Defensive localism in white and black: a comparative history of European-American and African-American youth gangs

Despite the largely voluntary character of Nigerian immigration to the United States since 1970, it is not clear that their patterns of integration have emulated those of earlier immigrants who, over time, traded their specific national origins for “American” or “White” identities as they experienced upward mobility. This path may not be available to Nigerian immigrants. When they cease to be Nigerian, they may become black or African-American. In this paper, I use US Census data to trace patterns of identity in a Nigerian second-generation cohort as they advance from early school-age in 1990 to adulthood in 2014. The cohort shrinks inordinately across the period as its members cease to identify as Nigerian, and this pattern of ethnic attrition is most pronounced among the downwardly mobile – leaving us with a positively select Nigerian second generation and, perhaps, unduly optimistic assessments of Nigerian-American socioeconomic advancement.     

Sub-state nationalism in Spain: primers and triggers of identity politics in Catalonia and the Basque Country

This article builds on recent attempts to explain divergent uses of sub-state nationalism to push for policies of assimilation or multiculturalism and drive popular support for independence. It analyses the dynamics of discourses and policies in Spain before, during and after peak times of identity politics to provide a more nuanced understanding of the conditions leading to the activation of identity-driven policies. Substantive ethnographic evidence is presented to explain recent alterations to national discourses of identity, surprising reversals of immigration policies, and the modulation of Catalan and Basque independence movements. The main finding is that both identity discourses and resulting policies depend on the affinity for identity politics at the sub-state level, and this affinity is in large part primed by the popular perception of how secure sub-state national identity is against the ‘official’ state narrative.     

Emergent publics,critical ethnographic scholarship and race and ethnic relations

This article asks what might be the possibilities and the limits of what academic research might strive for when we engage with the politics of race. It argues for a reflexive engagement with the historically sensitive production of critical ethnographic knowledge. Ethnography and the anthropological tradition, challenged in much politically progressive literature on race and ethnicity as a form of exoticism, a medium of orientialism and a field of misrepresentation, need to be considered in interdisciplinary traditions of knowledge production in the humanities and social sciences that examine efficacy and causality as central concepts of analysis.     

Wayward Migration: On Imagined Futures and Technological Voids

This article exploresimagined migration and migrantimaginaries. It takes its point of departure in fieldwork among would-be migrants in Bissau and traces the realization of their hopes into Europe. More specifically, it sheds light on the way young men from Bissau, the capital of the small, impoverished West African country of Guinea-Bissau, position the decline and destruction that characterize their city in relation to the peace, prosperity and progress they see elsewhere. In doing so, it illuminates a world that, seen from Bissau, is characterized by very uneven levels of control over socio-political matters. A world that is divided into different zones of mastery over social, political and economic processes. Finally, the article dwells on the consequences of this imagined global order and its effect on the acts and strategies of young migrants.     

White folks: race and identity in rural America

Abstract

Since the breakdown of the Middle East Peace Summit at Camp David in 2000 and the start of the second Palestinian Intifada there has been a voluminous literature that asserts that hostility to Israel and Zionism is a new form of anti-Semitism. This essay critiques the ‘new anti-Semitism’ view. Reversing the method that Plato uses in the Republic, the analysis moves from microcosm (an imaginary ride on a London bus) to macrocosm (the Middle East). In the process, the author argues that anti-Semitism is best defined not by an attitude to Jews but by the figure of ‘the Jew’. In the light of the analysis, and bearing in mind the variety of possible reasons for hostility to Israel or Zionism, it is difficult to see how the ‘new anti-Semitism’ view can be sustained.     

Racialization and religion: race,culture and difference in the study of antisemitism and Islamophobia

Abstract

It is striking to observe the virtual absence of an established literature on race and racism in the discussion of Islamophobia; something that is only marginally more present in the discussion of antisemitism. This special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies locates the contemporary study of antisemitism and Islamophobia squarely within the fields of race and racism. As such it problematizes the extent to which discussion of the racialization of these minorities remains unrelated to each other, or is explored in distinct silos as a series of internal debates. By harnessing the explanatory power of long-established organizing concepts within the study of race and racism, this special issue makes a historically informed, theoretical and empirical contribution to aligning these analytical pursuits.     

