Building a dual identity as an immigrant in the UK: Eritreans’ search for freedom and a sense of balance

This study explored the experiences of newly arrived and settled Eritrean immigrants currently in the UK. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with ten newly arrived (<one year) and ten settled (>seven years) participants, recruited through an Eritrean café and using snowball sampling. Thematic analysis identified three themes: (1) Wanting freedom, expectations of the UK and the desire for safety, (2) Integration and becoming part of the British community, (3) Personal development, which involved growth and aspirations. Transcending these themes was the notion of balance, and the co-existence of past and present. It is argued that Eritreans in the UK wish to become part of British community whilst at the same time remembering and celebrating their Eritrean culture. This is explained within the context of a dual identity and it is argued that rather than being a hindrance, a dual rather than single identity facilitates the process of integration.     

Spain: an extreme case of successful integration of second-generation immigrants with transfers of best practices applicable to other European countries?

This volume presents cutting-edge research on integration and adaptation processes of second-generation immigrant adolescents in Spain that no doubt constitutes an important and timely contribution to the migration-integration debate. Principal findings of the Investigación Longitudinal de la Segunda Generación study indicate a comparatively smooth integration of second-generation immigrant adolescents, arguably best explained by the theoretical hypotheses of neo-assimilationism and segmented assimilation. The major strengths of the study pertain to research design and methodology, and theoretical grounding that enables it to have far-reaching implications for future research on migrant youth in Spain and beyond. The focus here is primarily on questions of transferability of major findings to other European countries, such as Sweden. In essence, the authors’ findings raise a number of important questions regarding the feasibility (or infeasibility) of Spain’s laissez-a-faire approach to integration in countries with contrasting modes of incorporation.     

Exotic Dreams: A Cross-Cultural Study

The purpose of this study was to identify exotic (i.e., puzzling, unusual, extraordinary, anomalous) dreams in a sample of 1,666 dream reports from six countries, and to make gender comparisons as well. Research participants were members of dream seminars that one of us conducted between 1990 and 1998 in Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States. Only one dream report per participant was utilized, 910 dream reports from women and 756 from men. Scoring criteria were determined in advance for creative, lucid, healing, dreams within dreams, out-of-body, telepathic, mutual (and shared), clairvoyant, precognitive, past-life, initiation, and visitation dreams. When a dream fell into two categories, it received a score of 0.5 for each of the categories, rather than a score of 1.0, awarded when a dream represented a single category. In the sample of 1,666 dreams, there were 135 (8.1%) exotic dreams. Female dreamers reported 77 (8.5% of all female reports) exotic dreams, while male dreamers reported 58 (7.7% of all male reports), the difference was not statistically significant. The country with the highest percentage of exotic dream reports was Russia (12.7% of the total number reported by Russian seminar participants), followed by Brazil (10.9%), Argentina (9.0%), Japan (8.1%), Ukraine (5.9%), and the United States (5.7%). When chi square statistics were applied, it was found that Russian dreamers reported significantly more exotic dreams than dreamers in Ukraine or the United States.     

Disciplinary Anthropology? Amateur Ethnography and the Production of ‘Heritage’ in Rural France

‘Amateur’ anthropology and ethnography are utopian categories proposed by anthropologists seeking to critique a perceived culture of ‘professionalism’ within the discipline (Grimshaw &; Hart, 1993 Grimshaw, Anna and Hart, Keith. 1993. Anthropology and the Crisis of the Intellectuals, Cambridge: Prickly Pear Pamphlet No.1.  [Google Scholar]). Yet they have arguably been practised extensively by local intellectuals oblivious to such debates. In rural Europe, this has often involved ‘pastoral’ conservation of ‘local history’, ‘traditions’ and ‘folk customs’, in the context of identity politics. Recent manifestations, however, have enabled the disciplining of cultural practices of indigenous populations by local entrepreneurs for use in heritage tourism. Building on Foucault's concept of a ‘disciplinary programme’, this paper analyses projects from a French Mediterranean village that have ‘borrowed’ discursive forms from French ethnology and historiography to convert local heritages into disciplined archives and booklets, predominantly for use in tourism. It then analyses their approximation to the discipline of anthropology; assesses their problematic distinction from anthropology's own disciplinary programmes; and explores the implications.     

Testing for Validity and Reliability in Cross-Cultural Research

A set of procedures is offered for assessing interraler reliability and certain aspects of validity of codes in cross-cultural studies. The method assumes that at least two independent raters have coded more than one trait. Each trait coded by one rater is correlated with each trait coded by a second, and all the codings by a single rater are intercorrelated with each other. The results are presented in a multitrait-multi-rater matrix. From this matrix it is possible to determine the interrater reliability and discriminant validity of trails in addition to a higher order concept based on pairs of traits.     

Turkish-language ability of children of immigrants in Germany: which contexts of exposure influence preschool children's acquisition of their heritage language?

A lot of research has been devoted to explaining immigrants' acquisition of the language of the receiving country. However, less attention has been paid to explaining the acquisition of the heritage language among children of immigrants. The most important determinant for young children is exposure to the language. Language exposure can occur in various contexts, such as within the family, during preschool, through peers or via media. Our empirical analysis therefore explores which of these contexts is most statistically significant for the acquisition of the heritage language among children of Turkish immigrants. Using data from the project Preschool Education and Educational Careers among Migrant Children, we show that all contexts are important at different age levels but the acquisition of the heritage language is mainly determined by the exposure to it within the family.     

From E‐MAPs to module maps: dissecting quantitative genetic interactions using physical interactions

Recent technological breakthroughs allow the quantification of hundreds of thousands of genetic interactions (GIs) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The interpretation of these data is often difficult, but it can be improved by the joint analysis of GIs along with complementary data types. Here, we describe a novel methodology that integrates genetic and physical interaction data. We use our method to identify a collection of functional modules related to chromosomal biology and to investigate the relations among them. We show how the resulting map of modules provides clues for the elucidation of function both at the level of individual genes and at the level of functional modules.     

Toward an applied human ecology for Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning

The case study, located in the Kennett region of southeastern Pennsylvania, illustrates an approach to planning which uses ethnographic and ecological research. Here, information was gathered concerning local values with reference to land use in an effort to consider the consequences of the use of particular sets of values in the planning process. The approach is illustrated by reference to water resource use by different groups in the region.     

Nutritional status and quality of life in a sample of immigrants. A research program

In 2001 a new national research was begun in Italy in order to identify the health, nutritional status and quality of life in the immigrant population. In Bologna area an evident process of demographic decrease in the resident population, coupled with a contemporaneous increase in the number of in-coming immigrants coming especially from Asiatic and African developing countries, has been taking place since 1970. The present program was carried, out in this context, starting with an analysis of the actual bio-diversity in this new multi-ethnic society, with the purpose of giving the same sanitary assistance and surveillance that the Italian population enjoys to the immigrant population as well. The present report analyzes the main anthropological aspects of the program concerning the assessment of anthropometric and psychosocial characteristics of the immigrant population, as well as this group's nutritional habits.     

How old are you now?

Cherkas et al . provide a new, biological approach to a classic problem in anthropology – the estimation of age.