securitisation and politicisation of migrations from the global South to the global North. Apart from the migration regime at the outer border of the European Union, it also examines the role of the humanitarian regime in policing black migrants’ gender identities. It aims to address an important aspect of the mobility experiences and bordering effects that tends to go under-researched. Drawing on long-term fi eldwork, which was carried out between 2015 and 2017, it presents detailed ethnographic examples of the construction of masculinities and femininities at the border and asks how these work to help or prevent mobility. Analysis of the intersections of the gender regime and the racialised migratory regime reveals the coloniality of security migration policies

12

Maritime Migration, Brexit and the Future of European Borders : Anthropological Previews

88%

Follis K.

Český lid: etnologický časopis (Český lid: Ethnological journal)

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2017

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vol. 104

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issue 1

5-18

EN

Since the start of this decade external borders of the European Union have increasingly become sites of hardship, uncertainty, danger and death as hundreds of thousands of people every year attempt to enter Europe to escape war and poverty in North and Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. The year 2015 saw the arrival of over one million people via maritime routes, an unprecedented number that caused panic among politicians on the continent and unsettled societies of the “old” and the “new” European Union. Neo-nationalist and neo-fascist parties and movements gained significant ground. In June of 2016 voters in the United Kingdom chose to leave the European Union in the Brexit referendum whose erratic consequences will continue to play out for some time to come. The migratory crisis of the previous year fuelled the “Leave” vote by creating the perception that immigration to the EU is unchecked, and that the UK must “take control of its borders.” While it is not yet known what exactly is meant by “taking control,” we can observe that as a result of these events the terms and conditions of migration, mobility and citizenship in Europe are shifting. In this talk I will argue that this is a shift away from what I call the neoliberal-humanitarian consensus towards a new model whose exact shape is as yet undetermined, but whose emergent features are illuminated by recent anthropological scholarship. Drawing on the UK case study I will show that the control of borders and regulation of mobility is undergoing a distinct anti-humanitarian turn. I will explore the significance and prospects of this new anti-humanitarianism and the possibilities of anthropological insight.

13

Something Missing: Czech Society and Transcarpathia after 1989

88%

Zahradníček T.

Central European Papers

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2017

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vol. 5

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issue 1

72–80

EN

The article studies the "afterlife" of the former Subcarpathia, the present-day Transcarpathia, within the Czech society after 1989. The discourse about the region was framed by the understanding of the Czech society of their revolution of 1989 primarily in terms of political and cultural return to the inter-war Masarykian Republic. It maps the different ways the Czech society coped with this deficit in its restoration endeavours in the early 1990s. Within the Czech public discourse uncritical conception of selfless and successful civilising mission in the East still prevails, based on a belief that local population gratefully accepted and now nostalgically longs for such input. For some time after 1989, the theme became one of the key components of Czech debates concerning the past, its neighbours and own identity within the integrating Europe.

14

Democracy and Common Interests across Borders

88%

Ryder J.

Human Affairs

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2010

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vol. 20

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issue 2

108-113

EN

Our conception of the nation state, and the borders that separate nations, is an anachronism. It derives from the 17th century origins of the European state, and the general roughly Newtonian ideas of the time, according to which individual things are entirely distinct from one another. If we shift our fundamental ideas and consider things, including nations, as relational, then borders take on different functions than they traditionally do. Furthermore, if nations are constituted in their relations with one another, then there are serious implications for our conception of democracy in general and international relations conducted democratically. Democracy, and democratic international relations, consists of the pursuit of common interests across borders and boundaries, domestic and international.

15

O sumieniu granic

88%

Szwat-Gyłybowa G.

Acta Baltico-Slavica

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2018

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vol. 42

EN

On the conscience of bordersThis article reflects on the paradoxes inherent in our thinking on liminal territories, which ranges from affirmation to contestation. Its metaphorical title paraphrases Elias Canetti’s idea of the “conscience of words” and brings into focus the connection between discussions of borders and limits on the one hand, and the moral sensitivity of the members and cultural descendants of Judeo-Christian culture on the other. The ways in which people conceptualise borders and limits are presented from the perspective of the beginning (in the Gadamerian sense), i.e. the Bible, and the end (including, for example, Bauman’s concept of “liquid modernity” and Agamben’s post-secular idea of reality as a “camp”). The article concludes with a presentation of how the concepts of liminality and borders are presented (often metaphorically) by sociologists and linguists conducting field studies in Poland’s eastern and western borderlands. O sumieniu granicW artykule podjęto próbę refleksji na temat paradoksów ludzkiego myślenia o granicach terytoriów, rozpiętego między afirmacją a kontestacją. Tytułowa parafraza konceptu Canettiego („sumienie słów”) ma charakter metaforyczny i służy wydobyciu związku mówienia o granicach z wrażliwością moralną ludzi należących do kręgu kultury judeochrześcijańskiej lub będących jej dziedzicami. Sposoby konceptualizowania granic przedstawiono z perspektywy ustanowionego (w sensie Gadamerowskim) początku (Biblia) i końca (m.in. koncepcja „płynnej nowoczesności” Baumana czy „świata-obozu” w postsekularnej myśli Agambena). Tekst zamyka prezentacja ujęć zjawiska graniczności/pograniczności (i towarzyszących temu metaforyzacji) w myśli socjologów i językoznawców prowadzących badania terenowe na wschodnich i zachodnich rubieżach Polski.

