About LIMITS
The focus of LIMITS' research is on specific groups of immigrants and ethnic minorities in six European cities. While the national welfare states have been recognised as the key arenas for social exclusion (Bommes/ Geddes 2000), it is often at the level of specific urban economies that the opportunity structures of immigrants and ethnic minority members are constituted.
Due to the multi-dimensional character of regulatory frameworks and economic influences, we focus our investigation on cities, while additionally taking into account broader contexts such as national legislations related to the position and opportunities of the investigated groups. All projected cities have a distinctly metropolitan character with a significant presence of the respective immigrant groups.
The project aims to identify the different strategies chosen by the five selected groups of immigrants and ethnic minorities in five European countries. As has been illustrated in previous comparative research on the legal and economic integration of immigrants in different European countries, differences persist on the level of integration into the labour market as well as in terms of the social and political rights ascribed to immigrants. Thus, attempts to establish European standards for the legal integration of immigrant workers have so far not led to a cross-national standardization of the respective regulations. (Cinar/ Davy/ Waldrauch 1999). The status passages of immigrants are therefore strongly dependent on the specific national and local framing conditions at their residency.
The following features of receiving societies were considered as important for the projected comparison:
- different immigration experiences
- different immigration policy and regimes
- different welfare regimes
- small and large receiving societies
The countries included into the analysis are Austria, Germany, the Netherlands,
Portugal and Sweden. The selection of these countries was based on their
specific histories of immigration and their political frameworks. In methodological terms, the
different countries can be considered as independent variables.
