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The aim of this paper is to increase the understanding of the role of economic threat in the formation of public attitudes toward immigration in Ireland. Research has identified realistic threat, particularly related to scarce economic resources, as one of the main drivers of anti-immigration sentiment (Quillian, 1995; Mayda, 2006; Billiet et al., 2014). Since the onset of the economic crisis, public opinion in many European countries has become more hostile towards migration, particularly in those countries most affected by economic recession. This is generally assumed to be a consequence of economic threat, with greater competition for jobs and resources leading to a hardening in attitudes. Using the European Social Survey and the Labour Force Survey, this paper investigates if individuals in sectors and occupations; i) more exposed to economic uncertainty, and ii) with greater representation of migrants can account for hardening attitudes towards immigration. This study contributes to the larger body of research on anti-immigration attitudes and contributes to a better understanding of economic threat in the formation of public attitudes towards immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introducing gender perspective into international migration studies has been considered very important since the end of the 20th century. However, there is not much discussion on how the gender structure of home country causes immigrants' international migration. Classical studies on international migration have revealed that economic and political disparity between home country and host country causes international migration. In this paper, the author clarifies that the disparity of gender structure between two countries may motivate women's international migration. This study focuses on women who moved to the United States from postwar Japan. The proportion of women in the Japanese people who immigrate to the United States far exceeds the national average. The characteristic of Japanese female immigrants is that there are few women who migrated to the US with their families. Many have migrated alone. In this paper, the author will analyze the interview data for the Japanese female immigrants who live in single metropolitan areas in the West Coast of the United States. The author analyzes the data of 15 women who have migrated to the United States alone, collected by the interview research held from 2011 to 2014. Many Japanese informants in the study reported resistance to gender structure in Japanese society. In any case, it is clear that "gender structure" difference between the home country and the host country becomes an important factor which cause women's international migration. As classical studies on immigration shows that economic and political gap between the home country and the host country causes international migration, this paper disclosed that the disparity of gender structure between two countries may motivate women's international migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is nowadays a renewed interest in the scholarship of migration to identify the determinants of migration decision making. Albeit with different terms, most of the research theorizes migration as resulting from circumstances, opportunities and practices. This paper suggests shifting attention to how people "read" and navigate circumstances and opportunities, which may result in practices, from a microsociological and culture orientated perspective. Drawing on various strands of literature, i.e. cultures of migration, neoliberal subjectivity and conceptions of modernity, this paper explores the ways in which culture "enters" peoples' lives. The example of Polish migration to Germany, due to its long-standing tradition of migration and post-socialist transition to Western capitalism, is particularly telling for an examination of the ways in which cultural meanings of migration shape peoples' conceptions of subjectivity and life course considerations. Challenging reductionist conceptions of migrants' subjectivity, the analysis reveals that people do not mechanically respond to structures, nor is their migration solely determined by material aspects, even if people commonly refer to "economic" motifs as the driving reasons. Instead, as a legacy of the cultural history a particular frame of reference has emerged, through which migration is assessed in relation to expectations of a normal life, inasmuch as to becoming normal through migration. In doing so, this paper provides a more nuanced understanding of migrants' subjectivity by illustrating that people's rationality is shaped by socially accepted life-making options and their interrelations with hegemonic concepts of subjectivity, which reflect local and international trends related to migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses migration and informal employment in the Russian Federation. It considers the characteristics of migration, the legal and regulatory situation of migrant workers with regards to informal employment. First, the paper reveals the current migration inflows into Russia with focus on the migrants' employability. This gives the ground for seeing informal employment from the supply side of migrant workers. Second, the paper reviews the migration legislation, employment laws as the push factors into informal employment. This part allows us to explain the informal work from the demand side (employers). Finally, the paper estimates the probability of working informally for the migrant workers. In the conclusion, we developed possible policy recommendations for decreasing irregular migration and informal employment for migrant workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For almost two decades, U.S. public health researchers have been baffled by findings that seem to suggest that Mexican immigrants experience better physical and mental health outcomes-despite their lower socioeconomic status-than their U.S.-born counterparts. Researchers have been particularly intrigued by these patterns because epidemiological research has established a consistent and robust relationship between socioeconomic status and health, and first-generation Mexican immigrants have, in general, poorer socio-economic profiles than their second-generation counterparts. This paper examines the assumptions behind the socio-cultural explanations of the "Latino/a or Immigrant Health Paradox" through the narratives of 40 first- and second-generation Mexican immigrant women. The paper proposes a revision to the acculturation approach to incorporate an understanding of the racialization processes that Mexican immigrants and their descendants contend with as they integrate into the US. In particular, the paper examines how Mexican immigrant women negotiate their ethnic identities within the racial structure of the U.S. and learn about their location as a "minorities" in the U.S. This analysis sheds light on the racialization processes that immigrants confront as they attempt to "become American" (Waters, 1999). The paper concludes with a discussion of how these racialization processes might translate into health and wellbeing. