In recent years, scholarly attention has shifted away from debates on ethnicity to focus on issues of migration and citizenship. Inspired, in part, by earlier studies on European guestworker migration, these debates are fed by the new "transnational mobility," by the immigration of Muslims, by the increasing importance of human rights law, and by the critical attention now paid to women migrants. With respect to citizenship, many discussions address the diverse citizenship regimes. The present volume, together with its predecessor (Bodemann and Yurdakul 2006), addresses these often contentious issues. A common denominator which unites the various contributions is the question of migrant agency, in other words, the ways in which Western societies are not only transforming migrants, but are themselves being transformed by new migrations.

This collection addresses three interrelated themes: the basic issues in contemporary German and European migration since 1945 with particular focus on new developments in the 80s; the ways in which the citizenship debate has proceeded and how immigration and citizenship have been handled in Western Europe; the ways migrants have responded to situations in receiving countries, focusing on institutional structures.

This collection of essays addresses three interrelated themes: the basic issues in contemporary German and European Migration since 1945 with particular focus on new developments in the 80s; the ways in which the citizenship debate has proceeded and how immigration and citizenship have been handled in Western Europe.