Migration in the Mediterranean : equalising strategies and social hierarchies in migrant integration

Abstract

This paper uses Rene Girard’s mimetic theory as a standpoint from which to critically review the basic hypotheses about social cohesion developed by Emile Durkheim and later inverted and adopted by Ernest Gellner in his influential account of the development of nationalism. By questioning whether homogeneity promotes or undermines cohesion a set of hypotheses concerning migrant integration are deduced and these are deployed to make sense of the other papers published in this issue. Thus policies which aim to equalise the status of migrants and nationals in host societies are often objected to precisely because they are viewed as promoting a dangerous homogeneity. In this Mediterranean context integration appears to happen most often via social networks which ‘put migrants in their place’ within informal social hierarchies.