Search

This paper investigates the normative permissibility of differential inclusion policies, taking Germany as a case study. In the face of mounting asylum applications, Germany introduced new administrative rules differentiating access to integration for asylum seekers. The paper normatively examines whether this practice is consistent with two conventional liberal concepts: special obligations grounding the moral commitments of the liberal state towards its own citizens and the principle of legal certainty grounding its moral commitments towards everyone under its jurisdiction, including asylum seekers. Combining these two usually separately employed perspectives, it argues that while differential inclusion is in principle consistent with these liberal principles, the crude criterion of the country of origin does not comply with both perspectives. The paper contributes to the debate on the ethics of immigration by scrutinizing this real-world instrument of differential inclusion from a political philosophy perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration research developed significantly in the past decades. However, with the life course approach and the concept of transnational migration, there are still two different, as yet largely unconnected conceptual perspectives on migration. Both approaches have their merits but also their shortcomings. This paper tries to overcome these shortcomings by combining the advantages of both perspectives to suggest a unified theoretical concept of transnational life courses (TNLC). TNLC builds on the multidimensional understanding of transnational migration research that (potential) migrants live in multiple social and cultural spaces leading to parallel assimilation and dissimilation processes. This perspective is merged with the life course approach with its chronologically ordered understanding of causality relying on preceding determinants and subsequent outcomes in form of events and periods. Based on data provided by the German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study (GERPS) some simple empirical analyses were conducted to illustrate the potential of the TNLC approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings from original research exploring the impact on Muslim men of a child sexual exploitation scandal that attracted significant attention to the northern English town where they live and contributed to a sustained detrimental effect on local community relations. It foregrounds men's accounts to reveal their agency and resilience in responding to racism that they identified as resulting from the scandal. It reveals how their accounts disrupt dominant discourses foregrounding Muslim self-segregation and lack of integration, demonstrating positive attachments and claims to localized space, and commitment to belonging. In doing so, it shows how men's responses to racism challenge racialized forms of knowledge about Muslims. The paper draws attention to the significance of localized forms of belonging in facilitating the inclusion of Muslim minorities. It also highlights the importance of centring Muslim men as historically speaking subjects in accounts of issues involving them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If we want to understand how the trauma experienced by repatriates influenced the country where they settled after decolonization, we should not only focus on the way these migrants and their descendants were able to mobilize their material and cultural-political claims, but also pay attention to their infrastructural role within the state bureaucracy, especially with respect to migration and integration. This paper shows that, the relation between France and Algeria is an extremely revealing case, because here we see the confluence of returning organizational migrants who originated from the metropole, and labour migrants with roots in the former colony. This article uses the Algerian migration to France as an example, drawing attention to the largely hidden infrastructural-bureaucratic role of repatriating civil servants and the military, and as such serves as an supplement to the public trauma drama of political representatives of associations of repatriates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between police and ethnic minorities has been the subject of increasing interest in many Western societies in recent years. We examine first-generation immigrants' trust in the police in Europe from a comparative and longitudinal perspective. Based on roughly 20,000 immigrants observed in 22 countries over 13 years in the European Social Survey, results show that initially high levels of trust in the police among immigrants tend to erode with the length of their stay in the host country. We show that two simultaneous processes drive this pattern: a fading reference effect (downward assimilation) and an increasing discrimination effect. Cross-national comparisons show that, on average, immigrants in countries with more police trust the police less. However, there is no effect of police size within countries, mostly because police numbers hardly change over time. We discuss implications for future research and policy development based on our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integration has become a buzzword in debates and discussions on immigration which also reflects upon Norwegian policymaking. In this article, we do a policy analysis of twenty-nine Norwegian governmental documents published between 1973 and 2021 and ask how the understanding of integration has changed during that time. We further ask how integration has been problematized in these documents. Our study is inspired by Bacchi's approach "What's the problem represented to be" which provides new insights on policymaking and its effects on the population. We find that integration has increasingly been put on a par with employment yet that in recent years policymakers have acknowledged that a focus on employment is too short-sighted. To cover more aspects of integration, the concept everyday life integration has been introduced where the voluntary sector