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African migrants and asylum seekers, estimated to number several thousand, have some of the worst living conditions among transit or irregular migrants in Turkey. In this paper, we argue that this situation stems from their unfavorable access to income earning opportunities, the paucity of social aid and services targeting African asylum seekers, and the weakness of their social networks as well as of their links with Turkish society. However, we also want to show that there is significant variation among the predicaments of African migrants based on region of origin and the circumstances and reason for migration. So, we emphasize that they do not form a homogeneous category called "African migrants" in Turkey.The paper is based on the preliminary findings of our fieldwork on African migrants and asylum seekers in Istanbul. In this paper, we will first contextualize the presence of African migrants in Istanbul in an international context. In this section, we will describe how political and economic conditions in Africa push people out of their countries, and argue that the limitations of the international asylum and humanitarian system creates protracted refugee problems in the continent. In the next section, we will have a closer look at African migrants' living conditions in Istanbul, particularly in terms of social networks, social aid and informal work opportunities. We will argue that there are large differences between East and West Africans in terms of the precariousness of their situation in Turkey. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite their impressive patterns of economic mobility and generally successful adaptation into Western host societies, Israeli emigrants frequently express ambivalence about their presence on foreign soil. However, recent events may challenge this outlook. During the 1990s, Israel's significant demographic and economic growth, relatively peaceful relations with neighboring countries and increasingly globalized economy had the effect of lessening the stigma on going abroad. Then, since the fall of 2000, Israel has been rocked by the Al Aksa Intifada as well as a major recession. These events have made life more difficult for Israelis. Accordingly, conditions of the last five years can be seen as altering Israelis' motives for emigration and simultaneously shifting the probability of return among those already overseas. While a topic of interest in its own right, the experience of Israeli emigrants since late 2000 also offers a natural experiment for evaluating how theories about migrant transnationalism consider the consequences of specific events upon relations with citizens abroad.This paper relies on in-depth interviews and other data sources to explore Israeli emigrants' views about remaining in host societies versus returning to Israel since late 2000. In so doing, it considers how emigrants evaluate potential benefits, costs and feelings of identification associated with residence overseas versus Israel. The paper also seeks more general insights into how relations between migrants and the country of origin are altered when events affect political and economic conditions in the country of origin. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the gap in both family and international migration literature regarding the study of transnational families using exploratory inquiry on the internal processes of immigrant families and kin networks operating within a transnational context. The case study for this paper is augmented and contextualized by recent survey data for Afro-Caribbean respondents (n=1600+) from the National Survey of American Life. The theoretical perspective of kinscripts (Stack and Burton 1993) is combined with concepts from family and international migration literature on the gendered division of labor, gendered social networks, transnationalism, and literature on Caribbean families to create a lens to analyze the case study and survey data. Survey data suggest that gender differences in contact with family and perceptions of family closeness. The case study suggests that certain women in the family [kin-scription] seem to take leadership in initiating contact and planning events with other family members [kin-work], that family closeness is a result of frequent contact and visits, and that gender and birth order may influence the family prioritization of contact and relations [kin-time]. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I examine ways in which gender is framed on discourses on the social and cultural implications of call center growth in India. Based on a field study conducted in call centers in Gurgaon, India in the summer of 2005, the paper draws on interviews with 25 call center agents and examines ways in which women experience this work. I argue that there is a universalizing discourse on empowerment, for women that does not adequately account for dimensions of class, nation, and patriarchy. I propose an intersectional approach to examining gender issues and suggest dimensions of class, caste, age, nation and patriarchy which need to be incorporated in understanding the lived experiences of women experiencing processes of globalization. By 2007 India will have one million call center workers mostly predicted to be women. (Nascomm, 2005, Unesco 2003). Addressing the gap that exists in sociological literature on the surge in call centers in India and their implications I call for more attention to these transnational processes. A gender analysis that incorporates an intersectional approach to understanding women's lived experiences is vital to understanding processes of globalization taking place, today ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to initiate a discussion about the political capital of Salvadoran immigrants. In this vein, I attempt to present the reader with: a) an overview of the political science work, which has dealt extensively with Latinos' political participation, while also commenting on the limitations engendered by the lack of sociological insights in this area and b) discuss the sociological perspectives stemming from the concepts of political opportunity structure and transnationalism as they relate to the immigrant political experience. The final part of this paper will consist of a proposal that attempts to study the political mobilization of Salvadorans. I argue that El Salvador induced a political migration that is consequential for Salvadoran immigrants residing in the United States. Additionally, the U.S.-El Salvador relations play an integral part in the Salvadoran political experience and structure Salvadorans claims-making processes. These factors make this an interesting group to study and, unlike other scholars who have investigated the social and economic aspects that affect the lives of Salvadorans, I attempt to address their political capital and investigate the political participation of Salvadorans in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two of the most significant global trends in the contemporary period are migration and tourism. Importantly, these two trends both involve the flow of people across borders, whether in search of jobs and security or in search of leisure and luxury. This paper will explore the semi-permeability of borders under globalization. It will do so by examining the different ways that borders and technologies of border control are constructed to facilitate the entry of some but to deter the entry of others, By comparing the way that nations construct and enforce borders differently for different border crossers, much is revealed about the racialized, gendered, and classist divides that many borders enforce. This paper takes as a theoretical starting point the idea that borders are not only geographically constituted, but are socially constructed political sites that shift and change over time. An exploration of the contradictory treatment of migrant workers and tourists reveals the way that today's social construction of borders occurs, as well as the ways that national border performances are increasingly shaped by global imperatives, creating new channels of inequality in the globalized world. