Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
The fall of the Berlin Wall led to fears of an influx of migrants from Eastern Europe. So far this ‘flood’ has not arrived, but new patterns of migration from East to West are emerging. In this paper we explore patterns of migration in the Czech Republic which has emerged as part of a ‘buffer zone’ between East and West Europe. We develop a preliminary typology of types of migration and some of the factors which govern migration in the Czech Republic by drawing upon more than 200 in-depth interviews with migrants in their own languages. Our conclusion is that the Czech Republic has become a ‘transit’ zone of migration. However, it is also increasingly a destination country in its own right, something which has hitherto received little attention in studies of East-West migration.