Book Review: Remus Gabriel Anghel (2013), Romanians in Western Europe. Migration, Status Dilemmas, and Transnational Connections

Remus Gabriel Anghel’s book takes on a Homeric task of introducing its readers to the less- known and more complex aspects of Romanian migration. With wordsmanship and building on a rich empirical material, Anghel engages in exploring the experiences of mobile Romanians in Western Europe. Anghel finely tunes his analysis to explore the motivations of the Romanians for seeking work abroad, their migration stories, their understanding of a changing status from often unauthorised migrants to legal residents and to European citizens; their relationship with “home” and the “new home”; and, their making sense of their changing social status in the new society. The book is comparative in purpose and sophisticated in design, aiming to contrast the experiences of the Romanians who migrated to different destinations in Europe- Italy and Germany – under different legal regimes.