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the political discussions in Taiwan about the relocation of conventional industries to China from 1980 to 2005. By analyzing the policies, the governmental announcements, and the media reports, I argue that there is a transformation of the Taiwanese state's attitude from regulation to DissemiNation of the relocation. I use the term "regulation" in Bryan Turner's definition: a regime that regulates human bodies "in space" (1996). The term DissemiNation is inspired by one of Homi Bhabha's (1994). I use DissemiNation to describe an attitude that considers the relocation of industries as a mechanism to disseminate the economic power of a nation. I also bring into view a perspective of conflict theory to discuss how the inconsistent interests of different power groups help to shape both the regulation and the DissemiNation strategies of the Taiwanese state. At an empirical level, I go beyond the contemporary economic nationalist discussion that often focuses on the high tech industries and overlooks the role of the conventional industries. At a theoretical level, this paper proposes a conflict perspective in addition to the functionalist perspective to study economic nationalism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to examine the existing work in the field of sociology of literature, and attempts to propose a different approach to employ literary texts within the field of sociology. Because the approach tries to look at literary texts and say something about the larger culture, it risks being confused with the traditional reflection theory. In this paper, I will first detail the two reflection theories that I argue have emerged from crude understandings of Marx and Durkheim, talk about their criticisms as well as the different approaches to culture that have emerged from those criticisms. Next, I will go on to explain that the rejection of the idea of reflection, which was very necessary, did not however come without certain costs. Finally, I will propose that a sophisticated understanding of culture can indeed enable us to look at literature and say something about the larger culture, without rendering "culture" to an unstructured array of free-floating ideas, beliefs and values. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate how social capital influences migration, this paper builds on Portes (1998) and proposes a framework that decomposes social capital into resources (information about or assistance with migration), sources (prior migrants), and recipients (potential migrants). Analysis of multi-level, prospective, longitudinal data from 22 rural villages in Thailand shows that probability urban migration increases with the amount of available resources, yet the magnitude of increase depends on the diversity of resources, exposure to sources, as well as recipients' characteristics and the strength of their ties to the sources. A simulation analysis explores the implications of these results for future migration patterns. The findings suggest that even small discrepancies in the diversity of resources and exposure to sources of social capital lead to striking differences in migration outcomes over time. Ignoring these discrepancies result in biased predictions of future migration patterns. The paper concludes that distinguishing among resources, sources and recipients provides a unifying framework to combine a variety of hypotheses typically tested in isolation, and improves empirical predictions as well as theoretical understandings of the effect of social capital on migration. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to establish the distinctiveness of contemporary immigrant integration in rural communities. The combined characteristics of immigrants and rural communities lead to the exclusion of immigrants from access to public goods and markets for certain goods leaving them reliant on informal and contingent sources of employment, housing, and the full range of needed goods and services. Consequently, the immigrant experience in rural America is likely to be more diverse and variable than that in urban ethnic enclaves. For this reason the sociology of rural immigrant integration must emphasize context specificity. The paper begins with an overview of contemporary immigration trends and then goes on to examine the distinctiveness of immigration to rural America. We elaborate a conceptual frame to guide research on the integration of immigrants into the social and economic life of rural communities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds upon studies of urban crime concerned about racial disparities and violence. Given the increasing racial\ethnic diversity of U.S. society it is critical to compare ethnic groups, such as Latinos or Mexican-origin the largest Latino group, within and across a variety of contexts. Our specific aim here is to provide an understanding of the similarities and differences of the incidence of homicides in two cities-San Antonio, a majority Mexican-origin city dominated by U.S. born Chicanos. On the other end is San Diego, another old Mexican-origin city or at least community, with a relatively smaller Latino border community that resembles the "urban poor" and figures central in the recent immigration hysteria. We ground this research in an examination of homicide, disadvantage and affluence in two cities and two larger communities within those places. Not only are we interested in neighborhood level economic disadvantage or affluence, we examine the spatial interdependence of violence. Like others we recognize that communities are interdependent and influenced by the characteristics of surrounding neighborhoods such that homicide in one neighborhood also shapes killings in adjacent areas. In this paper, we therefore focus on the independent effect of spatial proximity on likelihood of homicide, accounting for important neighborhood level characteristics of Latino inequality. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using information from ongoing participant observation and in-depth interviews, this paper focuses on the role of local transborder processes and cross-border linkages between the cities of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua which influence migration to and settlement in El Paso by individuals previously residing in Juarez. The emphasis on local dynamics surrounding national boundaries provides a counter argument to the presentation of border communities as constituting a transnational space in the broader sense and calls our attention to the unique local cultures surrounding the peripheral areas of nation-states. The development of this discussion is grounded in the historical connection between the two sides of the border, along with the literature on border dynamics and transnationalism. Throughout the paper I present border-based movement as substantially different from the construction of other transnational communities and highlight the contradictions in the explanations of border migration as understood using current theoretical paradigms. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liberal democracies share important aspects of immigration politics. In this paper, I draw on Gary Freeman's typology of immigration contexts and Roger Brubaker's emphasis on the importance of cultural politics towards understanding immigration discourses in the United States, Canada and France. Based on the analysis of secondary sources, the main aim of this paper is to set the context for understanding immigrant experiences in the three settings. An emerging theme in the analysis, however, is the convergence of discourses on immigration in the three contexts. Specifically, for each of the three countries, I outline the particular processes of change in immigration politics and the impulses informing these changes. In doing so, I illustrate the ways these discourses are converging despite the specific cultural conflicts that shape them. While the particular cultural dynamics surrounding immigration in the three contexts emerge within particular national contexts and institutional structures, the paper concludes by emphasizing that processes of migration are part of global phenomena and the effects of global processes in changing national discourses should not be undermined. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This preliminary paper is based on my research on marriage and sexuality in the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. The research focuses on the rise of 'urfi ("customary"), misyar ("ambulant"), and other non-traditional sexual and marital "contracts," often transient, among Sunni Muslims from various walks of life. The paper discusses the rise of transnational identities and practices (facilitated by communication and media technologies), and the production of new desires and discourses about the body in a consumption-oriented free market era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes data from surveys on transnational household economies, family units which have migrants in the US remitting funds back to their relatives in Mexico. The twofold goals of this paper are to analyze this data using social scientific theories and to contribute to the fields of migration and economic sociology. The data comes from ethnographic work and ethnosurveys done in New York and in the Mixteca region of the Mexican state of Guerrero, in the towns of Huamuxtitlan and Tlapa in 2004. This paper seeks to explicate transnational household economies, the contexts in which they occur, and to articulate these bi-local household economies. The analysis starts by reviewing the growing importance of remittances and the relevant literature on migration. We will contrast our findings with common theories and conceptions about migration. A methodology appendix and some of the quantitative data obtained from the ethno-surveys and recommendations for non-profits are also available in sister papers. This study focuses on a relatively recent migrant community, one which offers an excellent site both to study the kinds of processes that interest us. The Mixteca region of Guerrero has a great deal of recent emigration, which means that a disproportionate percentage of its migrants are remitting to their families. The migrant destination, New York City, offers a good community infrastructure on which to build and remittances exemplify another kind of international capital flow in the middle of the global capital of the financial world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the crucial impact of exogenous factors (e.g. geopolitical context) and the endogenous dynamic between "self" (i.e. Japanese) and "other" (i.e. Koreans) on the nexus of nationhood and citizenship in a historically specific context of distinctive regime types in Japan. The Japanese case provides a formidable opportunity to revisit several prominent theories of nationhood and citizenship, which stipulate a mostly Western, nation-state centered narrative as Japan's development differs from the conventional narrative of nationhood and citizenship. During the imperial period, an authoritarian regime conducted an inclusive policy based on cultural assimilation and broad recognition of heterogeneity. The democratized Japanese nation-state in the aftermath of WWII implemented more exclusionary citizenship. Today, such exclusive practices are called into question by the former colonies, minority groups, and supranational institutions (i.e. U.N.). Based on archival research, this paper seeks to refine some of the dominant assumptions in the literature on nationalism and citizenship. This paper pays special attention to the changing role of the Korean minority in Japan because they are the focus of these changing policies and their mobilization (or lack thereof) informed the transformation of Japanese nationhood, citizenship and immigration policy. By identifying what constraints regime-type places on the types of citizenship available to a society and what social forces create and sustain dissonant voices in debates over nationhood, my study shows how the making of nationhood and citizenship-immigration policies is contingent on exogenous geopolitical factors as well as endogenous contentious relationships between state and non-state actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the role of race and national origins in international adoption in the construction of American families. The paper seeks to answer following questions: (1) Do American parents adopt children of their own racial and ethnic background?, (2) Does the probability of adopting a child of non-matching versus matching origins vary according to the attributes of the adopting family?, and (3) Does the probability of adopting a child of non-matching versus matching origins vary by the other characteristics of the child? We argue that the welcoming of children of selected national and racial origins into American families illustrates the fluidity and tenacity of specific racial boundaries. The data is drawn from the U.S. 2000 Census public use microdata sample (PUMS) 5 percent file. Our preliminary analysis indicates that there is a strong tendency among only white parents to match their race with their adoptees' race. Whereas, overwhelming number of parents prefer to adopt children from Asia over the other races of children when parents' race does not match with their adoptees' race. The paper aims to show how a growing trend in international migration is transforming the meaning of race and national origins within American families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the Sichuan province data drawn from the 1995 Chinese One Percent Population Sample Survey, this paper confirms the previous studies on migration in China and shows that the return migrants are not better off as well as the active migrant or nonimmigrant households. The return migrants are more likely to select negatively while the active migrants is selected positively. The result of this study indicates that the return migrants may face difficulty to maintain the good quality in housing condition than the active migrants or nonmigrants. This may cast some doubt at the conclusion made in the previous study that states the return migrants richly convey human capital to the community of migrant. Moreover, our paper indicates that the positive selection of the return migrants reported in the other study is not the case for the return migrants in China. On the other hand, the tendency of better condition of housing of active migrants household implies the transformation of remittance to the investment for housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most research attention in the field of immigration has been devoted understanding particular transnational practices, including shuttle migration, collective remittances and political involvement in multiple contexts. Yet these behaviors cannot be understood as inevitable consequences of social circumstances. People must learn transnational practices. With a sociological focus on the information that flows through different network channels, this paper studies how individuals are socialized to specific transnational practices, or to a general orientation towards transnationalism at all. This paper investigates how international students locate themselves socially and what the consequences are for the ways in which they are or are not socialized towards transnational practices. It also suggests a modification to existing theory—the Migration Prevalence Ratio—to enable it to serve as a mechanism connecting macro- and micro-level immigration processes, particularly with respect to how individuals gather social capital and learn transnational practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to evaluate the extent to which the abolishment of a system of state-mandated racial and gender inequality can impact attainment processes over a short period of intense change. The primary aim is to investigate determinants of women's labor force participation and occupational sex segregation in post- apartheid South Africa, with particular emphasis on migration and household headship, using multi-level models that incorporate macro contexts and individual characteristics. Data from the 2001 South African Census will be utilized. I hypothesize that 1) Economic development increases women's opportunity of holding a traditionally male-dominated occupation. 