is to play a central role both in terms of social integration and its ability to facilitate finding employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gossip is often considered to have negative and exclusionary social consequences within migrant communities and multi-ethnic settings. In contrast, the current research examines whether gossip can contribute to including and integrating people with different ethnic and migration backgrounds into a local community. The empirical study is based on 11 Months of fieldwork research in Riace, a small town in Southern Italy that has hosted refugees and migrants for over 20 years. We focused on the local functions of gossip as it occurs in everyday life and is embedded in the local social context. Findings demonstrate that much of the local gossip is inter-ethnic and facilitates strong community relationships by sustaining local norms and promoting trust relationships and shared narratives. It is concluded that local gossip does not only have to be divisive but also can have inclusive and integrative implications for multi-ethnic local settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies conclude that higher-educated migrants experience less belonging to the residence country than lower-educated migrants, which has been dubbed the integration paradox. World citizenship is a possible explanation yet has been left untheorized and empirically untested. We are the first to theorize and test this mechanism for Turkish migrants in the Netherlands using a mixed-methods approach. Results based on the NIS2NL survey confirm that world citizenship is an explanation of this paradox when acknowledging its interplay with belonging to the origin country. World citizenship is associated with a lower sense of belonging to the Netherlands, albeit only when migrants feel a low sense of belonging to Turkey. These findings are underlined by in-depth interviews with purposively sampled highly-skilled Turkish migrants (N = 32). Moreover, two proposed narrative strategies are vital to understand the negative association between world citizenship and national belonging. World citizenship is thus key in understanding the integration paradox. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses the perceived role of mosque education in the integration of Turkish–Dutch Muslim children in the Netherlands. It is based on interviews with imams, mosque teachers, parents of mosque students, chairs of migrant organizations, policymakers and experts (N = 75). Most respondents (N = 49) view mosque education as potentially aiding the integration of the children, often depending on whether mosques adopt this as a policy and train imams and mosque teachers accordingly. Mosque education is perceived by many as contributing to integration by teaching the children values of respect and tolerance, offering positive identity affirmation to children's stigmatized Islamic identity and countering youth radicalization by providing messages of moderation. While sixteen participants see mosque education as irrelevant for integration, ten participants voice concerns about the potential of mosque education to cause value confusion, alienate students from the Dutch society and indoctrinate them with Turkish state propaganda. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there are many quantitative studies examining the determinants of ethnic violence from the perspective of offenders, less is known about the effects of violence on the victims or target groups. In light of the increased refugee migration in Germany in 2015/2016, we provide empirical evidence that living in districts with a past of ethnic violence against refugees affects refugees' perception of the host country negatively. We are using survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel which we matched with data on ethnic violence. Albeit refugees had positive attitudes towards Germany – they felt overwhelmingly welcome, safe, and were barely worried about xenophobia – they were considerably less likely to feel this positive in districts with a high accumulated share of arson attacks on refugee homes. As living in contexts with higher levels of past and present ethnic violence can influence refugees' attitudes, this has implications for integration processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the level of participation in voluntary associations (measured by levels of joining and volunteering) of third-country nationals (TCN) in Luxembourg. We compare two groups of TCN (Cape Verdeans, and ex- Yugoslavians) with native residents and selected groups of EU immigrants. We use propensity score matching to estimate intergroup differences, while accounting for selection bias. The largest differences are found between TCN and their native Luxembourg counterparts. Specifically, TCN, on average, engage less in associations compared with native-born residents. These variations are greatest regarding membership of and volunteering in expressive associations. A similar situation is uncovered when comparing TCN with French immigrants. No substantial differences are found between TCN and immigrants of Portuguese origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "refugee crisis" has drawn attention to the role of cities (local authorities) in asylum seekers and refugees' reception and integration processes, with many developing creative and innovative policies. The article explores the integration outcomes of the asylum seekers who participated in a peculiar local experimental integration model, "l'Accademia per l'Integrazione" [Integration Academy], in a somewhat "progressive" mid-sized city of Bergamo (Italy). Using a "scout/militaristic" approach, the model seeks to lay the foundation for asylum seekers' successful integration upon arrival through obligatory "socially useful" work, language acquisition and civics, traineeships and possible employment placement. The results indicate questionable integration outcomes. This exploratory study shows that the national migration legal framework stifles the city's conceptualization of integration of asylum seekers