Showing papers in "Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies in 2007"
TL;DR: In this paper, an ethnographic exploration of a seldom-discussed "micro" dimension of transnational studies, the practices of long-distance family relations and aged care, is presented.
Abstract: This paper is an ethnographic exploration of a seldom-discussed ‘micro’ dimension of transnational studies, the practices of long-distance family relations and aged care. The importance of time as a key variable in transnational research is demonstrated through comparisons of the care exchanges of three cohorts of Italian migrants in Australia and their kin in Italy. A focus on ‘transnationalism from below’, the more quotidian and domestic features of transmigrant experience, highlights the importance of considering the role of homeland kin and communities in discussions of migration. The analysis of transnational care-giving practices illustrates that migrancy is sometimes triggered by the need to give or receive care rather than the more commonly assumed ‘rational’ economic motivations. Transnational lives are thus shaped by the ‘economies of kinship’, which develop across changing state (‘macro’), community (‘meso’) and family migration (‘micro’) histories, including, in particular, culturally construc...
322 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors develop the concept of "roots migration" to describe the migration of the second generation to their parents' homeland, and examine the transformation of highly translocal everyday lives to one of settlement in the parents' country of origin.
Abstract: It is common for members of the second generation to have nostalgic relations with their parents’ place of origin, particularly if they have grown up in strong transnational social fields. This leads some to actually migrate to the place where their parents are from. They expect to find the ideal homeland which had provided them with a strong sense of belonging during their transnational childhood and adolescence. In this article I develop the concept of ‘roots migration’ to describe the migration of the second generation to their parents’ homeland. Drawing on second-generation Italians in Switzerland, and expanding upon theories of transnationalism, I examine the transformation of highly translocal everyday lives to one of settlement in the parents’ country of origin. I describe how the second generation deals with the discrepancies between their images of the homeland prior to migration and the actual realities they meet once they settle there. Furthermore, I explore how notions of belonging and ‘roots’...
221 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the actual and perceived size of a minority group has no effect on anti-immigration attitudes in Europe, and neither actual nor perceived size has any effect under different economic or political contexts.
Abstract: A specific case of group threat theory states that the size of a given minority has a direct bearing on anti-immigrant attitudes amongst the majority, a hypothesis that has been shown to have some merit, especially in the USA. This article embarks on group threat theory by focusing on the actual as well as the perceived size of a minority under different political circumstances. Data are drawn from the European Social Survey. After using multilevel analysis for 20 European countries, the paper concludes that neither actual nor perceived size matter for anti-immigrant attitudes in Europe. Nor does size have any effect under different economic or political contexts. This challenges both the theoretical foundation of this specific case of group threat as well as the European political discourse that claims that immigration needs to be reduced in order to lessen tension and, in the long run, preserve a stable democracy.
218 citations
TL;DR: The authors in this article reviewed some of the key themes underpinning the growing interest in the second generation, and asked what "integration" actually means in contemporary debates about immigration and settlement.
Abstract: This introductory paper to the special issue of JEMS on the second generation in Europe reviews some of the key themes underpinning the growing interest in the second generation, and asks what ‘integration’ actually means in contemporary debates about immigration and settlement. The authors attempt to place these debates within their specific national contexts, in particular by applying US-developed theories of second-generation integration to Europe. In this way, we build on the embryonic transatlantic dialogue about which factors potentially account for different patterns of second-generation integration in different countries. Integration, in this sense, refers both to structural aspects such as educational and labour-market status as well as to a broader and at times fuzzier concept that includes ideas of culture, ethnic or religious identity and citizenship. The paper also sets the scene for the various articles in this special issue which together illustrate the thematic breadth of European-based re...
211 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the narratives of Zimbabwean women and men working as carers in the UK and investigated why social care has become an important focus of employment for Zimbabweans, and explored the means by which migrants of different legal status have negotiated work in diverse sector.
