Bridging the gap: transnational and ethnic organizations in the political incorporation of immigrants in the United States

This study was prompted by concerns about the ways in which immigrant organizations, especially those of a transnational character, may retard or prevent political integration among recent migrants to the United States. For this purpose, we constructed an inventory of all organizations created by Colombian, Dominican and Mexican immigrants in the United States, interviewed leaders of the twenty largest organizations from each group in person, and conducted a survey of 178 additional organizations by telephone or Internet. Results reveal a near-absence of perceived conflict between transnational activism and political incorporation. Almost without exception, leaders asserted that there was no contradiction between home-country loyalties and activities and US citizenship and voting. These results appear to reflect genuine conviction, rather than any social desirability syndrome. Objective indicators show that most organizations maintain close ties with US political authorities at various levels and engage in a number of US-focused civic and political activities. Determinants of such engagement are examined. Implications of the results for theory and public policy are discussed.     

Immigrants as settler colonists: boundary work between Dakota Indians and white immigrant settlers

With territorial expansion of the US came dispossession of Native Americans, supported by policies that made white immigrants settler colonists. On Indian reservations, the federal government encouraged land-taking by allotting land to Indians and making land available to homesteaders, many of them recent immigrants. Few scholars have studied relationships between Natives and newcomers. This paper draws on the concept of boundary work to analyse intergroup relations at the Spirit Lake Dakota Indian Reservation, where white settlers (principally Scandinavians) lived alongside Dakotas. To survive and coexist, Indians and immigrants marked and interpreted boundaries of belonging and exclusion. By establishing common practices, they enacted a mutuality that both reflected and subverted racial–ethnic hierarchies.     

Racialized political shock: Arab American racial formation and the impact of political events

This article explores significant factors influencing the process of Arab American racial formation. I bring into conversation theories of racial formation and ‘political shock’ in social movement scholarship to develop the notion of ‘racialized political shock’ as an important factor in how racial and ethnic groups mobilize and organize. Many moments of political shock are highly racialized and have the potential to reorder the racial and ethnic landscape in ways that can open opportunities or introduce constraints to mobilizations around racial formation. Drawing on existing studies of Arab Americans, this paper highlights how Arab American racial formation has been galvanized during moments of racialized political shock. In the Arab American case, these moments have led to a call for recognition outside the category of white. I conclude by outlining ways forward in the study of Arab Americans, who have been overlooked in studies of race and ethnicity in the US.     

Globalization and Migration: Post-Colonial Dutch Antillean and Aruban Immigrant Political Incorporation in the Netherlands

For much of its colonial history, the Netherlands experienced little contact with its island possessions in the Caribbean. Subsequent Dutch policy was formulated in the shadow of the Netherlands primary concern with its prosperous colony of Indonesia. The 1985 closing of the oil refineries in Aruba and Curacao, Netherlands Antilles and Aruba’s “status aparte” in 1986 triggered a mass migration from those Dutch “overseas countries” to the Netherlands. These recent migrations of thousands of Dutch post-colonial citizens have added to the Dutch reevaluation of its colonial past and debates about its multicultural democratic future.     

Police epistemic culture and boundary work with judicial authorities and forensic scientists: the case of transnational DNA data exchange in the EU

The exchange of forensic DNA data is seen as an increasingly important tool in criminal investigations into organised crime, control strategies and counter-terrorism measures. On the basis of a set of interviews with police professionals involved in the transnational exchange of DNA data between EU countries, this paper examines how forensic DNA evidence is given meaning within the various different ways of constructing a police epistemic culture, it is, a set of shared values concerning valid knowledge and practices normatively considered adequate and legitimate. The police epistemic culture is fuelled by multiple dynamics of boundary work, revealing how police professionals involved in international cooperation (i) define their specific core activities and competencies; (ii) construct particular understandings of valid knowledge and how it should be produced; (iii) enact the police epistemic culture in contrast to the epistemic cultures of the judicial authorities and forensic scientists.     

Ethnic and immigrant politics vs. mainstream politics: the role of ethnic organizations in shaping the political participation of immigrant-origin individuals in Europe

Previous scholarship has reported contradictory results regarding the impact of involvement by immigrant-origin individuals (IOIs) in ethnic organizations on political participation. In this article, we assess the effect of involvement in different types of organizations (ethnic, pan-immigrant and native) on participation in various types of political activities. We use cross-national micro-data from a population survey undertaken in 2004–2008 to IOIs in nine European cities. Our findings indicate that ethnic organizations perform an integrative function for IOIs in the political sphere, but they mainly affect participation linked to immigration-related issues concerning specific ethnic groups and IOIs. Moreover, most effects of involvement in ethnic organizations on the different types of political participation examined are similar in closed and in open political opportunity structures (POS). We only find evidence that involvement in ethnic organizations depresses conventional political action in open POS settings while it increases political action in closed POS settings.     

