Religion,ethnicity and identity: former Soviet Christian immigrants in Israel

The social construction of ethnic and religious identities of Christian immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU) arriving in Israel under the Law of Return after 1990, and the role of churches in their social integration, are examined. As Israeli citizens actively involved in Christian churches, they challenge the Jewish character of the state, and the dynamics of their ethnic and religious identity should be understood in this unique context of reception. The analysis sheds light on the complex relationship between ethnic and religious identities and illustrates how different religious organizational configurations (Russian Orthodox and Greek churches) prompt immigrants to forge different patterns of identity along ethnic lines.     

Immigrant political socialization as bridging and boundary work: mapping the multi-layered incorporation of Latin American immigrants in Toronto

We present a longitudinal map of three overlapping organizational trajectories developed by Latin American immigrants in the city of Toronto. We propose the concept of bridging and boundary work to specify how new (1) intersectional political identities and organizational agendas are constituted by Latin American feminist women and artists in the interstice of (2) country-of-origin and (3) mainstream pan-ethnic organizations. Boundary work occurs as activists with intersectional priorities carve out a distinct political agenda; the ‘out-group’ relations based on a shared sectoral focus constitute bridging work. Tracing changes in the local and transnational political opportunity structures, we consider how negotiations over resources, representation and agendas between these three Latin American organizational forms generate multi-directional political learning and socialization and the coexistence of different Latin American political cultures. We define political socialization as in-group and out-group encounters between political cultures understood as civic toolkits or ways of doing politics.     

The process of ethnogenesis among Haitian and Israeli immigrants in the United States

This article examines the process of ethnic identity formation among two different groups of recent immigrants to the United States: secular kibbutz‐born Israelis and middle‐class Haitians. While the two groups are different in a number of ways, they share an ambivalence with the identities that American society would assign to them ‐ as Jews and blacks respectively. By contrasting these two case studies we identify the role of the ‘proximal host’, the category to which the immigrants would be assigned following immigration. The determination of the ultimate definition of the ethnic identities of these immigrants is a result of the interaction of the conception of identity the immigrants bring with them from their countries of origin, the definitions and reactions of the proximal host group, and the overall ordering and definitions of American society. The ambivalence of both groups of immigrants towards their post‐immigration identities is a result of both macro‐forces determining the definition of categories and micro‐forces of individual choice. In conclusion we show that because of the primacy of race in American society, Israelis are likely to face many more options in the determination of their identities, than are Haitians, although they both face a similar structural dilemma.     

Being black,foreign and woman: African immigrant identities in the United States

This paper contextualizes racial and ethnic identities in shaping African women’s work lives in the USA. While the literature on black immigrant groups has posited that ethnic identities are often deployed to shield black immigrants from racism, my findings indicate that for a group of African women, their racial and ethnic identities are viewed as potential sources of discrimination. As black immigrant women from middle-class backgrounds in their home countries, they also articulate experiences with racism and downward social and occupational mobility. Accounting for how race and ethnicity intersect in the lives of black immigrant groups can nuance our understanding of racial identities and highlight diversity in experiences among national and regional groups. Focusing on particular health-care settings further suggests the importance of professional contexts in shaping the identity formations of recent black immigrants.     

Difficult stories: Public discourse and narrative identity in Eastern Germany

Whilst former political prisoners of the socialist state are considered to be important witnesses of the past socialist rule by governmental authorities, able to testify about the ‘regime’, the eastern German public seems rather uninviting to their telling their life-stories. At the interstices of a demand for talking and a refusal of being listened to, the creation of narratives which would serve to portray one's experiencesis difficult. Following scholarship, narratives are furthermoreintertwined with individual identity. The article explores how in this situation of tension a group of former prisoners work together at constructing metaphors and narrative structures for the telling of individual stories, which will both communicate experiences well to a public, and be flexible enough for habitable individual identities.     

Radicalization and counter-radicalization at British universities: Muslim encounters and alternatives

Abstract

This paper explores the ‘spaces’ left over for Muslims to be ‘radical’ and the management of minority identities in light of their securitization in the UK. The paper considers a key site of this management of ‘radical’ identities: the university. The university works as prototypical case because of the ways in student activism and identity are a priori drawn together but also because of the prevalence of higher education among terrorists in the UK and USA. As a result, universities have been specifically targeted in counterterrorism and counter-radicalization measures. The paper reveals through student narratives how security discourses of ‘radicalization’ constrain their activism, university experience and identities. Yet, alternative identity constructions emerge that work against the moderate/radical binary. These narratives show how incomplete the process is of incorporating Muslims into the nation.     