Abstract: This article contributes to the literature on 'global care chains' by examining the narratives of Zimbabwean women and men working as carers in the UK. It investigates why social care has become an important focus of employment for Zimbabweans, and explores the means by which migrants of different legal status have negotiated work in a diverse sector. The article explores the experiences of a highly educated, middle-class migrant group, who left their country in the context of deepening economic and political crisis. Some Zimbabweans have been able to use transnational mobility and care work as a means of coping, finding opportunities to meet family obligations and personal ambitions, while entrepreneurs have found openings to set up in business as care agencies, providing work for their compatriots and others. Yet the article also emphasises the stress and deskilling most Zimbabwean care workers have experienced in trying to support themselves and dependents through excessive hours of low-status and often poorly paid work, the strain of working in strongly feminised and racialised workplaces, and the insecurities and abuse produced by informality, including 'tied' and other forms of labour exploitation. There is a need for greater attention to be paid to the dynamics of race and gender in social care workplaces, and to means of securing the rights of migrant careworkers, who are playing an increasingly important role in caring for some of the most vulnerable members of British society.
195 citations
TL;DR: For instance, the authors argues that the study of migration has been peripheral in national scientific discourses and hierarchies, leading to the diverging dual roles of the sociology of migration either as an administrative tool based on micro-analyses of'social problems' or as a form of social critique cut off from actual struggles in institutions, workplaces and nations.
Abstract: International migration is, by definition, a social phenomenon that crosses national borders and affects two or more nation-states. Its analysis requires theories and methodologies capable of transcending the national gaze. This applies more than ever in the current epoch of global migratory flows and growing South–North mobility. Sociology claims to be based on the work of scholars from around the world and to have theories and methods valid for all societies. It should therefore have an important role in the development of global migration studies. Yet national approaches, deriving from historical projects of nation-building, have often been dominant. Moreover, the study of migration has been peripheral in national scientific discourses and hierarchies. This has often led to the diverging dual roles of the sociology of migration either as an administrative tool based on micro-analyses of ‘social problems’, or as a form of social critique cut off from actual struggles in institutions, workplaces and neig...
180 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored the culture of migration among professionals and labourers in the Indian city of Hyderabad, and argued that it is the desire to migrate that promotes migration to the US and Saudi Arabia, even though opportunities at home are greater for some, and opportunities abroad are more restricted.
Abstract: Most studies of migration that ask why and how people migrate examine economic rationales and the network connections of migrants. In this article, I explore one understudied aspect of the migration process, the ‘culture of migration’, using data gathered from field research in Hyderabad, India. Hyderabad is a city with substantial capital investment, especially from IT companies, and is an excellent site to examine how the desire to migrate remains salient in spite of the immigration of capital to the migrants’ home setting, resulting in increased job opportunities at home, at least for professionals. Additionally, greater restrictions have been placed by Persian Gulf states on migrant labourers, resulting in decreased opportunities abroad. I argue that it is the culture of migration among Hyderabadi Muslim professionals and labourers that promotes migration to the US and Saudi Arabia, even though opportunities at home are greater for some, and opportunities abroad are more restricted for others. I furth...
152 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors combine theories on niching with those on gendered labour market segregation and show that there are similarities in the underlying processes and explanations for the formation of ethnic niches.
Abstract: The topic of this JEMS special issue is how the formation of ethnic niches is gendered. We combine theories on niching with those on gendered labour market segregation and show that there are similarities in the underlying processes and explanations. The interaction between niching and gendered labour market segregation takes place at four points. In the first place, entrepreneurship is less of an option for immigrant women than it is for immigrant men. Yet, in some sectors, immigrant women have more options for entrepreneurship than they had in their countries of origin. Their participation in the niche, as workers or as entrepreneurs, strengthens the niche and ensures its continuity. Secondly, women's participation in some niches leads to demands for highly flexible child-care and thus the development of a further niche. In the third place, the concentration of immigrant women in domestic work takes shape as a niche, especially as this sector becomes more ethnicised. The domestic sector, furthermore, is...