Teaching ethnic and racial relations: some comments on Michael Banton

Banton's critique of race and ethnic relations highlights differences between the U.K. and the U.S.A. The interplay between ethnic politics and the teaching of the subject in the universities reflects differing reactions to the demise of Marxism, the impact of globalization and the growth of transnationalism. In America, anthropology, economics, cultural studies and conflict resolution have had a mixed impact on the field, but an examination of textbooks over the past thirty years - as well as Banton's prolific scholarship - suggests that most of the core problems remain the same.     

Postcolonial France: race,Islam, and the future of the republic

Abstract

The study explored feelings of European identity and attitudes towards Europe manifested in two groups within the British population: the indigenous white British population (N?=?58) and the South-Asian ethnic minority (N?=?44). A social survey approach was used with scales to evaluate British, European and ethnic identities and also attitudes towards Europe. Perceived compatibility of identities was also assessed using a visual representation of identities task. Previous research findings were confirmed with the indigenous white British respondents, who displayed a strong sense of national identity negatively correlated with European identity. In contrast, the South Asian respondents displayed positive feelings of identification on all three levels, and a British identity that correlated positively with European identification.     

Pariah capitalism and the overseas Chinese of Southeast Asia: Problems in the definition of the problem

This paper explores how current shifts in racial discourse and demographics are reflected within the negotiation of paid domestic work. Various scholars have pointed out that racism in the United States has become increasingly covert and institutionalized, void of racial terminology and invisible to most whites. This shift has been institutionalized in the negotiation of domestic work, as alternative racial markers such as language and citizenship replace explicit racial terminology. Through an analysis of thirty interviews with white women who employ domestic workers this research examines contemporary negotiations of racial privilege and subordination in domestic work. Overall, white employers insisted that race did not matter when making hiring decisions; however other cultural markers such as language mattered greatly, at times even resulting in firing. In addition, complex and contradictory narratives about immigration were used to simultaneously both vilify immigrant workers and romanticize their work experiences.     

Homegrown foreigners: how Christian nationalism and nativist attitudes impact Muslim civil liberties

Building from the literature on racialization of Muslims, we argue that there are two unique dimensions to anti-Muslim attitudes: Christian nationalism and nativism. Christian nationalism subscribes to the idea of Christianity as being central to American identity, and nativism provides insight into the monopolies regulating citizenship. We then test this framework’s hypotheses on data drawn from the General Social Survey in 2014 to see if these two dimensions predict support for civil rights infringements of Muslim-Americans compared to other outgroups, including atheists, communists, and racists. The results indicate both Christian nationalism and nativism have significant and negative effects on Muslim civil liberties. We also find some differences between the effects of Christian nationalism and nativism on Muslim civil liberties compared to the other outgroups. We interpret these results as an indication that nativism works as an ordering principle to reconstitute who counts as American and who does not.     

Obesity,race and the indigenous origins of health risks among Mexican mestizos

We explore the discourses of Mexican scientists and doctors on genetics and obesity and how these relate to ideas about race, class and national identity. Drawing on interviews with geneticists and doctors treating obese children, the paper makes two contributions to the literature on race and medical science. First, although our data reveal familiar racializing tendencies among geneticists, a more nuanced view is needed, as medical doctors who are sceptical about genetic explanations nevertheless tend to racialize, using more environmental and cultural explanations, which adduce epigenetic mechanisms. Second, rather than focusing on minority groups, as in much literature on racialization and genetics, in Mexico ideas about racialized genetic (and cultural) ancestry also impinge on the majority “mestizo” (mixed-race) population, opening broader panoramas of racialized pathologization. These two factors represent an overall strengthening of discourses of race in Mexico and probably in much of Latin America.     

Immigrants and the Basque nation: diversity as a new marker of identity

Basque nationalism is singled out in the literature as a case of minority nationalism that faces an ongoing struggle between those in support of a liberal-inclusive definition of the nation and those favouring an exclusive-racialist one. Nevertheless, Basque nationalist parties have been welcoming of immigration and have legislated to create a regional citizenship based on residence rather than ethnicity. This article argues that, at least in part, the ‘positive’ response of Basque nationalists to the immigration wave that began in the early 2000s is an attempt to strengthen national solidarity by contrasting Basque values of openness and tolerance against the restrictive nature of the reforms to the immigration law in Spain that were initiated in 2000. This argument challenges the notion that sub-state nationalists are hostile to immigration because of the threat diversity poses to the nationalist project.     

