Historical Minorities and Migrants: Foes or Allies?

The main research question that this article seeks to analyze is whether, in contexts where immigrants settle in the territories traditionally inhabited by historical minorities, it is possible to reconcile the claims of historical minorities and of new groups originating from immigration, and whether policies that accommodate traditional minorities and migrants as allies in the pursuit of a pluralist and tolerant society are realistically conceivable.

Studying the interactions and complementarities of these two minority groups is regarded as an important task for future research in Europe where many states have established systems of rights for “old” minority groups, but have not yet developed sound policies for the integration of new minority groups originating from immigration, and where the two topics have been generally discussed in isolation from each other.