Cultural and communication differences in the context of illegal migration in Southeastern Europe

Abstract

A large part of Southern and Eastern Europe, including Croatia and its neighbouring countries, encountered the first major migration crisis in the second half of 2015. Migrants, predominantly from the Middle East, most often travelled via the so-called Mediterranean migration routes through Italy, Spain, and Greece, as well as by land from Turkey, then across the Balkans towards the wealthier Western Europe.

Various sources provided different information about the refugee routes, as well as the behaviour of refugees and their lives and survival in refugee camps. People's knowledge about refugees from the east is mostly based on their prejudices. It is precisely on such prejudices that attitudes and opinions about migrants arriving via perilous routes were formed. Migrants left and continue to leave their homes driven by wars or the inability to provide a living for themselves, which is often on the brink of poverty. Many have lost their lives in the waters of the Mediterranean in their quest to reach a promised land somewhere in Western or Northern Europe.

This paper aims to explore how cultural and communication differences affected their adaptation to the people and countries they arrived in and how significant the cultural and other differences are between, so to speak, them and us.