starting from arrival. The findings have implications for migration and local integration policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigrant integration is a key concern in migration research. Yet, recent critiques argue that "immigrant integration" amounts to a neo-colonial form of governance and that scholarship needs to study the discourse of integration, rather than operationalize integration as analytical tool. Drawing on ethnographic research in Nairobi, this article engages and develops these critiques in two ways. It discusses how the notion "integration" is used as a "category of practice" in relation to privileged migrants, so-called expats, in ways that reflect personal anxieties and aspirations, uneven power relations and structural inequalities. Further, the article suggests "provincializing" integration as a way forward: (re)visiting "integration discourse" from its constitutive objects, others, and silences. This requires placing more centrally the voices of those assumedly in need of integration and examining how integration is formulated, practized and contested also in relation to privileged migration and in the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2005, German immigration law required all refugees receiving social welfare benefits to undergo language and civic knowledge tests as a pathway to the labour markets. The German integration regime, which was grounded in social imaginaries, legislative initiatives and supranational agreements, produced bureaucratic and ideological challenges following the "long summer of migration". Syrian asylum seekers entering Germany navigated shifts in the social imaginary and legal changes that both narrowed the definitions of a "good refugee" and expanded the benefits given to a select group of asylum seekers and refugees. I apply ethnographic fieldwork beginning on the Turkish border with Syria in 2015 and later fieldwork across Germany to analyse shifting social landscapes. The prerequisites of integration made long-term residency permits and citizenship contingent on "good integration". The public recognition of "good" or "deserving" refugees was thus conditional on the fulfilment of a universal criteria of achievement in social competences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Donald Trump began his campaign for the US Presidency by emphasizing the supposed dangers of immigration, a theme that he then rode to victory in November 2016 won the 2016 US Presidential election. This paper asks whether the sociology of migration can illuminate the sources of Trump’s success and after quickly reviewing the key contributions concludes not. Insight, rather, is to be found by understanding the ways in which population movements across state boundaries are a source of both international integration and national dis-integration, producing conflicts over the number, characteristics, and rights of immigrants from which liberal societies can find no escape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After a brief account of the findings of the project Longitudinal Study of the Second Generation in Spain (ILSEG), an eight-year-long project which constitutes the first representative study of the outcomes of children of immigrant during their adaptation process in Spain, some reflections concerning the results are shown. Firstly, implications for second generation of significant variations at the subnational level are discussed. Secondly, in spite of the partially optimistic results based on the project ILSEG, the paper considers whether certain groups of youth who become "racialized" or "ethnified" may find their pathways to economic mobility and assimilation blocked due to discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the first decade of this century, public monuments to the memory of "comfort women" - women and girls forced into sexual service from the 1930s through 1945, by the Japanese Imperial Army - have been established in the United States by the Korean diaspora. This paper analyses recent memorials in the suburbs of New York that have experienced rapid immigration from Korea since the 1990s. The memorials met local resistance due to perceptions of unrelatedness to the American land. Such immigrant initiatives, however, have been supported by municipal governance. The project of inscribing a passage from East Asian history in the American context may be considered symptomatic of wider cognitive and social shifts in immigrant adaptation. Assimilation through the inclusion of immigrant heritage, along with an increasing sense of entitlement in being both "ethnic" and "American", have been integral to this contest regarding collective memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the past two decades, Canada has accepted hundreds of LGBT asylum seekers, including gay Iranian men. Sociologists of sexualities and migration have yet to study this group as immigrants whose sexualities play a central role in their social interactions, immigration, and integration practices. Taking integration as a category of practice and relying on Halbwachs's theory of collective memory, I provide an empirical study of integration practices of gay Iranian refugees in Canada. I draw on 32 interviews with gay Iranian refugees to analyse their interactions with Canadian society at large, the Canadian gay community, and Iranian Diaspora. My findings indicate that memories play the role of proxies that inform gay Iranian refugees' interactions in Canada at the intersection of race-ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and nationality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on migration and integration in Britain have noted the paucity of research on ‘new’ migrants, especially ‘illegal’ migrants and asylum seekers. This paper focuses on one understudied group – Albanian immigrants and their children – and looks at their migration and settlement, based on sixty interviews conducted in two phases either side of a 2003 mini-amnesty that gave many indefinite leave to remain. This regularization is the fulcrum around which our analytical narrative