During the last two decades of the 20th century, southern Europe - Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal - became a key destination for global migration. Countries which, only a few years earlier, had been important source countries for emigration, mainly to northern Europe, quickly became targets for international migrants coming from an extraordinary range of source countries, both close by - within the Mediterranean and Balkan regions - and further afield, Africa, Asia and Latin America. This work collects together a variety of studies of the "cultural encounters" of these migrants who have taken the "Mediterranean passage into southern Europe in recent years. Most of the chapters are based on field research in locations such as Lisbon, the Algarve, Barcelona, Turin, Bologna, Sicily and Athens, as well as in source countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Albania and the Philippines.
Specific themes investigated include social inclusion and exclusion; the cultural dimensions of immigrants' work experiences; migrant festivals; immigrant associations; the political rhetoric of migration; the production of migrant literature; immigrant family formation; gender issues; cultural conflict at micro-scale; trafficking; and racism.