Mobility at the margins

This article describes the social and economic organization of migration for begging from Romania to Norway. Drawing on a survey among homeless Romanians in Oslo and qualitative interviews conducted in Norway and migrant-sending communities in Romania, we describe how migrants gain access to resources such as information, transport, places to beg and places to sleep, as well as social and emotional support when abroad. We argue that the particular, clustered structure of these migration flows makes migration available to persons who otherwise would not have opportunities to migrate, eases their adaptation in cities of destination and serves to protect the migrants from exploitation and abuse from external actors. This migration structure does, however, reflect a strong dependence on kinship networks, which may create vulnerabilities in itself.