‘Have you got the Britísh?’: narratives of migration and settlement among Albanian-origin immigrants in London

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

‘National mission’: biopolitics,non-Jewish immigration and Jewish conversion policy in contemporary Israel

A large number of non-Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union have arrived in Israel since the late 1980s. This article explores how the Israeli State has responded to this perceived demographic threat by endorsing a pro-Jewish conversion policy targeted at this population of new citizens. By analysing a variety of ethnographic and textual materials, I trace the organizational processes and discursive practices through which conversion has been crafted into a ‘national mission’: an all-encompassing state endeavour whose impetus is a national-Zionist biopolitics. The Foucauldian concept of biopolitics offers a novel way to understand the interface between religious conversion and the nation-state. Specifically, it positions the concept of population as a primary analytical category, thereby enabling us to understand religious conversion as a mechanism of national population policy.     

From ethnic minorities to ethnic majority policy: Multiculturalism and the shift to assimilationism in the Netherlands

Abstract

Recently in numerous European countries of immigration, there has been a widespread ‘moral panic’ about immigrants and ethnic diversity. In The Netherlands, a backlash has occurred in policy and in public discourse, with migrants being blamed for not meeting their responsibility to integrate and for practising ‘backward religions’. Why is it that a self-defined ‘liberal’ and ‘tolerant’ society demands conformity, compulsion and introduces seemingly undemocratic sanctions towards immigrants in a move towards assimilationism? These issues are analysed by providing an overview of modes of incorporation of immigrants in the Netherlands and it presents evidence on the socio-economic situation of immigrants. The article argues that patterns of disadvantage cannot be explained solely by the low human capital attributes of the original immigrants. In spite of multiculturalism, the causes have to be sought in pervasive institutional discrimination and the persistence of a culture of racism. The study argues that a shift to assimilation is more likely to create further societal divisions.     

Philosophy,politics and extralegal action: Native Indian leaders in Canada*

Immigration and asylum are key political issues in Britain and the European Union. Yet the policies of states and supranational bodies seem to have had little success in preventing unwanted flows and effectively managing immigration and integration. This article examines three types of reasons for policy failure: factors arising from the social dynamics of the migratory process; factors linked to globalization and the North-South divide; and factors arising within political systems. Key issues include the role of migrant agency, the way the North-South divide encourages flows, and hidden agendas in national policies. EU efforts attempts to address the root causes of migration in countries of origin are discussed. The article concludes that migration policies might be more successful if they were explicitly linked to long-term political agendas concerned with trade, development and conflict prevention. Reducing North-South inequality is the real key to effective migration management.     

Bayesian parentage analysis reliably controls the number of false assignments in natural populations

Parentage analysis in natural populations is a powerful tool for addressing a wide range of ecological and evolutionary questions. However, identifying parent–offspring pairs in samples collected from natural populations is often more challenging than simply resolving the Mendelian pattern of shared alleles. For example, large numbers of pairwise comparisons and limited numbers of genetic markers can contribute to incorrect assignments, whereby unrelated individuals are falsely identified as parent–offspring pairs. Determining which parentage methods are the least susceptible to making false assignments is an important challenge facing molecular ecologists. In a recent paper, Harrison et al. (2013a) address this challenge by comparing three commonly used parentage methods, including a Bayesian approach, in order to explore the effects of varied proportions of sampled parents on the accuracy of parentage assignments. Unfortunately, Harrison et al. made a simple error in using the Bayesian approach, which led them to incorrectly conclude that this method could not control the rate of false assignment. Here, I briefly outline the basic principles behind the Bayesian approach, identify the error made by Harrison et al., and provide detailed guidelines as to how the method should be correctly applied. Furthermore, using the exact data from Harrison et al., I show that the Bayesian approach actually provides greater control over the number of false assignments than either of the other tested methods. Lastly, I conclude with a brief introduction to solomon , a recently updated version of the Bayesian approach that can account for genotyping error, missing data and false matching.     

