Migrants and Memory

This volume hopes to act as a new marker in the areas of Irish Studies and Migration/Diaspora Studies. It is also, in part, an attempt to give a voice to communities who have frequently found themselves on the margins of the so-called "e;mainstream"e; community - the hidden Irish, the hidden European, the migrant, the nomad that reflects the changing face of the "e;new"e; and "e;immigrant"e; Europe. The scholars and activists writing here have engaged with the questions of ethnicity, identity, racism, cultural expression and the new historiography that characterises those newer disciplines often referred to now as Traveller Studies and Romani Studies. Of particular concern to this book's contributors has been the necessity to address these broader issues within the context of the ever-changing dynamics of representation, modernisation, globalisation and the construction of the modern nation-state that has been the "e;litmus test"e; for many Western and Eastern European countries including Britain and more-recently Ireland. It is to be hoped that this collection of essays will function as a catalyst for some new and exciting areas of enquiry in the more "e;liminal"e; interstices of Irish Studies, Traveller Studies, Romani Studies and Diaspora and Migration Studies, the latter, a discipline which modern Irish society is only now beginning to interrogate on a more serious and scholarly level.

This volume hopes to act as a new marker in the areas of Irish Studies and Migration/Diaspora Studies. It is also, in part, an attempt to give a voice to communities who have frequently found themselves on the margins of the so-called "e;mainstream"e; community - the hidden Irish, the hidden European, the migrant, the nomad that reflects the changing face of the "e;new"e; and "e;immigrant"e; Europe. The scholars and activists writing here have engaged with the questions of ethnicity, identity, racism, cultural expression and the new historiography that characterises those newer disciplines often referred to now as Traveller Studies and Romani Studies. Of particular concern to this book's contributors has been the necessity to address these broader issues within the context of the ever-changing dynamics of representation, modernisation, globalisation and the construction of the modern nation-state that has been the "e;litmus test"e; for many Western and Eastern European countries including Britain and more-recently Ireland. It is to be hoped that this collection of essays will function as a catalyst for some new and exciting areas of enquiry in the more "e;liminal"e; interstices of Irish Studies, Traveller Studies, Romani Studies and Diaspora and Migration Studies, the latter, a discipline which modern Irish society is only now beginning to interrogate on a more serious and scholarly level.