Transnationalism,economic transfers and families’ ties: Intercontinental contacts of older Gujaratis,Punjabis and Sylhetis in Birmingham with families abroad

This article examines the intercontinental contacts of South Asian migrants living in Birmingham (UK) with relatives abroad. A sample of 300 elders (aged 55+) were interviewed in the UK: 100 each of Gujaratis, Punjabis and Sylhetis. The study refers to contact with children, siblings and other relatives abroad. It examines contact through letters, phone calls, sending or receiving money and gifts and visiting. We hypothesize that (i) most remittances would be sent to relatives abroad (rather than received from relatives abroad) due to the expectations in the sending countries; (ii) that the frequency of visits to relatives abroad would be greater than the frequency of visits to the UK; (iii) that all types of contact would be greater between children and parents than between siblings, and other relatives. None of the hypotheses was supported in full, and highlight important distinctions between the South Asian groups in the study.     

Training for transnationalism: Chinese children in Hungary

Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews conducted in the mid-2000s, this article discusses the educational strategies and emerging trajectories of Chinese children born or raised locally in Hungary. Born to small entrepreneurs who migrated to Hungary in the 1990s, these children exemplify a second generation issuing from a migration taking place in conditions sharply different from earlier migrant flows to Western Europe, North America and Southeast Asia. This first migrant generation came of age in the post-reform People's Republic of China (PRC) and generally maintains both Chinese citizenship and a political and emotional identification with the PRC. Based on findings in Hungary, this article argues that this cohort of migrants' children is being trained for a sustained transnationalism rather than for a minority position in the society of residence, and that, at least in countries that are semi-peripheral for global capitalism, this training appears to be largely effective.     

An Oceanic revolution? Stella and the construction of new femininities in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific

In August 2012, a new magazine for women was released in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Entitled Stella, the magazine provides an ideal opportunity to analyse shifting constructions of gender among educated, employed women in PNG and elsewhere in the Pacific. Drawing on interviews, surveys and readers’ letters, this article discusses Papua New Guinean women who, because they display ‘modern attributes’, are maligned and discredited as ‘inauthentic’. It then goes on to document the ways in which Stella is enabling such women to assert themselves anew. Arguing that the publication of Stella marks the arrival into the public sphere of a group hitherto consigned to the margins of Pacific societies on the basis that they represent an ‘inauthentic minority’, the article makes an important contribution to scholarly discussion about the emergence of new femininities in PNG and the Pacific.     

Bringing class back in: class consciousness and solidarity among Chinese migrant workers in Italy and the UK

The growing literature on international migration has a tendency to emphasize homogenous elements such as shared ethnic background, social network and cultural similarities in shaping immigrants' identity. We argue that this underestimates the differences (and sometimes conflicts) of interests between ethnic employers and migrant workers and that class needs to be brought back into the studies of ethnic relationship. Based upon findings from a series of fieldwork in Veneto, Italy and East Midlands, UK, this article contends that class consciousness has co-existed, sometimes uneasily, alongside co-ethnic and cultural relationships among Chinese migrant workers and has played an important part in the making of new Chinese communities. By analysing the perspectives of Chinese migrant workers and their relationship with co-ethnic entrepreneurs, this article illustrates complex factors behind the formation, diffusion and development of class consciousness among Chinese migrant workers.     

Homeland origins and political identities among Chinese in Southern California

Abstract

This research project seeks to understand the scope and sources of ethnic and other political identities among US residents of Chinese descent whose families originated from the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia. In what ways, to which extent and why do these individuals from various homeland origins identify themselves politically in the United States? Informed by past research on ethnic identity formation and political transnationalism, this research analyses a large-scale public opinion survey of Chinese in Southern California to report the contours and sources of political identities and their relationship to homeland origins, transnational ties and adaptation experiences in the Unites States, while controlling for the influence of sociodemographic factors. By separating out socialization contexts and types of transnational practices, the findings provide important modification to the scholarship on immigrant assimilation and transnationalism.     