Doing the right thing: Ants, honeybees and naked mole-rats

Traditionally the division of labour in social insects has been divided into two types: physical and temporal polyethism. New theoretical models indicate that temporal polyethism may be an emergent property rather than an organizational principle. Current research is revealing the relationship between temporal polyethism and the role of nonspecialized individuals within species of physically polymorphic social insects.     

Introduction: the language of inclusion and exclusion in the context of immigration and integration

Abstract

When migrant status and citizenship are defined by means of state categories, the language of inclusion and exclusion is key to an understanding of their contemporary shape and historical transformation. This introductory article provides an overview of some of the most relevant concepts in the discourse analysis of in- and exclusion, specifically with a view to the functioning of nation-state categories. It discusses forms of discursive problematization, such as defining, claiming, legitimizing, expanding, sensationalization and suggestion, and it connects these to the discursive drawing of boundaries discussed by the authors contributing to this issue. They focus on discursive constructions of ‘illegality’, race, class, gender, immigrant integration and transnationalism. We argue that, as state categorizations continuously differ, both the historical analysis of their genesis, functioning and transformation and the contemporary analysis of their effectuation in practices are crucial to an understanding of in- and exclusion.     

Immigration and the cost of ethnic subordination: the case of Israeli society

This study focuses on earnings disadvantages experienced by three ethnic groups of Jewish immigrants in Israel. Data were obtained from the 2011 Income Survey gathered by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. The findings reveal that when compared to Israeli-born, all ethnic groups are disadvantaged in earnings attainment in the first generation. The earnings disadvantages of immigrants as compared to Israeli-born decrease with the passage of time and become negligible in the second generation. To disentangle the impact on earnings penalty of ethnic origin from that of immigrant status, a procedure for decomposing mean differences between groups is introduced. The analysis reveals that earnings disadvantage among Ashkenazim and Soviet immigrants can be attributed to immigrant status but not to ethnicity. By contrast, earnings penalties among Sephardim immigrants can be attributed to both ethnicity and immigrant status. The implications of the long-lasting effect of ethnicity versus the short-term effect of immigrant status are discussed.     

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.     

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.     

The management of otherness beyond the state: integration policies and inclusive citizenship as a government paradigm in the Basque Country

The ethnic identity of second-generation immigrant youth has important implications for their association with, and integration in, receiving countries. This paper deals with the ethnic identity formation of second-generation Turkish immigrant youth in Germany, with particular attention paid to the notion of reactive ethnicity. While much of the literature discusses the ethnic retention of this specific group as unwillingness to integrate, this paper frames their ethnic identity formation as reactive ethnicity, which emerges in reaction to social exclusion. Utilizing a case study of Turkish students of disadvantaged schools, the article illustrates that reactive ethnicity is strongly linked to perceived discrimination and that it acquires characteristics of resistance when the dominant group denigrates and invalidates the immigrants' culture.     

Affiliative ethnic identity: a more elastic link between ethnic ancestry and culture

This paper explains the development of affiliative ethnic identity: an individual identity rooted in knowledge, regular consumption and deployment of an ethnic culture that is unconnected to an individual's ethnic ancestry until that individual regards herself, and may be regarded by others, as an affiliate of a particular ethnic group. While ethnic culture remains identifiably linked to a particular ethnic ancestry, ideological, institutional and demographic changes have elasticized the link between ancestry and culture, making the formation of affiliative ethnic identity possible. Multiculturalism and its accompanying value of diversity have become institutionalized such that individuals regard ethnic difference as something to be recognized and celebrated. The prevalence of ethnic culture in schools, ethnically infused products of popular culture, demographic changes and growing interethnic contact allow individuals, regardless of ethnic ancestry, ready access to multiple ethnic cultures, providing the basis for the formation of affiliative ethnic identity.