120 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the emergence and contemporary reproduction of the Filipino ethnic niche in global seafaring and the construction of a Filipino seafarer identity are analyzed. But the authors focus on seafarers themselves, and focus on how the development of exemplary styles of masculinity at home, despite subordinate racial and class positions both onboard and in the labour market, helps seafarers endure the harshness of workplace conditions.
Abstract: The article analyses the emergence and contemporary reproduction of the Filipino ethnic niche in global seafaring and the construction of a Filipino seafarer identity. Drawing on secondary literature and in-depth interviews, it focuses on the intimate link between patterns of labour-market and workplace segmentation, the making of multiple masculinities, and shifting processes and prestige of labour migration. The paper documents the role of the Philippine state in promoting and regulating the seafaring niche and in crafting narratives of heroism and masculinity to reinforce it. Then, focusing on seafarers themselves, it shows how the construction of exemplary styles of masculinity at home, despite subordinate racial and class positions both onboard and in the labour market, helps Filipino seamen endure the harshness of workplace conditions, while at the same time defend and reproduce their gendered ethnic niche.
115 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined domestic service in Europe, the Western Hemisphere, Africa, Australia, India and Japan from early modernity to the present to reveal broad trends in gendered labour, migration and ethnic strategies that are often missed by local and national approaches.
Abstract: This article examines domestic service in Europe, the Western Hemisphere, Africa, Australia, India and Japan from early modernity to the present to reveal broad trends in gendered labour, migration and ethnic strategies that are often missed by local and national approaches. It detects a feminisation of the occupation and attempts to find an explanation for this in particular aspects of modernity. It shows that migrants predominated in the sector in almost all of the places examined. It argues that, at least for international migrants, working in domestic service reflected a combination of economic circumstances and ethnocultural preferences that is akin, in some respects, to the formation of ethnic niches.
114 citations
TL;DR: This article argued that the emergence of highly differentiated institutional domains of law, politics and identity at the European level has resulted in the convergence of basic legal principles of religious governance as well as in the persistence of divergent national patterns of incorporating religious minorities.
Abstract: Recent comparative social science research has emphasised that different patterns of incorporating Muslim migrant minorities are related to institutional varieties of religious governance in Western European countries. This article focuses on the emergence of institutional elements of religious governance at the European level and their impact on the organisational and symbolic incorporation of Muslims. Drawing on conceptual tools from institutional theories in sociology, it is argued that the emergence of highly differentiated institutional domains of law, politics and identity at the European level has resulted in the convergence of basic legal principles of religious governance as well as in the persistence of divergent national patterns of incorporating religious minorities. These contradictory trends explain specific features of contemporary Muslim migrants’ struggles for public recognition.
TL;DR: In this paper, the primary factors affecting Hong Kong adolescent immigrants' life satisfaction and sense of belonging to Canada were disentangled from a self-administered questionnaire survey, which indicated that presence of a father in Canada, higher self-rated socio-economic status, positive experience in making friends with Canadians, positive academic experience, absence of discrimination experience, and immigration to Canada being noneconomically motivated were associated with a markedly higher level of life satisfaction.
Abstract: This article attempts to disentangle the primary factors affecting Hong Kong adolescent immigrants’ life satisfaction and sense of belonging to Canada. A total of 368 participants attending 26 high schools under the jurisdiction of six school boards in Toronto took part in a self-administered questionnaire survey. Results of the multiple ordinary least-squares regression analysis indicated that presence of father in Canada, higher self-rated socio-economic status, immigration to Canada being politically and culturally motivated, positive experience in making friends with Canadians, immigration to Canada at a later stage in life, and no prior experience in Canada before immigration were associated with a stronger sense of belonging to Canada. On the other hand, positive experience in making friends with Canadians, positive academic experience, absence of discrimination experience, and immigration to Canada being non-economically motivated were associated with a markedly higher level of life satisfaction.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine these trajectories in the light of various terms such as cosmopolitan, translocal, hybrid, and l'homme des confins that have been used to characterise actors who in some sense transcend traditional boundaries.