2) More urbanized areas provide better opportunities for women to be employed and to hold male-dominated occupations than less urbanized areas do. 3) Level of educational attainment increases women's likelihood of being employed and also of holding a male-dominated occupation. 4) The effect of educational attainment increases with levels of development. 5) Female-headed households are more likely to be in the labor force than male or joint-headed households. 6) Rural migrant women are less likely to be in male-dominated occupations than migrant women. The paper will conclude with policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines patterns of self-identification among immigrant day laborers on the street corners of San Francisco, focusing in particular on the ways in which they seek and affirm dignity in the face of rampant stigmatization, ever-present uncertainty and poverty. Drawing upon interviews and ethnographic data, it presents evidence that many who work in this informal labor market maintain a sense of dignity and claim their moral worth by fashioning themselves as entrepreneurs, jacks-of-all trades and/or role models, taking pride in the seemingly unparalleled autonomy this work affords them as well as in the skill and work ethic their work purportedly exemplifies. These findings challenge popular perceptions about immigrant day laborers as well as existing scholarship on the relationship between work and dignity among the urban subproletariat. This paper furthermore argues that attempts to affirm this dignified status come all too often at the expense of others. Many of these street corner day laborers engage in a variety of practices of social distancing and differentiation, deflecting stigma onto other "undesirables" who share the same social space and joining in the dominant discourse of denouncing those who undeservingly profit from social assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative efforts commonly used in the social sciences has framed the Mediterranean as a region characterized by convergence. In Western Mediterranean societies, the existing division between North and South along with the differences in socio-economic changes of Southern Europe compared to Northern and Eastern Europe make comparative agendas problematic. The Mediterranean age continues to be a space in constant transformation, as it had already been characterized by Ferdinand Braudel (1985) many years ago. This paper presents a comparative effort that enables an analysis of the Mediterranean in the context of globalization that is further elaborated in the recently published book The Mediterranean in the Age of Globalization (Transaction Publishers). This effort is developed using the case of globalization and migration across several countries across Western Mediterranean societies. The aim of this paper is to reflect the problems around comparative work taking various settings as examples: the sociological tradition, the migration axis as an interpretative key, as finally, the Mediterranean as the background for unity and comparative studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the gap between race, ethnicity, and immigration. I combine Current Population Survey data (1998-2002) and my own family roots from Ireland and Japan to examine this gap through a sociological lens. I specifically look at factors such as time of immigration to the U.S., generation (1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, and 3rd-plus), race, ethnicity, intermarriage, and multiethnic identities. This paper seeks to connect the ?old immigration? with the ?new immigration? and bridge the gap between race and ethnicity in the United States in light of the never-ending-stream of immigration that continually changes how we think about race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dominicans and Puerto Ricans, both major Latino migrant groups to the mainland United States, have conceptions of race that differ from those found in the U.S. Race is traditionally conceptualized in those nations along a continuum with many possible categories between the two polarities of White and Black that most Americans recognize. This paper explores how Dominican and Puerto Rican migrants reconcile the conflict between their home and host societies? understanding of race, and how the process of migration shapes that understanding. The paper draws on a recent cross-national qualitative study comparing Dominican and Puerto Rican migrants living in New York with non-migrants living in Santo Domingo and San Juan, respectively. The paper discusses data gathered using a photographic instrument to elicit racial classifications and discussion of how those decisions are made. Education is found to be an important factor mediating how race is conceptualized, and how racial assimilation takes place in the host society. It further shapes how identities are sent back and reformulated in the home societies through transnational practices and globalized mass communications. Ethnic and racial group interactions in each location enable those identities to be reinterpreted and assigned new meaning specific to the social context. It is argued that migration shapes racial constructs in both sending and receiving nations, but context-specific structural factors filter the way those constructs are used and understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a working paper, whose purpose is to explore some current theorization of the border and to examine its workings on the lives of real people. I hope, by the end of this paper, to have explored the notion of the border in a more general context, and in the specific context of the border between Burkina Faso and Côte d?Ivoire. This focus of my Master?s thesis is Burkinabè migrant laborers experience of their migration, labor and conflict in Côte d?Ivoire, and I must have a sense of the border before I can proceed with my analysis. Balibar, in his most recent collection of essays Politics and the Other Scene, has begun to focus more explicitly on theorizing the border. To do this, he takes as a point of departure the notion that the border is much more complicated that most of us allow. He writes that we need to correct a representation of the border that seems natural, but is nonetheless manifestly false, or in any case too simple: the representation that makes the border the simple line between two territorial entities?.? Rejecting any simple definition of the border, like the proverbial ?line in the sand,? he takes a postmodernist stance, and asserts that the border has no essence that can be valid in all places and times. So, what is a border then? I would argue that this not the question that we need to ask. The real question that is at hand is ?How does the border work?? Only by answering this question first can we start to develop an understanding of the meaning of the border, or of what it is. In this paper, I explore some qualitative data gathered in interviews with Burkinabè migrant laborers in their home villages, and begin to understand the border as a process of negotiation between supplication and resistance which is enacted again and again as a Burkinabè travels to and from his or her work site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a disequilibrium between the social costs/benefits assessments of migration to the receiving country, and the similar assessment of cost/benefits to the sending country. This paper highlights the neglect by receiving countries? researchers of sending country societies as an essential component of international migration. For understandable reasons, migration research in receiving countries focuses on those research questions that are seen as relevant to their migration policy. For the most part, these focus primarily on the causes and consequences to the receiving country of international migration and assimilation. In line with the state?s policy, the research?s