is built. Focusing on the interaction of migrants' agency with host-country structure, the paper shows that an unsettled asylum policy and delays in implementation have had deleterious effects on migrants' integration and sense of belonging, even after citizenship acquisition. As they search for a social and ethnic positioning within a multi-ethnic host society, the eventual realization of Albanians' migration project is accompanied by culture shock, intergenerational difference and ambivalence towards integration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The ethnic identity of second-generation immigrant youth has important implications for their association with, and integration in, receiving countries. This paper deals with the ethnic identity formation of second-generation Turkish immigrant youth in Germany, with particular attention paid to the notion of reactive ethnicity. While much of the literature discusses the ethnic retention of this specific group as unwillingness to integrate, this paper frames their ethnic identity formation as reactive ethnicity, which emerges in reaction to social exclusion. Utilizing a case study of Turkish students of disadvantaged schools, the article illustrates that reactive ethnicity is strongly linked to perceived discrimination and that it acquires characteristics of resistance when the dominant group denigrates and invalidates the immigrants' culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to address integrational processes experienced by some African immigrants with refugee backgrounds and five to ten years of residence in Norway. We collected data through semi-structured interviews on issues relating to immigration and the integration experiences of eight families. Participants' reflections on the issues highlighted in the interviews made visible their challenges and opportunities upon arrival and during their first years in Norway. We use the concept of situated learning to discuss how their narratives describe movements from initial peripheral sociocultural positions towards fuller participation in different domains of society. The results show that across various domains, interactions at the personal level between individuals in the immigrant and majority population increased participation and cultural awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of recreational sport as a means and marker of social integration by analysing the lived experiences of Somali people from refugee backgrounds with sport. Drawing on a three-year multi-sided ethnography, the paper examines the extent to and ways in which participation in sport contributes to Somali Australians' bonding, bridging, and linking social capital. It is shown how social bonds and bridges developed in the sports context assist in the (re)building of community networks that have been eroded by war and displacement. Sport's contribution to social capital should however be neither overstated nor over-generalized. Bridging social capital in sport is relatively weak and few bridges are established between Somalis and the host community. Negative social encounters such as discrimination and aggression can highlight and reinforce group boundaries. Access to and use of linking social capital is also unequally distributed across gender, age, ethnic, and socio-economic lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kurds have often been labelled a disruptive faction within German society by the media and in several studies. However, many studies have a self-identified weakness in the form of radical or small samples that do not adequately represent the Kurdish majority. The present study is the first to be on a German-wide sample of migrants originating from Turkey and their descendants (N = 1201), twelve per cent of which are Kurdish. We ask how their ethnic and religious identities relate to their identificative integration and their acceptance of the norms and values of German mainstream society. The surprising results show that Kurds identify with German society more closely than their non-Kurdish counterparts do and throughout the analyses, a Kurdish identity remains the strongest predictor of a German identity. The results are discussed in terms of identity-shaping narratives, hybrid identities and the heightened integration pressure placed upon Kurds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

California was transformed by immigration in the 1980s. In 1991, a representative sample of children of immigrants and refugees was drawn from 8th/9th graders in San Diego's public schools. These CILS respondents were followed for nearly 25 years, from early adolescence to their late thirties, combining surveys with in-depth qualitative interviews. The educational and cultural integration of this segment of the new second generation has been largely positive. These adult children of immigrants – from Mexico, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, China, India and elsewhere – have above average educational attainments and mainly think of themselves as mainstream Americans, outcomes produced in an inclusive multiethnic context with a strong and accessible public higher education system. But in the current national context of accelerated deportations and exclusions, and a continuing retreat from investments in public education, the future for the next generation of immigrants' children is far from certain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study theoretically and empirically addresses the interrelationship between transnationalism and second-language proficiency as a crucial aspect of integration in the first years after immigration. Attention is paid to country of origin engagement and distinguishes and tests such engagement in economic, political, social and cultural domains simultaneously as well as exploring it over time. Opposing hypotheses are formulated on the association between such engagement and Dutch language proficiency among recent Polish and Turkish migrants using assimilationist theory, offering a perspective still prevalent in societal debates, and transnational theory, proposed