Complex belongings: Racialization and migration in a small English city

The article explores how long-term residents in a small city with rural links in the East of England related to new migrants at a time of changing patterns and increased volume of migration. Based on in-depth interviews and observations in 2005–6, the article shows dynamic, complex, and nuanced constructions of belonging and governmentalities of belonging. Long-term Peterborians felt proud that their city attracted migrants and became more multicultural. Many saw this as a normative aspect of being modern. Yet, the arrival of migrants also led to tensions and re-inscribed the racialization of Peterborough's ethnic minorities, articulated through the theme of neighbourliness. Through the figures of ‘uncaring migrant neighbours’ and ‘ruthless Pakistani landlords’, migrants and ethnic minority Peterborians were portrayed as refusing injunctions to care for the neighbourhood and the nation. Ethnic minority Peterborians were positioned ambivalently as hosts of and – at times – targets of racism by new migrants.     

Introduction: gender,migration and the media

Abstract

Mediated representations of gender, ethnicity and migration play an increasingly important role in the way these categories are understood in the public sphere and the private realm. As media often intervene in processes of individual and institutional communication, they provide frameworks for the production and consumption of representations of these categories. Thus media – in their production, representations and consumption – need to be analysed, not only as reflections as pre-existing socio-political realities, but also as constitutive elements in the production of meanings of the self and the Other. This special issue includes a number of articles that examine the articulations of gendered ethnic identities and of gendered citizenship as these are shaped in media production, media representations and media consumption.     

How marginality leads to inclusion: insights from mobilizations of Chinese female migrants in Paris

ABSTRACT

This article examines the collective actions undertaken by two groups of Chinese female migrants in Paris: sex workers who opposed a new law on prostitution, and manicurists who joined trade unions and went on strike. These women share similar geographical origins and migration projects; many came to France alone, and thus have much weaker social capital than other Chinese migrants in Paris, which pushed them to choose professional sectors viewed as marginal or even stigmatized. Despite their precarious situation, their marginal position has created conditions for collective action, enabling them to develop strong sense of collective belonging and receive support from organizations outside the community. These findings show how a marginal position in an ethnic community can be a triggering factor for migrants’ inclusion and political engagement in the host society.     

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.     

Migrant African women: tales of agency and belonging

Abstract

This paper explores issues of belonging and agency among asylum seekers and refugee women of African origin in the UK. It discusses the ways these women engendered resistance in their everyday life to destitution, lack of cultural recognition, and gender inequality through the foundation of their own non-governmental organization, African Women's Empowerment Forum, AWEF, a collective ‘home’ space.

The focus of this account is on migrant women's agency and self-determination for the exercise of choice to be active actors in society. It points to what might be an important phenomenon on how local grassroots movements are challenging the invisibility of asylum seekers’ and refugees’ lives and expanding the notion of politics to embrace a wider notion of community politics with solidarity.

AWEF is the embodiment of a social space that resonates the ‘in-between’ experience of migrant life providing stability to the women members regarding political and community identification.     

Strategic citizens of America: transnational inequalities and transformation of citizenship

This article analyses the process whereby ‘natural' citizens of one country mobilize their resources so that their children receive by birthright, the citizenship of a rich liberal democracy. Utilizing the case of Turkish upper classes, who give birth in the USA in order to benefit from the jus soli principle, we trace the emergence of new inequalities at the intersection of multiple citizenship regimes. We show that, by mobilizing resources in markets of health care, travel, and real estate, those with means can acquire US citizenship for their children in expectation of future benefits. Because they are able to access ‘valuable' citizenships, these actors can strategically combine privileges within nation states with inequalities between citizenship regimes at the global level for the children. Their differential access to citizenship enhances the gate-keeping functions of citizenship. Based on these observations, we draw an analogy between citizenship and property regimes, understood broadly.     

Patterns and determinants of immigrants’ sense of belonging to Canada and their source country

This study examines the relative distribution of immigrants who have: strong sense of belonging to both Canada and the source country; strong sense of belonging to Canada only; strong sense of belonging to the source country only; and weak sense of belonging to Canada and the source country. It further examines four sets of determinants of these acculturation profiles, including source-country socio-economic and cultural characteristics, immigrant entry status, post-migration experience, and demographic characteristics. Using a large national representative sample of 7,000 immigrants in Canada from over 100 countries, this study finds that the overwhelming majority of immigrants have a strong sense of belonging to Canada with or without a strong sense of belonging to their source country. Source-country attributes are as important as immigrant entry status and post-migration experience in affecting immigrants’ sense of belonging to Canada and their source country.     

A ‘Great Affective Divide’: How Gay Singaporeans Overcome Their Double Alienation

Since its independence in 1965, Singapore has been trying to unify its diverse ethnic, linguistic, and religious communities under one coherent national identity. Queer Singaporeans, however, suffer from a double alienation from the nation. While socially ostracised by the existing anti-sodomy Section 377A and the queer-unfriendly state policies that it justifies, they also suffer from that inability to identify with the nation called the ‘Great Affective Divide’. In this essay, I aim to achieve two goals. Firstly, I invoke the idea of cultural citizenship as I ethnographically investigate the efforts that queer Singaporeans make to overcome their national estrangement, particularly an event called ‘Pink Dot’. While such efforts do not receive universal support from queers, they are essential in the development of a better understanding of it means to be citizens of Singapore. Secondly, rather than wanting to remain socially marginal and critical of the norm, queers actually express their desire for national inclusion through Pink Dot. Yet, I argue that it would be erroneous to read this desire as ‘homonationalism’. As such, Pink Dot provides a fertile example that counters the conventional view within Queer Studies that queers always resist the hetero-patriarchal norm.     

Denying biological parenthood: fosterage in Northern Benin

Among the Baatombu in Northern Benin, child fosterage is not an exception in crisis situations, but the common upbringing pattern: until some years ago, most of the Baatombu children did not grow up with their biological parents, but were fostered by social parents. There is a strong attitude of shame related to biological parenthood and an attempt to deny it. Young children are given to paternal or maternal relatives in order to stay with them until their marriage. This involves the transfer of all parental duties and rights to the social parents. Every gesture and practice of demonstrating property rights over one's biological child is therefore a definite breach of norms. Schooling, urbanization, and modernization also trigger off a transformation process. Particularly in the urban context, new forms of social parenthood, such as tutorship and temporary arrangements, have been developed. However, they have clear links to the old frame of ideas and norms.     

‘I'm American,not Japanese!’: the struggle for racial citizenship among later-generation Japanese Americans

Abstract

As one of the oldest Asian American groups in the USA, most Japanese Americans are of the third and fourth generations and have become well integrated in mainstream American society. However, they are still racialized as foreigners simply because of their Asian appearance. Their Asian phenotype continues to have a foreigner connotation because of large-scale immigration from Asia and an American national identity that is racially defined as white. This paper analyses how later-generation Japanese Americans are racialized as outsiders in their daily interaction with mainstream Americans, which is often accompanied by essentialized assumptions that they are also culturally foreign. In response, they engage in everyday struggles for racial citizenship by demanding inclusion in the national community as Americans despite their racial differences. It is uncertain whether such attempts to contest their racialization will cause current mono-racial notions of American identity to be reconsidered in more inclusive and multiracial ways.