Abstract: There were a number of problems with the anthropology of transmigration in the 1990s which have gradually been addressed. It is now well understood that transmigration is not a singular phenomenon: there are different ways of being transnational, and transnationalism affects people in different ways—e.g. by gender. There was also a tendency to treat transmigration as a static phenomenon, whereas it is a long-term process which may be viewed, from an analytical perspective, as a trajectory, or rather as a multiplicity of potential trajectories. The paper examines these trajectories in the light of various terms such as cosmopolitan, translocal, hybrid, and l'homme des confins that have been used to characterise actors who in some sense transcend traditional boundaries. Frequently, however, these terms are employed in ways which tend to decontextualise and conflate different personal and institutional subject positionings, and in doing so analyses may overlook the extent to which transmigrants remain bound ...
TL;DR: The authors discusses the concepts and perspectives of the governance and government of religious diversity, critically analysing the inherent problems of constructing patterns or models of the relationship between (organised) religions, societies, politics, nations and polities/states.
Abstract: Recently, we have seen a shift from research on the internal structure and culture of Muslim religiosity to research on the way in which societies create opportunities for the development of Islam, or oppose them, and more particularly to the political opportunity structure and the institutionalised regimes and policies of governing Islam in Europe from a neo-institutionalist perspective. This introduction to the special issue discusses the concepts and perspectives of the governance and government of religious diversity, critically analysing the inherent problems of constructing patterns or models of the relationship between (organised) religions, societies, politics, nations and polities/states. My analysis opts for fairly disaggregated frames for the purposes of rich descriptions of cases, synchronic comparisons and diachronic changes, which are a precondition for asking the relevant explanatory questions: Why what happened happened here and not there? Why now and not then? This framework is used to cr...
TL;DR: The second and third generations of British Pakistanis are motivated by contemporary political tensions and Islamophobia, and the idea of a possible return to Pakistan represents a response to contemporary political tension as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: This article documents forms of ‘homeland’ attachment and analyses their significance among second- and third-generation British Pakistanis by comparison with the ‘myth of return’ that characterised the early pioneer phase of Pakistani migration to Britain. ‘Homeland attachment’ for young British Pakistanis is constituted through school holidays spent in Pakistan, participation there in life-cycle rituals involving the wider kinship network, and the older generation’s promotion of the idea of Pakistan as a spiritual and cultural homeland. The article suggests that, for the pioneer generation, the ‘myth of return’ justified a socio-economically motivated migration. Yet for the second and third generations, ‘homeland’ attachments and the idea of a possible return to Pakistan represent, instead, a response to contemporary political tensions and Islamophobia. Thus, while ‘myth of return’ remains, for the majority, a myth, it has been revitalised and has a new political significance in the contemporary political context. The paper will first of all acknowledge the intersections between the two continents and analyse how homeland attachment is transmitted to younger generations through the organisation of the life-cycle. In the second part, attention will switch to the economic ‘myth of return’ of the pioneer generation and its transformation into a political issue with reference to contemporary global events.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the religion of immigrants who have moved from highly religious nations into a rather secular receiving context, the Netherlands, and found that stronger social integration in Dutch society would diminish the religiosity of immigrants, as indicated by three religious variables: affiliation, attitudes and attendance.
Abstract: This study examines the religion of immigrants who have moved from highly religious nations into a rather secular receiving context, the Netherlands. It is hypothesised that stronger social integration in Dutch society would diminish the religiosity of immigrants, as indicated by three religious variables: affiliation, attitudes, and attendance. In order to examine this idea, the study uses large-scale surveys of four immigrant groups (Turks, Moroccans, Surinamese and Dutch Antilleans) in the Netherlands in 1998 and 2002. The analysis shows that social integration indeed has the predicted negative effect on religiosity.
TL;DR: This paper examined the ways in which problematic concepts of home, family, belonging and the 'immigrant woman' underpin discourses of immigration and asylum in contemporary Britain, and explored these issues through a critical reading of both government policy documents and tabloid press representations.