A political body of civic and communal belonging: political memories in the creation of the Australian immigrant society

Any notion of political belonging is highly contested. Ultimately though, the political body of a society is shaped by contestation of two modes of belonging: civic and communal. In Australia, the relationship between these two modes of belonging has been negotiated through political conflicts, not least in reference to immigration, since the early years of European settlement. This article traces the trajectory of these conflicts by analysing political memories, specifically those of Australia Day commemorations, to engage with the underlying tension that constitutes the country's political body. Engaging with the long-standing civic/ethnic debate, it is argued that the actual relationship between civic and ethnic/communal belonging, rather than any separate references to them, is crucial to the specific constitution of sovereign political bodies, their particular form of social and political conflicts, and the ensuing implementation of policies, not least regarding migration.     

自然科学课程思政的教学探索——以微生物学为例

课程思政是近年来在我国高校广泛推广的一种新的教学理念,其核心思想是将高校思想政治教育融入到各类课程教学之中。高校课程可以分为思想政治课程、通识教育课程、哲学社会科学课程、自然科学课程,其中自然科学课程与思政教育关系最为松散,思政元素的融入也最为困难。本文从微生物学融入课程思政的教学实践出发,分析高校自然科学类课程实施课程思政的必要性及难点,探索思政资源的挖掘路径,通过调查研究评估课程思政的教学效果,以及对课程思政的实践进行教学反思。此外,对专业课教师关于课程思政的观点分歧也做了初步探讨。本文旨在为微生物学相关课程实施课程思政提供理论支撑、实证数据以及教学经验,并可为其他自然科学类课程参鉴。     

生物类专业课程思政教学改革初探——以生物化学为例

课程思政教学改革近两年来获得广泛关注。如何在专业课教学中融入思政元素以达到二者协同育人的目的,是值得我们思考的问题。生物化学与微生物学、细胞生物学等课程具有显著的共性和关联,是生物类专业的重要基础课程。结合本科生生物化学课堂教学中的具体例子,本文介绍了课程思政教学改革的经验,重点探讨如何发掘专业知识点的思政内涵,为相关生物类专业课程思政教学改革提供参考。     

“代谢工程”课程思政案例的挖掘与运用

“代谢工程”课程是生物类工科专业本科生或研究生的一门重要的专业选修或必修课程,涉及学科领域广、应用性强。加强“代谢工程”课程思政教学是适应教书育人和立德树人的时代需求。文中详细列举了“代谢工程”课程中开展思政教学的一些典型案例,寓思政教育于课程教学环节之中,借此对工科生进行正确的价值引领,从而培育学生的科学精神,加强学生的文化自信和家国情怀,增强学生勇攀科学高峰的信心。     

The politics of race and sport: Resistance and domination in the 1968 African American Olympic protest movement

Using the case of the African American Olympic protest movement that grew out of the crisis of the civil rights struggle in the late 1960s, this article is an attempt to argue that work involving identity, culture and popular culture is crucial to the study of race and ethnicity in the contemporary world. A reconstruction of this movement demonstrates, first of all, how a cultural arena like sport can make it possible for otherwise powerless racial and ethnic minorities to draw attention to their cause. Of course, as with most insurgent movements, such initiatives ultimately (and often very quickly) come up against structural impediments that work to reject or absorb their challenge and reinforce the hegemony of the established regime. But the precise nature of the structural constraints operating in this particular case provides profound insight into the construction of social order in liberal democratic settings and the threat posed by cultural politics to this order. More specifically, I argue that athletic protest was overwhelmingly condemned and rejected because it threatened to rupture the homologies between sport culture and liberal democratic ideology that otherwise legitimated a fundamentally individualist, assimilationist vision of racial justice and civil rights in the United States. In more general theoretical terms, then, culturally‐oriented movements expose the ways in which domination itself is deeply structured in and through culture. The article concludes by suggesting that this, especially in an age when capital and power have discovered techniques to insulate themselves against traditional, materialist forms of resistance, is why cultural forums and identity politics have become primary sites of the struggle for hegemony.