as an alternative to the former in previous studies. Three waves of panel data of the New Immigrants Survey Netherlands enabled studying migrants' initial level of Dutch language proficiency after migration as well as recent migrants' development herein. Neither assimilationist nor transnational theory finds support, suggesting that country of origin engagement matters little for recent migrants' (development of) Dutch language proficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What produces and sustains inequality in socioeconomic position and integration across immigrant groups? Luthra, Soehl and Waldinger engage with this core sociological question in their book "Origins and Destinations". They argue that nominal approaches, which compare and contrast whole national origin groups, are insufficient. Rather, they implement a variable approach. They use data on second generation immigrants living in New York and Los Angeles in the late 1990s to explore empirically what it is about immigrant groups that confers advantages and disadvantages to their offspring in the United States. Rather than comparing whole groups, they use measured data about each group's characteristics and circumstances to help explain group differences. I describe their innovative approach and provide suggestions for how future research might build on it, such as by accounting for more variation in the context of reception, or by extending the temporal dimensions of inquiry across three or more generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In "Origins and Destinations", Luthra, Soehl and Waldinger aim at "extending the canon" in research on immigrant integration. They do so by studying group and individual level characteristics across a large number of origin groups, thereby replacing group labels with theoretically relevant variables at the group level. In this review, three challenges in this endeavour are discussed: First of all, the analyses do not allow to disentangle the impact of group and individual level characteristics for all variables alike. Secondly, a primary data collection more tailored to the specifics of their conceptual framework is needed. This would many conclusions about how contexts of emigration and immigration truly matter above and beyond individual characteristic on a more solid ground. And third, the authors' aim to abandon the use of origin group categories in empirical research on immigrant integration may come at a price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interethnic friendships can reflect intergroup relations and immigrants' integration into host societies. Using pooled 2007–09 Citizenship Surveys, this study investigates interethnic friendship patterns and determinants of friendship choice in Britain. The paper focuses on generational, ethnic and religious diversity in forming interethnic close ties. The most common friendship pattern is having co-ethnic close friends. This ethnic boundary in interethnic ties, however, weakens across generations whereby those born in or migrated to Britain at young ages have a higher chance of having close friends from other ethnic groups. We find that interethnic friendships are formed in a ‘pan-ethnic’ pattern by which those with similar ethnic/racial and religious background such as Muslim Indians and Pakistanis, or mixed white and black Caribbean and black Caribbean, are more likely to nominate one another as close friends. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many right-leaning politicians claim that normative Islamic perspectives on gender are at odds with the Western values and act as barriers to immigrant integration. Our interviews with 256 second-generation Somali-Canadians, however, suggest that gender-egalitarian identities are achieved – they are constructed and deployed by our participants to practice integration and express belonging in Canada. In this study, we move beyond analysis of attaining gender-egalitarian roles as a result of immigration and propose an understanding of gender as a form of Bourdieusian cultural capital that, depending on social values, functions as symbolic capital rendering individuals and groups as advantaged or disadvantaged. We, therefore, analyse modalities of "doing" gender as potential strategies of accumulating capital in furthering successful integration. Our study contributes to the emergent literature in migration studies that examines gender in relation to ethnic and national identities, and the extent to which it may impact integration experiences of second-generation Muslim immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racial minority students who attend predominately white schools in the United States and England face unique challenges in their learning environments that are connected to their status as non-white students. Scholars have documented the experiences of racial and ethnic minority students in mixed-raced schools in the United States and the UK for over four decades. However, the authors explore new research territory by employing critical race analysis to further articulate the similar experiences shared by African American and black Caribbean students' in mixed-race schools. Using data two different studies, one in the United States and one in England, the authors highlight the resemblances between the experiences of African American and black Caribbean students in predominantly white suburban and rural secondary schools. To increase racial equity in education, we must accurately understand the structural and societal barriers that racial minority students face as they continue to access education resources and quality schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negative attitudes towards Muslims have increased substantially in Europe, but European Muslims' perceptions of discrimination vary across national contexts. Three separate approaches explain perceptions of discrimination: social psychological theories at the micro-level, migration theories at the social structural level, and citizenship theories at the macro-level. We know less about how these approaches fit