Abstract: Drawing on the insights of feminist theories of identity, this paper examines the ways in which problematic concepts of home, family, belonging and the ‘immigrant woman’ underpin discourses of immigration and asylum. It explores these issues through a critical reading of both government policy documents and tabloid press representations, and considers how these texts both presume and produce gendered limits to the terms of citizenship and belonging in contemporary Britain.
TL;DR: The authors argue that English language is used symbolically as a cultural boundary marker, which both defines minority ethnic communities and excludes them from the re-imagined national 'community' that lies at the heart of current discourses around nation and citizenship.
Abstract: In recent years, the Home Office has adopted a reinvigorated policy of citizenship education and integration towards both new immigrants and settled minority ethnic communities. One of the cornerstones of this new policy is English language, which is seen as a key tool for the successful integration of Britain's diverse communities. This paper is divided into two parts. Firstly, it explores the changing role of English language in the current debates around citizenship, nationhood and belonging. It argues that English language is used symbolically as a cultural boundary marker, which both defines minority ethnic ‘communities’ and excludes them from the re-imagined national ‘community’. Secondly, using empirical research from a recent study on ‘Access to Services with Interpreters’, the paper seeks to challenge the reification of national and minority versions of ‘community’ that lies at the heart of current discourses around nation and citizenship. Taking language as a key symbol of ‘community’, the paper...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present findings of a qualitative study of Albanian immigrants in Athens and Mytilene (on the island of Lesvos) in Greece, focusing on the significance of family, kinship, ethnic and other social networks for immigrants' working and life trajectories in the country.
Abstract: In this article we present findings of a qualitative study of Albanian immigrants in Athens and Mytilene (on the island of Lesvos) in Greece. The study investigates the role that various forms of social capital can play in the social, economic and institutional incorporation of Albanian immigrants in Greek society. The paper focuses specifically on immigrants’ interpretations and experiences of social incorporation processes in Greece, placing emphasis on the significance of family, kinship, ethnic and other social networks for immigrants’ working and life trajectories in the country. Finally, the investigation of the impact of three main forms of social capital—bonding, bridging and linking—on the social incorporation of Albanian immigrants, leads to the question of Greek migration policy formation and reveals the need for its radical restructuring.
TL;DR: In this paper, the compatibility of Islam and democracy from the angle of empirical democratic theory and in a broad historical and comparative perspective is discussed, including the argument of a Christian rooting of modern democracy.
Abstract: This paper addresses the issue of the compatibility of Islam and democracy from the angle of empirical democratic theory and in a broad historical and comparative perspective. This includes the argument of, and evidence for, a Christian rooting of modern democracy. On the one hand, recent data and cross-time comparisons confirm that demo cracy's roots are in countries which are culturally shaped by Christianity. Religious traditions and institutions clearly provide constraints and opportunities for liberal democracies and processes of democratisation. Within the Christian tradition, distinctions between Roman Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity and Protestantism (also within Protestantism) matter, and so do different degrees of secularisation or specific patterns of Church–State relations. Religions that contain and prescribe an holistic view of society, especially Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Islam, tend to restrict the emergence and development of liberal democracies, and civil liberties in particular. On ...
TL;DR: For example, this paper found that women in Ecuadorian emigration to the United States were disproportionately concentrated in the lowest occupational category, domestic service, compared to women in Spanish emigration.
Abstract: Ecuadorian emigration to the United States reveals a classic male-led exodus from rural regions faced by long-term economic decline. Occupational results reflect this model, and the general openness of the American labour market. Jobs are gender-segregated, but human capital effects are evident; niches do not dominate male or female experience, nor do they seem likely to persist. Recent emigration to Spain is distinct: sparked by a sudden economic collapse, it emerges from an urban population with relatively high human capital. It was initially led by women, many of whom left families behind, a rare event in migration history. The labour market in Spain is not only segmented by sex but, for women, characterised by an extraordinary concentration in the lowest occupational category, domestic service. This differential comparative outcome can be explained by the historical setting of the two flows and the gender distinction in migration leadership.
