Paper Titles & Abstracts

Migration is becoming an increasingly important reality for many territories where national minorities live. The relation between the ´old` historical minorities and the ´new` minority groups originating from migration is rather complicated and, historically, it has been marked by tension. Large-scale immigration has been seen as a threat to historical minorities because immigrants have often tended to integrate into the dominant culture, which usually offers greater mobility and economic opportunities. When immigrants settle in the territories inhabited by historical minorities and there integrate into the group that is dominant at the state-level, then the national minority risks becoming increasingly outnumbered and politically powerless. Against this backdrop, this paper will analyze how national minorities deal with the arrival of recent migrant communities comparing the cases of South Tyrol and Catalonia. Since the turn of the century Catalonia has experienced a growing influx of foreign migrants and the Catalan government has recently implemented integration policies that could be considered innovative in light of the presence of autochthonous communities. Similarly, in South Tyrol historical German and Ladin-speaking minorities live alongside various migrant communities and the local government has recently enacted its first immigration law. This paper will examine the approach to migration developed in South Tyrol and Catalonia. The comparison between these two territories offers key insights for understanding how traditional minorities deal with migration and the arrival of new migrant communities, discussing whether it is possible to reconcile the claims of historical minorities and new migrant groups.