together to explain variation in perceptions of discrimination across national contexts. To evaluate this question, this article combines survey data of European Muslims (n = 1,618) with indices of policy commitments to immigrant integration in four countries. Contrary to hypothesized findings, this article identifies a striking puzzle: (1) Muslims report more experiences of discrimination in more inclusive contexts and (2) native-born Muslims are more likely to perceive societal hostility than Muslim immigrants in more inclusive contexts. To make sense of this puzzle, I offer an integrated approach that explains how macro-level contexts condition individual-level perceptions of exclusion through cultural knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses, through a comparative approach, the experience of young Muslims in Singapore and the UK as far as integration is concerned. The paper suggests that one of the main issues faced by young Muslims, in both countries, is how they are represented and understood. Indeed, British South Asian Muslims as well as Malay Muslim Singaporeans are still living in a dynamic of postcolonialism. The heritage of British colonialism still, although latently, works through the creation of categories and classifications of how identity should be defined. In both the cases of British South Asian Muslims and Singaporean Malay Muslims, there is often an unspoken request for the imagined ethnic minority to mimic the 'achiever' majority. It is in this dynamic that we can recognize what I have called a 'rhetoric of civilization'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored the experiences of newly arrived and settled Eritrean immigrants currently in the UK. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with ten newly arrived (seven years) participants, recruited through an Eritrean café and using snowball sampling. Thematic analysis identified three themes: (1) Wanting freedom, expectations of the UK and the desire for safety, (2) Integration and becoming part of the British community, (3) Personal development, which involved growth and aspirations. Transcending these themes was the notion of balance, and the co-existence of past and present. It is argued that Eritreans in the UK wish to become part of British community whilst at the same time remembering and celebrating their Eritrean culture. This is explained within the context of a dual identity and it is argued that rather than being a hindrance, a dual rather than single identity facilitates the process of integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theorizing on segmented assimilation has usefully spurred debate about the experiences and positions of the second generation in the US and, more recently, Europe. This theory has focused primarily on how young people fare in secondary school and the crucial role that families and ethnic social networks can play in supporting second-generation individuals. But what happens when young people leave home and enter into mainstream higher education institutions? Theorizing on segmented assimilation does not address either the implications of intermarriage for integration and upward mobility or how we should conceptualize the experiences of the growing numbers of 'mixed race' individuals. In this paper, I first consider the question of whether intermarriage is linked with upward mobility in the British context. I then explore the racial identifications and experiences of disparate types of mixed race young people in Britain. How do such young people identify themselves, and what may their identifications reveal about their sense of belonging in Britain? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at second-generation immigrants and the effects of 'inevitable' assimilation on their transnational ties. The dominant concept of transnationalism is strongly influenced by the experience of transmigrants moving back and forth between the sending and receiving countries or by immigrants involved in transnational activities. Research on second-generation Hindustanis in the Netherlands shows that their transnational ties are strong due to the ethnification of their community. However, their transnational ties are changing. The second-generation Hindustanis have a source culture and are developing new ties, while loosening relations with their parents' country. Thus, transnationalism is assuming new forms, calling for a typology of different forms of transnational relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by recent efforts in the United States to quantify the degree of transnational ties that immigrants possess, this article explores and analyses the prevalence and determinants of transnational family ties of immigrants in the Netherlands. Using data from a representative survey of four immigrant groups in the Netherlands, this paper also aims to fill the gap in knowledge regarding the effects of incorporation into an immigrant's host society on transnational family ties. Findings show that, while the vast majority of immigrants with relatives in the country of origin have frequent contact with these relatives, only a third of respondents contribute to the livelihood of family members in the homeland. Incorporation characteristics show distinct patterns over different types of involvement. While incorporation variables have a negative effect on the frequency of contact, they show little effect on remittances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses what we call the 'Albanian assimilation paradox'. Since arrival in 1991, Albanians have become one of the most 'integrated' of all non-EU immigrant groups in Italy, based on their knowledge of Italian, geographical dispersion, balanced demography, employment progress and desire to remain in Italy. Yet they are the nationality most rejected and stigmatized by Italians - stereotyped as criminals, prostitutes and uncivilized people. Based on ninety-seven interviews with Albanians in three cities in Italy, we explore the multifaceted dimensions of their patchy assimilation. Although the hegemonic negative framing of Albanians by