TL;DR: The main steps in the integration of "Muslim ritual slaughter" into the national legislation of Western European countries, and an analysis of the economic and political issues involved are described in this paper.
Abstract: The production and consumption of halal meat products, i.e. deriving from Islamic ritual slaughter, have grown steadily over the last 15 years. Today the global halal market is estimated at US $150 billion per year. In this paper I describe the main steps in the integration of ‘Muslim ritual slaughter’ into the national legislation of Western European countries, and present an analysis of the economic and political issues involved. Once the subject of dispute between animal welfare organisations and religious groups, the arguments surrounding slaughter ritual have, more recently, particularly in the aftermath of the BSE crisis, evolved to become an issue of consumer rights. To illustrate this evolution, I examine two specific cases: Switzerland, as a European country, and the UK as a member-state of the European Union.
TL;DR: The authors argue that explicit national models of religious governance inevitably conceal tensions and ambiguities, and are not suitable bases for socio-political analysis of religious Governance. But they do not consider the long-term tradition of the state controlling and supporting recognized religions, a tradition that dates from the early modern Gallican Church and continues through Napoleon's Concordat, the state's assumption of responsibility for maintaining church buildings and paying religious school teachers' salaries in the twentieth century, and the recent creation of a national Islamic body, the Conseil Francais du Culte Musulman (
Abstract: In this paper, I argue that explicit national models of religious governance inevitably conceal tensions and ambiguities, and are not suitable bases for socio-political analysis of religious governance. I take the French notion of ‘laicite’ as an example, pointing out the diversity of definitions and uses of the term. A stronger foundation for analysis is the long-term tradition of the state controlling and supporting recognised religions, a tradition that dates from the early modern Gallican Church and continues through Napoleon's Concordat, the state's assumption of responsibility for maintaining church buildings and paying religious school teachers' salaries in the twentieth century, and the recent creation of a national Islamic body, the Conseil Francais du Culte Musulman (CFCM). I draw on this idea to examine the preceding papers in this special issue.
TL;DR: The authors explored how pre-existing Church-State practices and institutional arrangements structured the politics of state accommodation of Muslims' religious needs in each country, and explored the role of Islam in Islam education.
Abstract: With more than 10 million Muslims living in Western Europe, states are struggling to accommodate the religious needs of Muslims in state-supported institutions. Such issues include whether to fund separate Islamic schools and how or whether to teach Islam in state-supported schools. Despite these common concerns, national governments vary widely in their response to the religious needs and practices of Muslim citizens and permanent residents. This paper looks at how Britain, France and Germany have resolved these issues. We explore how pre-existing Church–State practices and institutional arrangements structured the politics of state accommodation of Muslims’ religious needs in each country.
TL;DR: The children of immigrants have lately become news in several European countries, where there is growing concern that their poor integration is caused by a lack of economic and social oportunities as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The children of immigrants have lately become news in several European countries, where there is growing concern that their poor integration is caused by a lack of economic and social oportunities....
TL;DR: This article showed that the children of recent immigrants will follow in the footsteps of the offspring of Italian or Polish labour migrants of the turn of the last century, gaining incorporation into working-class America.
Abstract: Concern with the prospects and experience of the ‘new’ second generation now stands at the top of the immigration research agenda in the United States. In contrast to the past, many immigrant offspring appear to be rapidly heading upward, exemplified by the large number of Chinese, Korean, Indian and other Asian-origin students enrolled in the nation’s leading universities, some the children of workers, others the descendants of immigrants who moved straight into the middle class. On the other hand, knowledgeable observers tell us that the offspring of today’s poorly educated immigrants are likely to experience a very different fate. In their view, post-industrial America is an inhospitable place for low-skilled immigrants and their offspring, as the latter are likely not to be integrated into the mainstream but acculturated into the ways and lifestyles of their underclass neighbours. We advance an alternative perspective, not captured by these two opposing views: namely, that the children of recent immigrants will follow in the footsteps of the offspring of Italian or Polish labour migrants of the turn of the last century, gaining incorporation into working-class America. Using samples of the Current Population Survey (CPS), we evaluate these hypotheses, comparing job holding and job quality patterns among the descendants of immigrants and their native counterparts.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors make a distinction between cross-ethnic (e.g., a Dutch neighbourhood association) and co-ethnic types of organisation (i.e., a Turkish youth club), as well as between horizontally structured or client-oriented organisations (such as trade unions).