Institutions,information exchange,and migrant social networks in Rome

While a considerable body of work examines immigrant networks, inadequate attention has been devoted to understanding how networks regulate the relationship between immigrants and host institutions. A rich immigrant process may reinforce current power structures by providing a convenient buffer between the elite and challengers. Conversely, immigration may challenge the status quo. I employ social network analysis to examine three understudied immigrant groups in Rome, Bangladeshis, Filipinos, and Peruvians. I find that they have developed systems of problem-solving and sense-making that often interrupt their interactions with host institutions. The state tolerates this because it situates immigrants’ concerns outside its sphere of responsibility.     

Practical Uses for Tiles

In this research study, I examined how institutional power affected the experiences of two dance educators attempting to gain their K–12 dance teaching license in Minnesota. My research analyzed the ways in which candidates applying for the portfolio review process constructed, amended, or abandoned their identities as teachers/artists/individuals while completing the process. Using critical discourse analysis to examine interview data collected in the study, I sought to better understand how institutional power disrupted the experiences of candidates completing their license via portfolio. My results suggest that participants in the study delegitimized their teaching experience outside of the K–12 context, which challenged their teaching identities and left them feeling powerless during the license via portfolio process. Confusing, inconsistent, and incorrect information provided by the Minnesota Department of Education combined with a lack of support from the state also contributed to their feelings of powerlessness.     

Return to sender? A comparative analysis of immigrant communities in ‘attrition through enforcement’ destinations

Drawing on surveys from two Mexican immigrant sending communities, this paper comparatively examines the link between subnational policy structures in US destinations and immigrants' settlement and residency behaviour. It focuses in particular on attrition through enforcement policy at the local and state level that is formed to trigger the voluntary exit of undesirable immigrants. With a twofold comparison of immigrants in three cities and two states, the analysis indicates that immigrants do not alter the duration of time they spend in receiving locales or change their state of residence due to restrictive subnational policies. Rather, economic and social factors more prominently shape immigrants' settlement and residency patterns. The implications of this analysis are discussed with particular attention to the incorporation process for immigrants who remain in destinations with attrition through enforcement policy.     

Conflicting categories? Women,conflict and identity in Northern Ireland

Women's involvement in ethno-national conflicts is often overlooked, due partly to gender expectations. The gendered nature of ethno-nationalist identities and the salience of gender categories during conflict both work to render women ‘invisible’. However, women do frequently engage directly in ethno-national conflict. Such engagement can provide a space to disrupt gender ideologies, but is typically evaluated by others with reference to gender norms. This paper examines direct conflict engagement by a group of loyalist women in Northern Ireland, a region noted for both ethno-national conflict and gender conservatism. Using discourse analysis, it explores how the women themselves understand their central role in street protests and confrontations. It examines: (1) how they construct their identities as women in this situation; (2) the extent to which they refer to gender in explaining the conflict; and (3) how they see their actions affecting gender norms and relations within their community.     

Afropolitan projects: African immigrant identities and solidarities in the United States

This article explores how Africans born or raised in the United States employ ethnicity to understand their racial and cultural identities. I argue that African immigrants engage positive narratives about Africa along with their experiences of anti-black racism to articulate identities as “Africans of the world”. I call this articulation of identity Afropolitan projects. The Afropolitan as an ethnicity is not meant to shield Africans from anti-black racism, but instead helps articulate a particular relationship to this form of inequality. The following analysis derives from a qualitative case study of a voluntary association comprising Ghanaians primarily raised in the United States. I find that the group’s identity is as much about being black, African, and American as it is about being middle-class, Christian, and heterosexual. Through their Afropolitan projects, this group emphasizes solidarities with a global middle-class heterosexual patriarchy while foreclosing solidarities with working class, queer, and other people of colour.     

Factors related to traditionalism among Navajo students

Strong communal identities and institutions have survived in the Mexican state of Oaxaca in spite of over 150 years of central state efforts to eliminate them. This article examines why this is so, focusing on the liberal reform period of 1856 to 1911, when state officials mandated the privatization of communal land held under corporate title by Mexico's indigenous communities. In contrast to much of the literature on nations and nationalism, in which local and national identities are held to be in opposition, the article argues that local identities and institutions survived in Oaxaca precisely because villagers employed national identities, discourses, and institutions in their defence. More generally, the article contends that we need to rethink the conventional contrast between local and national identities, in order to better comprehend the politics of nation-building and state formation: local identities (communal, ethnic, regional, religious) can only be understood in terms of how they relate and respond to national identities and state institutions; national identities and state institutions, in turn, are in part constructed by subordinate groups whose understanding of the nation is informed by their own local identities, cultures and histories of political conflict.     

The “foxes” outfoxed: contestations between Koreans and Jews in South American textile industries

This paper is an analysis of the complex and contradictory experiences of Korean immigrants in South America. It critically analyzes the political economy of development and neoliberalism in South Korea, Brazil, and Argentina, while highlighting Korean immigrants in the apparel industry and analyzing their interactions with Jewish clothing manufacturers. The different position of Jews and Koreans in relation to the state apparatus, national belonging, global capitalism, and transnational networks and resources tends to create sociopolitical barriers which contribute to ethnic contestation and obstruct an otherwise meaningful social relationship. This paper will present and examine how these differences were formed and affected by global capitalism and neoliberalism.     