Italian media and public discourse plays a major role, other elements of the picture relate to Albanians' complexly shifting identities, framed both against and within this discourse (and hence both resisting and internalizing it) and against changing concepts of Albanian national and diasporic identities derived from ambiguous perceptions of the national homeland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deportation has always been a feature of the American political, social and economic discourse. A twin effect of immigration, deportation concerns who is granted the right to stay and who is removed from the country. Amid the growing debate on reform, this essay casts light on the changing nature of deportation law during the last century. Paying attention to the reception which immigrants receive and the perceptions of threat and economic competition which natives often perceive, this work evaluates how policy has shifted in response to the changing face of newcomers. As immigration law becomes intertwined with criminal law, so do the stipulations governing entry and exit. Within a politically charged social space, American immigration is a story punctuated with racialized and criminalized images of immigrants. Bridging ethnic and racial currents, this work seeks to understand how these effects continue to shape contemporary immigration policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production of indicators is intimately linked to the political context and therefore meets a social demand based on historical issues. Quebec is no exception. The use of official ethnic and linguistic categories has evolved from a purely ethnic perspective based on ethnic ancestry aimed at assessing the demographic balance between French and English (1860–1960) to linguistic categories with a strong ethnic content defined by mother tongue and language spoken at home (1960–1990). In the more recent period (since the 1990s), the official linguistic policy in an increasing diversified population aimed at favouring the use of French as the common language in the public sphere. Clearly, mother tongue and language spoken at home do not meet the public sphere criteria. My main argument here is that language monitoring today should be a policy-related issue and therefore aimed at measuring the evolution of the French language in the public sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the social uses of immigrant business spaces that correspond to different stages of breakout, or the movement of a business from a limited, primarily co-ethnic customer base to a wider, primarily non-co-ethnic customer base. Using participant observation and interview data from three Latino immigrant-dominated shopping malls in the USA, we assess how the degree of breakout at each mall and the resulting degree of heterogeneity in customers is associated with different kinds of social uses of the spaces. We find that Latino immigrant business spaces that have yet to begin a transition towards breakout are important sites of bonding for Latino immigrants and serve to strengthen their ethnic solidarity. Latino immigrant business spaces that are in the midst of transitioning towards breakout facilitate casual interaction between Latino immigrant and non-Latino residents, while those Latino immigrant entrepreneur spaces that have achieved breakout act as spaces of cultural consumption by non-Latinos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a considerable body of work examines immigrant networks, inadequate attention has been devoted to understanding how networks regulate the relationship between immigrants and host institutions. A rich immigrant process may reinforce current power structures by providing a convenient buffer between the elite and challengers. Conversely, immigration may challenge the status quo. I employ social network analysis to examine three understudied immigrant groups in Rome, Bangladeshis, Filipinos, and Peruvians. I find that they have developed systems of problem-solving and sense-making that often interrupt their interactions with host institutions. The state tolerates this because it situates immigrants’ concerns outside its sphere of responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How migration and mobilizations of difference are accommodated at the local level is a burning question. Concepts adopted by local governments and the capacities of cities to formulate and implement these have received increasing attention, but often without examining the ideas and norms that underlie local concepts and practices. This article assesses the hypothesis of local-level pragmatism, which it rejects, and develops the notion of ‘paradigmatic pragmatism’ to characterize how local-level politics address mobilizations of difference. Based on empirical findings from Amsterdam, Antwerp and Leeds, and comparing the content and the implementation of ‘diversity policies’, I argue against a dichotomy of pragmatic vs ideational politics. Instead, these cities draw on a variety of ideas and pragmatically combine them under the header of diversity. This paradigmatic pragmatism invites further research on the effects of potential incompatibilities of immigrant policy ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Citizenship representations within national populations have mainly been deduced from state policies on migration. Yet, at the individual level, no studies have investigated whether citizenship representations are reliably associated with preferences for specific migration policies (i.e. the underlying assumption for deducing citizenship representations from state policies). Because several studies have shown that state policies may not reflect understandings of citizenship within national populations, it may be more relevant to study citizenship representations at the individual level, in relation to personal preferences regarding migration policies. This study examined how ethnic, cultural and civic citizenship representations relate to migration policy preferences at the individual level among majority group high-school students (N = 