Abstract: Across Europe, voter turnout among immigrant minorities is lower than among native citizens. Social capital theorists like Putnam argue that being part of civic organisations fosters social trust which results in increased political participation. To examine Putnam's argument, we asked random samples of Turkish and Moroccan minorities in Rotterdam about their participation in various types of association, to what extent they trust others, and whether they voted in the last local and national elections. Our central research question was: ‘Do civic organisations that generate trust have a more positive influence on participation in local and national elections than others?’ We make a distinction between cross-ethnic (e.g. a Dutch neighbourhood association) and co-ethnic types of organisation (e.g. a Turkish youth club), as well as between horizontally structured or client-oriented (e.g. religious associations) and authority-oriented organisations (e.g. trade unions). We argue that cross-ethnic and client-or...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored how values and norms get transmitted and transformed across the generations and argued that change occurring in immigrant families is not necessarily a move from tradition to modernity or from ‘ethnicity to ‘mainstream’.
Abstract: This article deals with continuity and change in immigrant families, focusing on the caring practices of the adult children of Italian migrants in the UK. Looking at motherhood, care for the elderly and the management of kin relations at a distance, the paper explores how values and norms get transmitted and transformed across the generations. The article shows both continuity and change in norms and values about care, and argues that change occurring in immigrant families is not necessarily a move from ‘tradition’ to ‘modernity’ or from ‘ethnic’ to ‘mainstream’. Motherhood is changing and acquiring a renewed value for second-generation women who are now putting it before paid work, contrary to first-generation women who tended to combine it with full-time work. In terms of intergenerational relations, the analysis shows that, despite the tensions sometimes occurring between parents and children, reciprocal bonds across the generations remain very strong, with children providing care for their ageing pare...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss some of the features of ethnographic methodologies and their application to understand migrancy and the transnational, and point to an ongoing tension in ethnographic approaches: between a methodological focus on social relationships that are tied to particular places, and an anthropological assumption of the researcher.
Abstract: Accounts of transnationalism are increasingly using ethnography to explore the nuanced details of everyday life in transnational contexts. An ethnographic focus arguably enables researchers to document the many ways in which migration, in association with processes of globalisation, transforms everyday life such that people might sustain connections across time and space in spite of their mobility. In this paper, I discuss some of the features of ethnographic methodologies and their application to understanding migrancy and the transnational. I point to an ongoing tension in ethnographic approaches: between a methodological focus on social relationships that are tied to particular places, and an anthropological assumption of the migrancy of the researcher. I use this tension to consider the extent to which understandings of the transnational might be an outcome of ethnographic research, or, rather, a lens through which ethnographers have come to see the world.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed the ways in which gender and ethnicity influence niche formation by exploring the role of social networks in Bolivian migration to Argentina, and found that a higher proportion of women than men work in the Argentine garment sector.
Abstract: Based on case-study material from Bolivian migration to Argentina, this article analyses the ways in which gender and ethnicity influence niche formation by exploring the role of social networks. It starts by making the link between niche formation and social networks, before analysing the ways in which migrants’ labour market insertion in Argentina is gendered. Migrants’ life stories and a survey of a community of ex-miners show that a higher proportion of women than men work in the Argentine garment sector. The data also show that migrant women and men do not have equal access to social networks. However, this unequal access does not, in itself, fully explain women's greater clustering in garment work. Rather, the article suggests that labour market segregation and the articulation of gender, class and ethnicity, as well as migration status, provide women with few alternatives.