primary objective is to weigh the economic costs and benefits to the receiving country of international migration. The sending society?s social and economic setting is usually taken as a factor needed to understand the primary focus, which is the effects on the receiving country. Even in research oriented by the concept of transnational migration, the focus is, by the concept?s nature, on those aspects of migration that transcend the sending and receiving countries. In this research there also tends to be a stronger focus on migrants? lives in the receiving country. Implicitly there is a consensus across ideologies that international migration is economically and socially beneficial. For economic conservatives, the free flow of labor ultimately yields the greatest utility for sending and receiving countries. For social conservatives, the supposed benefits to migrants are at the expense of the native-born. For progressives, the negative social consequences of migration - exploitation of first generation laborers, rejection of the second generation - are based on the absence of social policies necessary to make migration ultimately beneficial for migrants. This paper discusses research questions that stem from a concern with the likely negative consequences for sending countries of international migration. The research questions also imply alternative social policies to those currently applied to international migrants in the receiving countries, and to those left behind in the sending countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As global capitalism expands, it is important to examine the specific and culturally contingent motivations that shape local participation in international migration and production processes. Using findings from ethnographic research and in-depth interviews with returned migrant workers, family members, and village leaders and other government officials in Northern Thailand, this paper examines the temporary labor migration of young, unmarried Northern Thai women to other parts of East and Southeast Asia. The paper compares the experiences of young women from two villages with very different socioeconomic contexts, focusing on the ways that working abroad enables them to negotiate between their responsibilities for helping meet their family?s material needs, their own desires to participate in a ?modern,? ?up-to-date? consumeristic lifestyle, and prevalent gender norms in rural Thailand that tend to restrict young women?s mobility as a way of protecting their sexual purity and marriage prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The context of globalization facilitates the construction of social relations that transcend national boundaries. Based on the argument that diaspora provides a framework for understanding immigration processes within the dynamics of globalization, this paper explores the ways diaspora extends our understanding of immigrant communities. As a type of community, diaspora communities illustrate three-way relationships that include the homeland or country of origin, the host society or country of residence, and the larger diaspora community that extends over a number of nation-states. In this paper, I take the Lebanese diaspora in New York, Montreal, and Paris to illustrate that diaspora illuminates the understanding of global social networks and ties that are related to immigrant groups. Following a brief theoretical discussion of diaspora, this paper focuses on the analysis of Lebanese immigrant forms of attachment. Based on in-depth interviews and participant observation in three cities, this paper illustrates the forms of solidarity shared by Lebanese immigrants. First, the multiple forms of belonging that Lebanese immigrants have ? to their homeland, host society, and larger diaspora ? emphasize that immigrants share ?vertical connections? that exist simultaneously. The paper follows to illustrate the forms of global solidarity that members of the Lebanese immigrant community seek and maintain. Given their experience with migration, Lebanese immigrants believe that they are more capable of bridging the particular interests that are based on national or ethnic attachments and the universal ones that are not tied to a territory or a nation-state. That is, as immigrants consciously discard traditional forms of attachments to the homeland, they are propelled to advance universal legal and civil causes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to answer what effect does migration have on conditioning the extent, shape, and nature of Mexican immigrant women-based networks. Taking advantage of unique data set that link comparable samples of Mexican women undertaken in sending and receiving communities, this paper examines the effect of migration and women?s socio-demographic attributes on predicting networks structural characteristics such as network size, kinship composition and social interactions. Descriptive results show that immigrant women were more socially and physically isolated compared to women sampled in Mexico. Immigrant women had smaller networks, were more spatially dispersed, and visited less frequently compared to women?s networks in the Mexican sample. While socio-demographic factors appear to be important in predicting network structural characteristics, these factors did not seem to explain differences across samples. That is, the estimated effects of these socio-demographic factors within sample are quite similar across both US and Mexico samples, suggesting that migration status might play a significant role in determining differences in women?s networks across samples. The next analytical step is to examine if group differences (across both samples) in women?s networks can be attributed to migration status. I plan to further the analyses by decomposing the difference in network types and test whether this difference can be attributed to migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The foreign born population has resurged to numerical prominence in the U.S. For the first time since 1870, the first generation has even grown to outweigh the second generation. Sociological theory of immigration has not kept pace with this revival, instead placing disproportionate weight on the second generation. The paper identifies key biases that shaped the literature in the past, including a focus on acculturation as the sole meaning of assimilation and a focus on the end state of completed assimilation instead of the ongoing process. Also impacting the literature was a lack of data that forced resort to broad categorizations of generation, and the declining size of the first generation diverted attention to the second generation. The paper presents data covering a 150-year period to show the changing importance of the first generation. It then addresses the question of how much assimilation has occurred within the first or second generation, using nine different indicators that tap dimensions of acculturation, economic incorporation, and social integration. On most, save acculturation, the first generation demonstrates rapid assimilation, paving the way for improved well-being of their children, the second generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the formation of Latino communities and identities in the city of Providence, Rhode Island. As in much of urban New England, during the last two decades immigration has changed the population composition and urban life in Providence. According to the 2000 Census, Latinos constitute 30 percent of the Providence population. Latinos are leaving a mark in all areas of Providence life, from the urban space, to urban culture, to urban politics. In this paper I focus on the transformation of urban space, on the process of formation of ethnonational communities and social spaces, and on the emergence of panethnic identities and social practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the growing pattern of transnational familiy