Romanians from Serbia in Denmark

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villages. As most visits to Serbia have taken place outside the prime holiday season, interviews with youngerpeople, with a few exceptions, were carried out in Denmark as part of Club meetings. Key persons—such as theSerbian priest in Denmark, the head of the local Diaspora Office in Serbia, etc— were also interviewed. The interviews focused on personal migration stories and on how the transnationallives that stretch between Serbia and Denmark are organised, especially by those first-generation migrants whohave been brought up with the values and norms of the ‘old’ Yugoslavia and who participate on a more or less regular basis in the activities of the Serbian clubs; it only includes the perceptions and practices of the second generation when they add to the perspective of their parents. Furthermore, most respondents were found among the great majority who take part in most important club activities, such as the celebrations; the studydoes not include the perceptions of those who no longer feel a need to maintain their links with the Vlachmigrant community in Denmark in this way. Living Dual Lives: Transnational Strategies and Obligations Until the 1990s—when the break-up of Yugoslavia and the outflows of refugees changed the ethnic pattern of immigrants from the former Yugoslavia—the Vlachs, a small minority group from eastern Serbia, were among thelargest diaspora communities in Denmark. From the diaspora’s start in the late 1960s, Vlach migration strategies had been characterised by chain migration, with the arriving migrants being under strong pressure to facilitate and help the successive migrationof close family relatives and more-distant kin. The close-knit social relations of the Vlach minority encouraged a particular pattern in which settlement was concentrated in four provincial towns all located within a radius of 100 kilometres of Copenhagen. After 40 years of settlement, this pattern remains more or less the same, as few of the younger generation have chosen to move far from their families. In contrast to many other groups, the Vlachs mostly migrated as couples. Once established, these couples wouldoften be joined by their parents, with whom they would share an apartment and living expenses, to increase savings as much as possible. This was a reflection of a particular Vlach family tradition in which up to fourgenerations would live under the same
oof. A low birth rate (one or two children per couple) facilitatedmigration, as the children could be left back in the village in the care of the grandparents (Schierup and Ålund1986: 185). This family structure fitted well a strategy where migration was seen as a temporary means to quickly improve the family’s social and economic status. During the 1980s and 1990s, changing immigration policies in Denmark and the difficult situation of the Yugoslav economy contributed to a transformation of migration patterns. The initial focus on improving the agricultural unit at home was replaced by a strategy in which the home town and the housing facilities there mainly served as a backdrop for displaying economic success and improved status. Only a few migrants have moved back to thevillage. 6 Instead, the great majority have opted for what Schierup and Ålund havelabelled ‘permanent temporality’ (1986)— constant movement between one’s homes in both Denmark and Serbia. This mobile lifestyle is maintained not only by pensioners, but also by thelarge group of workers in health-related early retirement, which requires that the recipient must stay at least six months in Denmark. Permanent temporality is also motivated by a desire to be able to stay six months in one’sbeautiful house in the village, where the cost of living is reasonable, while on the other hand maintaining closecontact with one’s grandchildren and the Danish health-care system. This constant oscillation between the ‘home at home’ and the ‘Danish home’ is not limited to the older population. Younger Vlachs also continue to visitSerbia on a regular basis during holidays and festivities—essential in keeping the village alive as a moral‘hinterland’. The situation of the Serbian immigrants may to a certain extent be characterised as one of living dual lives (seeVertovec 2001: 574) in which they move between two or three cultures with relative ease, and ‘pursue economic, political and cultural interests that require their presence in both’. Events, norms and values from their country of origin continue to exert a considerable influence on the everyday lives of both first-and second-generation immigrants. Furthermore, their maintenance of homes in both countries, and their bilingual or even trilingual language skills, contribute to their ability to sustain multi-stranded social relations. These act to link together societies of origin and those of settlement. As shown by
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Page 3 and 4: contrast to the older members, who
Page 5: training indicates that, in spite o
Page 9 and 10: Visibility and Invisibility: The Jo
Page 11 and 12: At present, when the industry-based
Page 13 and 14: sameness, away of demonstrating the
Page 15 and 16: encouraging their children to adopt
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Page 25 and 26: 35-53. Federspiel, S. (1998) Arbejd
Page 27 and 28: everyday life in Nordic societies,
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Page 31 and 32: Grifin, G & Braidotti, R 2002, ‘W

Romanians from Serbia in Denmark

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