This paper examines how applicable is Norbert Elias's established-outsider fi gurational theory for explaining the situation of Hungarian Roma migrants in Canada and in the UK. It explores how this theory can contribute to our understanding of the exclusionary „stranger-making" attitudes towards Roma in the examined two settings, not only from the part of the host society, but also among Roma migrants themselves. Th rough outlining the first results of a pilot study of a long-run migration study, based on ethnographic fieldwork in a Canadian metropolis and a British industrial city, the paper illustrates the interplay of diff erent levels of established-outsider fi gurations. It demonstrates the process through which a fi rst 'invisible' minority group becomes a 'visible' migrant group, perceived as a threat for the host society's security and well-being. After outlining the latest chapter of the Canadian and British migration stories of the Hungarian Roma people, the paper concentrates on how the Roma migrants themselves construct their own discriminatory and exclusionary mechanisms inside their own group. Th ey separate the „lowest of the low" group of the Gypsies – called „scavanger" or „Vlah Gypsies" - from themselves in their fear of being lumped together with the latter, and as a result never reaching the desired 'established' position.
Keywords: Established and Outsiders, Figurational Theory, Migration, Roma, Mechanisms of Distinction, Migration to Canada and to the UK

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