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.     

Seduced by Images: Identity and Schooling in the Lives of Puerto Rican Girls

Based on a two-year ethnographic study at an urban middle school, this article describes the power that images created by and about Puerto Rican girls hold in shaping their schooling experiences. Using a black, critical, feminist framework, I show how dichotomizing the sexuality of Puerto Rican females against their intellectual development obscures the complex ways that identities are co-constructed and then affirmed, appropriated, or resisted within their school site. I conclude that to resist the reproduction of educational inequality in the lives of Puerto Rican females, we must explore and seek to transform the influential ways that identities are mediated and educational outcomes are produced within the school contexts where Puerto Rican females are educated . [Puerto Rican, urban, educational equity, ethnicity, gender]     

History and ‘Mentawai’: Colonialism,Scholarship and Identity in the Rereiket,West Indonesia

This paper takes a critical look at the discursive construction of the identity of ‘the Mentaiwaians’ who are purported to inhabit the Mentawai islands in Western Indonesia. Out of a range of possible indigenous representations of identity ‘Mentawaian’ is the one that travellers and scholars universally use. I trace the formation of this representation in the very early literature on the islands authored by traders, travellers, scholars and missionaries. I then go on to examine the (hegemonic) effects of this on the way in which anthropologists have subsequently come to construct discursively the ‘culture’ of the ‘Mentawaians’. As an alternative, I propose that anthropological scholarship needs to take greater heed of the ways in which the local inhabitants construct their own identities. I briefly illustrate this through the example of my own work which describes a shifting and contextual construction of local identity in a particular locale on Siberut, the largest of the Mentawai islands.     

The role of language and the presence of previous immigration cohorts in immigrant political engagement: Ecuadorian collective action in New York City and Madrid

Scholarship on immigration has recently begun to examine the social process by which immigrants make collective demands. By focussing on the case of Ecuadorian immigrants in New York City and Madrid, this comparative analysis shows that in addition to differences in the political opportunity structures in these cities, there are at least two additional contextual differences shaping the ways in which participants in this study mobilize. Mobilization is shaped by the presence or absence of previous immigration cohorts and by linguistic differences. The findings reveal the value of undertaking comparative case analysis to shed light on immigrant collective political engagement.     

Becoming cosmopolitan? Hybridity and intercultural encounters amongst 1.5 generation Chinese migrants in New Zealand

The 1.5 generation migrants are often presented by scholars as the vanguard of new cosmopolitan possibilities. Their hybrid identities and intercultural competencies are viewed as evidence for new ways of approaching difference in diverse societies. This paper examines these claims in relation to Chinese 1.5 generation migrants in New Zealand, focusing on their experiences of negotiating the family and early life, and possibilities for becoming cosmopolitan. By drawing insights from ‘everyday cosmopolitanism’, we examine how hybrid identities both facilitate and undermine capacities to overcome difference and alter the power dynamics within social worlds. This demonstrates that everyday cosmopolitanism is not easily achieved but rather oscillates around strategies for fitting in that sometimes reinforce uneven social positions. We argue for caution in accounts of the 1.5 generation and recognition of the ways that cosmopolitanism is socially situated, subject to the multiple pressures, and enacted within the uneven power relations of society.     

Community Writing, Participatory Research, and an Anthropological Sensibility

Participatory research is a radical praxis through which marginalized people acquire research capabilities that they use to transform their own lives. In this article, I examine how parent writers incorporated facets of community writing into their research practice as they developed their practices and identities as researchers. I also consider how anthropology, as both research practice and sensibility, contributed to the ways I engaged as an outside collaborator with these parent researchers.  [community writing, participatory research, praxis, anthropological sensibility]     

Superdiversity and conviviality: exploring frameworks for doing ethnography in Southern European intercultural cities

International migration contributes to increasing cultural diversity in many European cities. Historically, migration studies have focused on the integration of immigrants foregrounding race/ethnicity and identity issues, limiting our understanding of intercultural diversity. A new paradigm focusing on relational patterns among groups is emerging, highlighting the importance of mutual relations, interactions and influences among residents of different origins and backgrounds, including the experience of both immigrants and autochthonous populations. The notions of superdiversity and conviviality have significantly contributed to this debate. This paper discusses how both were methodologically operationalized in multi-sited ethnographies carried out in Lisbon and Granada, during 2009–2012. Superdiversity and conviviality are the main theoretical frameworks used to understand how interculturality is lived and experienced at the local level. We reflect on their strengths and weaknesses, unpacking common assumptions about race, ethnicity and culture, specifically looking at the negotiation of difference in intercultural events.