"Aici” Şi „Acolo”. Strategii Identitare În Dezbaterile Despre Migraţia Forţei De Muncă (“Here” And “There”. Identitarian Strategies In Public Debates On Labor Migration)

The paper analyses the way the workforce migration phenomenon is problematized by non-migrants, more specifically, social actors belonging to various socio-cultural categories, “witnesses” of this phenomenon and of debates in Romanian public space. Starting from positions taken in focus-groups, the analysis highlights discursive mechanisms employed by social actors to appropriate migration as public problem. What meanings of collective identity are negotiated in a debate on workforce migration? This paper, based on Critical Discourse Analysis, first proves that social actors interpret this type of migration by instrumentalizing identitarian discourse: “categories” of migrants are instituted and symbolic inequalities are reproduced in the relationship with “the other”. Secondly, social actors recontextualize discourses and cultural stereotypes routinely employed in the political and media sphere regarding workforce migration in the UE, collective identities or belonging practices.