16

“You can see it in his eyes that he is willing to work”. The ambivalent use of work in promoting integration for migrants. A case study from Northern Italy

88%

Luraschi S., Galimberti A.

Dyskursy Młodych Andragogów / Adult Education Discourses

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2022

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vol. 23

47-61

EN

This article presents and analyses the use of work in promoting integration for asylum seekers and refugees in Lombardy (North of Italy). The research materials, collected from a larger research project involving asylum-seekers, refugees, professionals, and researchers, highlight how two main discourses operate in complementary fashion in integration practices based on career guidance and traineeships. Work is on the one hand a potential enabling factor that allows migrants to enter a relational space based on solidarity but, at the same time, it may represent a barrier, filtering out those who are welcome and those who are not. These two effects intersect, depending on a multiplicity of factors embedded in the institutional integration system. Narratives collected on this network will be used to explore how mechanisms of recognition and exclusion are related not only to an economic logic but to values connected to a certain kind of work culture. This is a dimension that is often neglected by social operators whose practices are continuously exposed to the risk of constructing, unconsciously, the “integrable” migrant.

17

Borders on the old maps of Jizera Mountain

88%

Böhm H., Šmída J.

Miscellanea Geographica. Regional Studies on Development

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2019

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vol. 23

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issue 4

EN

Old maps, mainly from the period between 1890 and 1940, have been collected in the framework of the project “Old Maps of the Jizera Mountains”. These maps provide us with a complex picture, mainly of tourism, in this currently Czech-Polish territory. The territory of the Jizera Mountains was inhabited mainly by a Germanspeaking population on both sides of the border until 1945. Yet it is interesting to examine how the border between the two states - in those times Czechoslovakia and Germany, now Czechia and Poland - was illustrated on these old maps. This article argues that the border was not perceived as a barrier as such until later on, mainly due to the ethnic change in the borderlands. It also reveals that the borders on the maps are of manifold nature and cannot be simply limited to the national borders.

18

Place-Promotion and Scalar Restructurings in Urban Agglomerations on Internal EU Borders: The Case of Goerlitz-Zgorzelec

88%

Liubimau S.

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2009

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vol. 166

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issue 2

213-228

EN

This paper analyzes recent socio-spatial changes in cities adjacent to European Union internal borders. The idea is to show how mutations in the functioning of territorial nation-states in the conditions of post-1989 transformations, European integration, and, more broadly, economic globalization, are reworked by trans-border municipal cooperation. All these macro changes are unpacked from the angle of the growth of the importance of the urban scale in comparison to the national scale and the more active role of cities as units in changing scalar hierarchies. More specifically our focus here is on the strategies of placepromotion of the German-Polish border city Goerlitz-Zgorzelec in the context of planning hallmark events (here, European Capital of Culture 2010). This article argues that closeness to a political border is utilized by Goerlitz-Zgorzelec within various strategies for gaining place-specific competitive advantage by means of an active politics of scale.

19

Coping with Religious Diversity in Everyday Life in the Borderlands of Western Europe: Catholics, Protestants and Jews in Vaals

88%

Richter T.

Acta Poloniae Historica

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2017

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vol. 116

PL

After the re-Catholization of the Free Imperial City of Aachen (1611–16), Protestant congregations were forced to operate underground until the Reformed Church – openly supported by the Dutch States General – found a new place of refuge in the neighbouring Dutch village of Vaals. Ca. 1680, Vaals developed into a multiconfessional site of religious freedom where Roman Catholics, Germanand Frenchspeaking Reformed, Lutherans, and Mennonites lived peacefully side by side. With the exception of everyday controversies in the early decades, the preachers of different Protestant congregations worked together. Violence on religious grounds was not part of daily life in Vaals, although it did at times intrude from the outside. Examples of this were the violent attacks on Protestant churchgoers in the middle of the eighteenth century, which were carried out by lower-class Catholics from Aachen. The Catholic clergy, on the other hand, did not engage in hate sermons. Moreover, the presence of Jews did not cause problems in Vaals and the only documented action against Jewish property was not motivated by anti-Judaism. For the Protestants of this distinctly Catholic area, Vaals became an important place of refuge for the public exercise of their faith. The diverse congregations that worshipped in Vaals knew how to cope with each other’s presence in a peaceful manner during everyday life.

20

Italy’s approach to East–West and South–North migrations: from lack of knowledge to political use of them

88%

Vitale A.

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2019

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vol. 26

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issue 2

81-93

EN

After the end of the bipolar world, the possibility of an East–West mass migration became a new issue that took root in the Italian consciousness in forms masked by the feelings of the threat of an imminent “mass invasion” from Central and Eastern Europe. This new fear stimulated restrictive measures belatedly adopted in Italy and created a de facto unjust and imbalanced condition for new migrants from Eastern Europe because the first South–North migrations’ wave had already occurred when the regimes of Central and Eastern Europe collapsed. There are many evident similarities between the beliefs, attitudes and the use of insecurity (not based on data) of the 1990s and the current Italian migration policy. What they have in common is the incorrect perception and the misuse of it by politicians and propagandists. Immigration from Eastern Europe continues to be compared to that from the South of the world and Asia which continues to be interpreted without considering their real natures and the actual trends that characterise them. According to new studies that compared survey results with population data, contemporary Italians overestimate the number of immigrants coming from outside the EU to their country more than any other Europeans. As a result, the misuse or ignorance of the data on migrations is particularly dangerous because the devaluation of them has critical implications for policymaking.

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