In recent years, an increasing number of scholars have started to analyse the effects of migration in societies of emigration. This scholarship often depicts migration as a powerful process generating ‘levelled’ processes of diffusion of money, goods, ideas, and values, ultimately changing entire communities and regions of origin. The paper diverges from this view and argues for a differentialist approach in researching processes of migration and social change. I substantiate this claim by analysing patterns of migration and social change in a multi‐ethnic community in Romania that consists of Hungarians, Romanians, and Roma. The research fieldwork consisted of qualitative interviews and participant observation. By using a perspective inspired by the literature on critical social capital and mechanisms of migration, I show that local social differentiation profoundly affects not only the development of migration but also the relationship between migration and social change. As I unfold in the paper, social closure based on ethnic and class/group membership had a strong effect on the ways in which Hungarians, Roma, and Romanians migrated towards Hungary, Italy, and Germany, as well as on the economic niches they occupied in countries of destination. The enrichment of some Roma and the new social position they gained reveals that migrant localities are contested social spaces where migrants' new social statuses and the ideas and values they bring back with them are weighted and negotiated against local values and systems of classification. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Roma people are likely Europe’s most discriminated and marginalized minority. In the past years, increasing attention has been paid to their migration to Western Europe and their limited social mobility in their countries of destination. Our article focuses on the “post‐return” experiences of Roma and the changes generated by return migration in their communities of origin, a topic largely neglected so far. We build on recent debates around post‐return positionality, asking how adult and old Roma returnees experience return. We thus contribute to the growing literature on return migration and lifecourse that distinguishes between the return migration of children and youth, that of adults, and that of older migrants. Focusing on Roma returnees, we employ an understanding of migration not just as a means of generating resources, but also as a learning process where the Roma population acquires new ideas and a sense of agency and dignity. Informed by long‐term fieldwork in ethnically mixed localities in Romania (including participant observation and 76 semi‐structured interviews), we inquire into the ethnic relations and negotiations between Roma and non‐Roma populations. Migration results in a weakening of the economic dependency of the Roma on the non‐Roma. In this new context, which is still marred by ethnic prejudice and inequality, we analysed how local interethnic relations were reshaped by the returned Roma’s new consumption practices, new modes of communication, and new claims for equality. While adult Roma tend to demand equality and decent treatment, setting in motion a process of ethnic change, older returned Roma tend to maintain more submissive practices.

Migrants' Remittances: Channelling Globalization * In the past twenty years the ever-growing levels of migrants' remittances made state agencies, international organizations, scholars and practitioners to increasingly consider remittances as one of the main engines to promote globalization and growth in the developing world. By transferring home large amounts of money, information, ideas and practices, migrants and migrant organizations are often seen as able to produce significant changes in countries and localities of origin. Focusing on cases from former socialist countries and around the world, this paper discusses the main debates surrounding the effects and uses of migrant remittances. Furthermore, using different case studies from Europe and Asia, the paper addresses the notion of social remittances, namely the transfers of ideas, practices and norms between societies of origin and destination. It highlights the ideas and practices migrants transfer home, the types of social norms it generates, and the extent to which migration produces transformations in countries of origin.