Getting integration right? Media transnationalism and domopolitics in Ireland

Abstract

This article examines the transnational media environments and experiences of Nigerian and Chinese nationals living in Ireland. It theorizes empirical research in the context of the mode of integration governance developed in the Republic of Ireland during a period of significant in-migration. Building on a theory of domopolitics, it suggests that Ireland's short-lived integration regime deployed culture and interculturalism as resources for the self-governing integration of all foreign nationals, while developing a system of civic stratification designed to limit claims to citizenship and social and economic rights. It examines the concomitant development of public service media policies in this context. Drawing on recent discussions of contrapuntal media readings, the article argues that transnational media experience refracts the lived tensions inherent in the disjuncture between the possibilities of cultural participation and the constraints of socio-political containment.     

Shifting perspectives on transnationalism: analysing Dutch political discourse on Moroccan migrants' transnational ties, 1960–2010

Abstract

This article examines the Dutch state's shifting perspectives on migrants' ties with their country of origin. In the academic literature transnationalism was introduced as a neutral term. In political debates the term transnationalism is hardly used, but the ties of migrants with their country of origin (to which the term transnationalism relates) are given a strong negative connotation. They are seen as the main course of failed integration policy. In the past fifty years a dramatic shift has occurred in how these ties are perceived. First, they were regarded positively and were believed to facilitate an easy return of the guest workers. Later they continued to be portrayed positively, but were also considered to be a springboard for integration into Dutch society. Recently they have been portrayed negatively and as the main obstacle to integration. This article explores why this dramatic shift in connotation has occurred.     

Bangladeshi migrant associations in Italy: transnational engagement,community formation and regional unity

Referring to the case studies of two cities in Northern Italy, this article seeks to understand how Bangladeshi migrants use associations to seek transnational “ways of belonging” and “ways of being”. It analyses how this transnational attachment to their home country has played an important role in building their own “community”. The findings reveal that Bangladeshi migrant organizations work to maintain “transnational ways of belonging” by enabling migrants to retain their cultural roots; this is reflected in their observation of festivals, national days, and other practices and rituals. Although, as a relatively new migrant community, they do not share as many economic links through these associations as many other “diasporic” organizations, migrants widely express a sense that these economic connections are with their country of origin. However, there is competition within the community based on regional origin, as well as have many ambivalences and contradictions.     

Chinatown UK v. Colonial Hong Kong: An early exercise in transnational militancy and manipulation, 1967–1969

In the late 1960s, Hong Kong was hit by a wave of social and political unrest, an echo in the colony of China's Cultural Revolution of 1966–69. The unrest spread to parts of Britain's Chinatown, where a leftist movement emerged in sympathy with the Hong Kong agitation. Among the Chinatown leftists were former supporters of the Communist anti-Japanese guerrillas in Hong Kong's rural New Territories. The colonial authorities reacted to these developments in Britain by drawing up plans to protect and assist overseas Hong Kong residents in an attempt to win their political approval and stymie the pro-Communists. The Hong Kong Government Office [HKGO] in London started providing materials for Chinese-language schools and set up various other communal services. Later, it launched a campaign to foster the emigrants’ “Hong Kong identity”. The scheme was in many ways successful. Chinatowners were usually happy to make use of the facilities on offer. However, there is little evidence that the HKGO succeeded in winning their political allegiance.     

Migrant warriors and transnational lives: constructing a Gurkha diaspora

The Nepalese Gurkhas have often been regarded as brave warriors in the scheme of British military recruitment since the 1800s. Today, their descendants have settled in various parts of South East and South Asia. How can one conceive of a Gurkha diaspora, and what are the Gurkhas and their families’ experiences of belonging in relation to varied migratory routes? This paper locates Gurkhas as migrants by deliberating upon the connection between military service and migration paths. I employ the lens of methodological transnationalism to elucidate how the Gurkha diaspora is both constructed and experienced. Diasporic consciousness and formation undergo modification alongside subsequent cycles of migration for different members of a diaspora. The article thus evaluates the transnational lives of migrants, and how these are connected to re-territorialized dimensions of identity and belonging.