1,734) in seven EU countries. Findings add to the understanding of citizenship representations and may have implications for the implementation of migration policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the factors that lie behind Canada's success at earning the support of its newcomers. It examines the extent to which feelings towards Canada are grounded in immigrants' experiences in the host country, predispositions inherited from their lives prior to migration, and their comparative assessments of the host country and the country of origin. The findings indicate that although feelings towards Canada are partly shaped by post-migration factors, immigrants also interpret experiences in their new host country through the lens of their pre-migration experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Religion is often perceived as one of the main barriers to immigrant integration in Europe. By focusing on the contested area of immigrants' gender role attitudes, this study analyses data of first- and second-generation immigrants from multiple origin countries and of different religious affiliations in comparison to the native population. It shows that higher levels of religiosity can explain immigrants' more traditional attitudes to some extent, but that origin country socialization acts as an important additional determinant of attitudes of the first generation. Among second-generation migrants, only Muslims continue to hold more traditional attitudes. Acculturation for longer-staying migrants is partly explained by declining religiosity, with some evidence for a decoupling of attitudes from religious beliefs among female migrants in particular. Intergenerational change, on the other hand, cannot be attributed to a decline in the role of religiosity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2011, al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden, was killed in Pakistan and the US president, Barack Obama, concluded a decade of global ‘war against terror’. In light of this, it seems only sensible to explore what implications the post-9/11 international developments have had on a local basis in specific national contexts. With this in mind, this article focuses on Denmark and discusses how the critical event of 9/11 motivated a security/integration response, including various pre-emptive measures that have cast the Muslim population asthe usual suspects. It will discuss how these changes have affected the everyday lives of ordinary Danish Muslims over the last ten years and changed the relationship between majorities and minorities. Finally, it will also examine how and why recent national and international events have created the potential for another shift in majority–minority relations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Declarations of the end of race ignore the continuing impact of racism upon socio-economic inequality in ‘racial states’. Nevertheless, the idea of post-racialism has gained ground in a post-9/11 era, defined by a growing suspicion of diversity. Clearly racialized, this suspicion is couched in cultural-civilizational terms that attempt to avoid the charge of racism. Hence, attempts to counteract the purported failure of multiculturalism in Europe today pose culturalist solutions to problems deemed to originate from an excess of cultural diversity. This is part of a deepening culturalization of politics in which the post-race argument belongs to a post-political logic that shunspoliticalexplanations of unrest and widening disintegration in favour of reductive culturalist ones. The culturalization of politics is elaborated by relating it to the displacement of the political that originated with the nineteenth-century ascendance of race, thus setting ‘post-racialism’ firmly within the history of modern racism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay joins the ongoing debates about the role of co-ethnic ties in the making of diaspora identity by examining Singaporean Chinese perceptions of new immigrants from the mainland and the state's strategies in integrating the newcomers. The public discourses on new Chinese immigrants have produced three interlinked narratives: (1) newcomers are socially and culturally different from the mainstream and earlier immigrants; (2) newcomers have intensified the competition for scarce resources; and (3) newcomers are politically attached to China, whose rise as a global power only serves to reinforce such linkages. I argue that co-ethnicity and common cultural heritage play little role in shaping local Singaporeans' view of the new diaspora; instead, political pragmatism and new identity politics that prioritize the nation above ethnicity are the key factors influencing public attitudes and policy options regarding new immigrants. Furthermore, intra-diaspora differences/conflicts have reinforced interracial solidarity and contributed to the nation-building project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the ways in which Britain and the USA classify and analyse the integration of immigrants and their descendants. While both societies recognize racial differences in their official statistics and in the academic analyses of change over time, the USA tends to classify immigrants and their descendants by immigrant generation much more than Britain does. The importance of the concept of generation in American immigration research is highlighted and it is suggested that studies built on the importance of generation can illuminate social processes of integration in Britain. The complexities of defining and measuring immigrant generation are reviewed, including new developments in the measurement of generation that take into account age at migration, and historical period and cohort effects. Racial and ethnic minority groups formed through immigration may have very different characteristics depending on the average distance of their members from immigration – including the possibility of ‘ethnic leakage’, as more assimilated, later-generation individuals no longer identify with the group. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]