Racism,disadvantage and multiculturalism: towards effective anti-racist praxis

Measuring ethnicity in any society is a challenge. Given world immigration patterns, many countries face a growing dilemma in determining the cultural antecedents of their populations. A further complication is the reality that such determination occurs within the political and nationalistic settings where ethnic‐cultural groups may be potent forces in their own right. As societies mature and evolve, there is an increasing tendency for populations, especially those with many generations of residence in the country, to see themselves as ‘indigenous’ to the society in which they live. Canada is not alone in having to deal with the fluidity of the concept, ‘Canadian’, ‘American’, ‘Australian’, ‘Yugoslav’, and ‘Soviet’ are parallel concepts in other countries of multiple ethnic composition. Using 1991 National Census Test results, the article explores some of the parameters of the indigenous category ‘Canadian’. In particular, the location in Canada and mother tongue of respondents reporting ‘Canadian’ as the ethnic origin of their parents and grandparents or as their own ethnic identity are important indicators for this emerging ethnic category.     

Preferential policies and the movement of the disadvantaged: The case of the Scheduled Castes in India

This article examines the effect of state actions on the political behaviour of disadvantaged minorities. Most studies of political mobilization fail to inquire about the role of the state in the formation and maintenance of political groups. This article describes the process through which the polity constructs new forms of group awareness and political action among previously inarticulate, unorganized sections of society. More specifically, it is about the political mobilization of an oppressed minority in India, the Scheduled Castes ‐ a group composed of distinct caste groups with specific cultural and occupational characteristics but lumped under a single category by the state. Through a longitudinal study comparing two periods in a state's political history I show how progressive state intervention in the form of preferential policies increased the political organization and activism of this oppressed minority. The analysis is based on a survey of government documents; coding of newspaper reports; interviews with politicians, administrative and police officials, grass‐roots activists and organizational leaders of the movement.     

Liminality and racial hazing of Muslim migrants: media framing of Albanians in Shepparton,Australia, 1930–1955

This article is a historical empirical study of the Albanian Muslim migrant community of Shepparton. Through analysing newspaper reports, the authors discuss how these migrants were portrayed as liminal between their first arrival and acceptance as Australians a generation later. This is characteristic of a practice which the authors term “migrant hazing”, where a migrant group is demonized as a threat to the society during the liminal phase. Migrant hazing occurs in public discourse, particularly the media, and ceases with the replacement of the group by newer migrants, who are subjected to the same process. Furthermore, migrant hazing remains present in contemporary depictions of Australian Muslims. In this longitudinal study, media reports on Albanian Muslims revolved around three persistent themes: their supposed criminality, the wrongful use of land and the threat of dual-loyalty. These three items constituted the main weapons of the media in hazing the first, liminal generation.     

Patriotism and language loyalties: comparing Latino and Anglo attitudes toward English-Only legislation

This study examines the role patriotism plays in structuring Anglo and Latino attitudes towards making English the official language of the United States. We rely on pooled data from the 1997 and 1998 Los Angeles County Social Survey and use logistic regression to examine the impact of patriotism and other determinants on support for English-Only policies. The results indicate that Latinos and Anglos hold distinctly different views on English-Only policies, with significant numbers of Anglos supporting these policies, and Latinos largely opposing them. Patriotism, as well as other socio-demographic variables, differentially structure Latino and Anglos attitudes towards linguistic policies. Specifically, patriotism significantly increases Anglo support for English-Only policies, but exerts little impact on Latino attitudes in this regard.     

Ethnic and civic dealings with newcomers: naturalization policies and practices in twenty-six immigration countries

Over the last decade or so, the comparative study of nationalism has produced a large number of cogent critiques of classifying nations according to how ethnic or civic they are. In fact, these critiques have been so convincing that many scholars today seem to agree that any mention of the words ‘ethnic’ and ‘civic’ is unwarranted. This is unfortunate, because the distinction still offers a useful heuristic device to compare and classify different nation-building practices. This article analyses naturalization policies in twenty-six Western immigrant-receiving democracies in order to show that the distinction constitutes a valuable analytical tool to explore how different countries deal with newcomers. The naturalization policy index developed in this article proves to have a high degree of face validity, to be a good predictor of actual naturalization practices, and to match up well with previous classifications of ethnic and civic nation-building practices.