formation in the Philippines. This paper explores how state policies impact or hinder transnational families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration is often assumed to be a key condition leading to ethnic conflict. However, in both immigration studies and ethnic studies there is an inadequate theorization about the relationship between immigration and ethnic conflict, and there is little systematic cross-national comparative evidence on this relationship. This paper is a step toward filling these gaps in the literature. In contrast to the "inevitable hypothesis" that assumes ethnic conflict as a natural outcome of immigration, we propose a "conditional hypothesis" that contends that only under certain conditions will migration and contact generate conflict between groups. These conditions include, but are not limited to, group direct competition for scarce resources, unequal allocation of socioeconomic resources and political power, ethnic and cultural policy based on ethnic/cultural superiority or inferiority, and perceived threats from other groups especially those with a large size and lower-class backgrounds. The historical and contemporary evidence from selected major immigration countries reviewed in this paper seems to give little credence to the inevitable hypothesis but lend substantial support to our conditional hypothesis. It is evident that when these conditions are present, so is ethnic conflict. This is particularly true in the USA, Canada, Australia, and Germany. In contrast, in Japan none of these conditions is present, and hence we see little conflict along ethnic lines. In tandem, the conditional hypothesis and the contact hypothesis suggested by psychologists grasp more completely the role of migration and contact in relation to ethnic conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper locates Filipino labor migration to the United States within the colonial power relations that followed the American annexation of the Philippines in 1898. I illustrate how Filipino immigrants were stratified within the American social formation along intersecting lines of race, nation, and class that refelcted the hierarchical division of labor in the capitalist world economy. Particular attention is given to the role of the ‘racial state’ in instituting immigration and nationality controls that equated whiteness with citizenship and defined Filipinos as a racially distinctive category of the national labor supply. This paper demonstrates the how the ‘racial state’ excluded Filipinos from membership in the national community by delimiting their access to citizenship, family formation, and land ownership through exclusionary racial criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to widen the scope of how we conceptualize immigrant incorporation and adaptation to include the emotions associated with transnational migration. At what point in circular migration cycles do immigrants "feel" like they are home, and that they belong? This paper locates the role of emotions in examining adaptation to one's status of transnational migrant, and explores how the study of emotions can be a tool to illuminate how adaptation impacts integration, identity construction and international mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the ?governmentalization? of the Philippine state and the ways in which it is ?managing? and sustaining a culture of labor migration. I examine the strategy of worker empowerment as a way of governing the conduct of its citizenry and generating a specific type of worker/citizen who embody the neoliberal market rationality of economic competitiveness and entrepreneurship. In particular, the forms of worker empowerment I will analyze are the ways in which the state is: 1) designating Filipino workers as the modern day heroes and ambassadors of goodwill; 2) upgrading their work skills; and 3) promoting a culture of entrepreneurship. This paper shows that these strategies combine not only to sustain a culture of labor migration but to reframe the meanings of social citizenship for overseas Filipinos. As part of a multi-site ethnography of the recruitment business in Manila, Philippines which focuses on state-licensed private employment agencies brokering nurses and household workers conducted between September 2001-June 2002 , this paper is based on in-depth interviews with government officials involved in the labor recruitment business and participant-observations of pre-departure orientation sessions conducted by NGOs for Filipino workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The day labor market in New York City is growing fast partly due to the number of immigrants who are eager to work, but who lack official documentation. Employing ethnographic research methods, this paper provides a description of a group of men working as day laborers at a casual work site in Brooklyn, New York City, with whom I’ve been visiting since late August 2001. The participants are diverse across various characteristics, in particular nationality, race, and ethnicity. This paper attempts to advance our understanding of the incorporation of new immigrants into American society, by considering the factors shaping these processes and the effects on American culture. There is a focus on the interactions between the different groups working at this intersection and also a discussion of the effects on opportunities for employment and social mobility influenced by social positions of nationality, ethnicity, race, gender and age. And in a multicultural setting of a Brooklyn street corner, this paper explores an important social action that occurs between the diverse actors that is meaningful. The overall project explores how and why these men, of whom many are undocumented, seek employment in the informal economy. This paper enables an analysis of the situations, beyond employment, as they are informed by positions of nationality, race, and ethnicity. At a time when the politics of immigration is active in policy agenda, this paper offers a dynamic sociological exploration of immigration, labor, identity, and culture in the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe have been the paradigmatic case of successful assimilators in many western countries. They have actively identified with the nationality and culture in points of settlement, had little propensity to return to the country of origin, and overcame discrimination to attain levels of educational, economic and cultural prominence exceeding those of the native-born elite. While Israeli emigrants -- who are now among the largest Jewish migrant populations in many Western societies -- share social, cultural, occupational, and residential characteristics with native-born Jews, they reveal dissimilar patterns of adaptation. Most notable, is their reluctance to identify with host societies. They seldom describe themselves as host country nationals, socialize almost exclusively with other Israelis, frequently describe their intentions to return home and often do so. Accordingly, Israeli emigrants confront strong and conflicting bases of identity associated with Western Jewish communities, on the one hand, and Israel, on the other. Using in-depth interviews and ethnographic data, this paper draws on two dominant approaches to immigrant adjustment -- the new second generation and transnationalism -- to explore how Israeli emigrants address conflicting identities associated with the country of origin and the host society. (The former emphasizes assimilation, while the latter largely rejects the assimilationist tradition). The paper concludes that the actions of Israeli emigrants are partly compatible with elements of both new second generation and transnational views of migrant identity, but fully consistent with neither view. Rather,their identities are simultaneously shaped by both the context of settlement as well as their links with the country of origin. The most accurate understanding of Israeli emigrants’ outlook is captured by a synthesis of the two approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why has family reunification policy in the UK and U.S. diverged since key immigration reforms were enacted in the mid-twentieth century? In distinction to previous scholarship, this paper explains this divergence through reference to the context-specific racialization of the immigrant family. Due to their shared position as aspiring hegemons in a postcolonial world-system shaped by Cold War geopolitics, American and British immigration policymakers entered the 1960s reform era faced with the same fundamental policy problematic: how to construct racially discriminatory national immigration systems without recourse to racially discriminatory legislation. In the U.S., the immigrant family was racialized as white, and family reunification was seen as nonthreatening. Because of this, building the 1965 immigration system on family reunification provided a colorblind mechanism to enact legislation which in fact had racially discriminatory intentions. In the UK, on the other hand, the immigrant family was racialized as nonwhite, and family reunification was deemed threatening to postcolonial nation-building. Drawing attention to this cross-national difference in the racialized origins of liberal democratic family reunification policy complicates and critically extends recent feminist literature on the role of "family ideation" in the politics of immigration policymaking. This paper also provides an analytic framework for understanding the incorporation of racist and racialized modes of exclusion and immigrant-selection in post-1960s liberal-democratic immigration regimes, and the central role ideas of the "family" played in legislating this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The migration of UAC's became headline news during 2014 due to a drastic increase in the number of children detained by Customs and Border Protection at the U.S.-Mexico border. The majority of these children came from and continue to come from three Central American countries: Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Among these migrant children, Guatemalan indigenous Mayan children stand out due their cultural and social differences. This paper will make the case that Guatemalan Indigenous migrant children comprise a population that deserves to be more carefully studied. First, I will explore available data to estimate the proportion of Guatemalan indigenous children that make up the total number of children detained by Border Patrol. Second, I will describe specific issues that these indigenous children face once detained. The ultimate purpose of this paper is to draw attention to Mayan child migrants and to suggest areas for further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Richard Hofstader's 1964 essay "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" has drawn increased attention over the past decade as a way to describe the increasingly strident rhetoric from the American political right. This paper argues that many of the modern applications of Hofstader tend to emphasize the seemingly irrational nature of the right-wing to the detriment of theorizing right-wing politics. The paper's historical case study of the Republican Party in Texas over the past two decades suggests ways in which the paranoid style can be a reflection of structural issues related to party politics, rather than a reflection of psychological tendencies of individuals. This insight can help push examinations of the right-wing's increasingly strident rhetoric on immigration and other touchstone cultural issues, away from psychological explanations and toward the ways in which political systems can produce structural incentives toward the seemingly "irrational" politics that Hofstadter pointed out over fifty years ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three bodies of literature most fundamental to a critical assessment of Latina/os in the United States are Racism (Critical Race Theory), international migration, and globalization. These three bodies of literature taken together birth our ability to understand and further conceptualize Latino/as in a way that levels the playing field by simultaneously stripping away racialized bias and refocusing the unit of analysis away from individuals and onto the world-economy wherein everyone, not just Latino/as, plays a role. The premise of this paper suggests that such a combined approach necessitates a rethinking of Latina/os in the United States by requiring a change of focus away from "illegal" or undocumented migration, "English only," and other presumptive and oppressive racializations of Latino/as, by highlighting US involvement in Latin America, thus humanizing Latino/a experiences and shifting the focus onto Human Rights. This paper stems from a larger, primarily ethnographic research project on the Anti-Immigrant Movement wherein over 50 interviews with both anti-and pro-immigrant activists have been conducted. The fusion of the three bodies of literature is demonstrated via an analysis of racism targeting Latina/os and immigrants by the Anti-Immigrant Movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, foreign labor migration has been a common livelihood strategy for young Nepali men. Increasingly, young women have migrated abroad for work as well in spite of a number of gender discriminatory migration laws that limit women's access to legal labor migration channels. To what extent out-migration will be employed by women as a livelihood strategy in the post-earthquake context remains to be seen. This paper focuses specifically on young women's migration decision-making in the immediate aftermath of the April/May earthquakes. Using survey data collected from two districts in July 2015 - one severely earthquake-affected district and one less-affected district - the research is guided by a vulnerabilities approach to disasters. This paper considers how the April/May earthquakes have affected young women migrants' decision-making processes around future migration as a livelihood strategy and how the current gender discriminatory migration laws may exacerbate women labor migrants' existing vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Confident that the 2012 election had ushered in a new day in Latino politics, national Latino advocates immediately sought to seize the moment and translate electoral results into concrete political gains. Their major priority was comprehensive immigration reform, which they believed was finally in reach. Zeroing in on beltway politics, this paper--a draft chapter for book manuscript--analyzes Latino advocacy for immigration reform in post-2012 period, paying close attention to the role of temporality and specifically, demographic futures, in efforts for and against reform. Although expectations were high, advocates quickly encountered serious challenges to their agenda. Beyond their control were internal shifts within the Republican Party and a public retreat from the election's narrative about the power of the "Latino vote," bolstered by new electoral data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks two research questions. First, what are the variables that shape attitudes towards immigration and immigrants? Second, why did voters from a congressional district in the border region with Mexico support anti-immigrant messaging in the 2016 and 2018 elections? The research tests the group threat, social identity, and contact theory hypotheses using data from the General Social Survey and the American Community Survey for California's 42nd Congressional District. Two interesting findings emerge from the analysis. Americans as a whole have become more embracing of immigrants even as government policy has hardened. Social identity and party affiliation continue are accurate predictors of attitudes toward immigration and immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]