Rethinking National Identity in the Age of Migration


Book Description

Greater mobility and migration have brought about unprecedented levels of diversity that are transforming communities across the Atlantic in fundamental ways, sparking uncertainty over who the "we" is in a society. As publics fear loss of their national identity and values, the need is greater than ever to reinforce the bonds that tie communities together. Yet, while a consensus may be emerging as to what has not worked well, little thought has been given to developing a new organizing principle for community cohesion. Such a vision needs to smooth divisions between immigration's "winners and losers," blunt extremism, and respond smartly to changing community and national identities. This volume will examine the lessons that can be drawn from various approaches to immigrant integration and managing diversity in North America and Europe. The book delivers recommendations on what policymakers must do to build and reinforce inclusiveness given the realities on each side of the Atlantic. It offers insights into the next generation of policies that can (re)build inclusive societies and bring immigrants and natives together in pursuit of shared futures.




Return Migration and Identity


Book Description

The global trend for immigrants to return home has unique relevance for Hong Kong. This work of cross-cultural psychology explores many personal stories of return migration. The author captures in dozens of interviews the anxieties, anticipations, hardships, and flexible world perspectives of migrants and their families, as well as friends and co-workers. The book examines cultural identity shifts and population flows during a critical juncture in Hong Kong history between the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984 and the early years of Hong Kong's new status as a special administrative region after 1997. Nearly a million residents of Hong Kong migrated to North America, Europe, and Australia in the 1990s. These interviews and analyses help illustrate individual choices and identity profiles during this period of unusual cultural flexibility and behavioral adjustment. Nan M. Sussmanis an associate professor and chair of psychology at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. "Sussman effectively weaves together themes about migration and remigration from such diverse sources as arts and literature, history, sociology, and her own discipline of psychology. This book will make an excellent contribution to research on acculturation, cross-cultural transition and adaptation, identity and migration." -- Colleen Ward, Victoria University of Wellington




Migrancy, Culture, Identity


Book Description

In Migrancy, Culture, Identity, Iain Chambers unravels how our sense of place and identity is realised as we move through myriad languages, worlds and histories. The author explores the uncharted impact of cultural diversity on today's world, from the 'realistic' eye of the painter to the 'scientific' approach of the cultural anthropologist or the critical distance of the historian; from the computer screen to the Walkman and 'World Music'. Migrancy, Culture and Identity takes us on a journey into the disturbance and dislocation of culture and identity that faces all of us to explore how migration, marginality and homelessness have disrupted the West's faith in linear progress and rational thinking, undermining our knowledge, history and cultural identity.




Immigration, Cultural Identity, and Mental Health


Book Description

This book outlines the various psychosocial impacts of immigration on cultural identity and its impact on mainstream culture. It examines how cultural identity fits into individual mental health and has to be taken into account in treatment.




Transatlantic, Transcultural, and Transnational Dialogues on Identity, Culture, and Migration


Book Description

Transatlantic, Transcultural, and Transnational Dialogues on Identity, Culture, and Migration analyzes the diasporic experiences of migratory and postcolonial subjects through the lenses of cultural studies, critical race theory, narrative theory, and border studies. These narratives cover the United States, the U.S.-Mexico border, the Hispanophone Caribbean, and the Iberian Peninsula and illustrate a shared diasporic experience across the Atlantic. Through a transatlantic, transcultural, and transnational lens, this volume brings together essays on literature, film, and music from disparate geographic areas: Spain, Cuba and Jamaica, the U.S.-Mexico border, and Colombia. Throughout the volume, the contributors explore intertextual transatlantic dialogues, and migratory experiences of diasporic subjects and queer subjectivities. The chapters also examine the use of language to preserve Latinx culture, colonial and Spanish cultural exchanges, border identities, and race, gender, identity, and cultural production. In turn, these diasporic experiences result from transatlantic, transcultural, and transnational phenomena that converge in a globalized society and aid in questioning the artificial boundaries of nation states.




Identity and Migration in Europe: Multidisciplinary Perspectives


Book Description

This book addresses the impact of migration on the formation and transformation of identity and its continuous negotiations. Its ground is the understanding of identity as a complex social phenomenon resulting from constant negotiations between personal conditions, social relationships, and institutional frameworks. Migrations, understood as dynamic processes that do not end when landing in the host country, offer the best conditions to analyze the construction and transformation of social identities in the postcolonial and globalized societies. Searching for novel epistemologies and methodologies, the research questions here addressed are how identity is negotiated in migration processes, and how these negotiations work in contemporary multiethnic Europe. This edited volume brings to the field a novel convergence of theoretical and empirical approaches by gathering together scholars from different countries of Europe and the Mediterranean area, from different disciplines and backgrounds, challenging the traditional discipline division.




Mapping Migration, Identity, and Space


Book Description

This interdisciplinary collection of essays focuses on the ways in which movements of people across natural, political, and cultural boundaries shape identities that are inexorably linked to the geographical space that individuals on the move cross, inhabit, and leave behind. As conflicts over identities and space continue to erupt on a regular basis, this book reads the relationship between migration, identity, and space from a fresh and innovative perspective.




Alevis in Europe


Book Description

The Alevis are a significant minority in Turkey, and now also in the countries of Western Europe. Over the past century, many of them have migrated from rural enclaves on the Anatolian plateau to the great cities of Istanbul and Ankara, and from there to the countries of the European Union. This book asks who are they? How do they construct their identities – now and in the past; in Turkey and in Europe? A range of scholars, writing from sociological, historical, socio-psychological and political perspectives, present analysis and research that shows the Alevi communities grouping and regrouping, defining and redefining – sometimes as an ethnic minority, sometimes as religious groups, sometimes around a political philosophy - contingently responding to circumstances of the Turkish Republic’s political position and to the immigration policies of Western Europe. Contributors consider Alevi roots and cultural practices in their villages of origin; the changes in identity following the migration to the gecekondu shanty towns surrounding the cities of Turkey; the changes consequent on their second diaspora to Germany, the UK, Sweden and other European countries; and the implications of European citizenship for their identity. This collection offers a new and significant contribution to the study of migration and minorities in the wider European context.




European Identity and Culture


Book Description

As the EU continues its integration process, the concepts of culture and transnational European belonging remain ambivalent, whether in the realm of socio-historical representation or mass politics. Engaging with recent scholarly debates surrounding the formation of collective transnational identities, this collection draws on the latest empirical case studies to explore the meaning and composition of European identity, the mechanisms that create and shape it and the question of whom it includes. Each author pays close attention to the cultural aspects of identity formation, whether manifested in official, institutional articulations, such as symbols, coinage, ceremonies and discursive manifestations, or in the cultures of the everyday, such as through new forms of communication networks, consumption or leisure. Exploring attempts by various actors - institutions, groups, individuals - to create transnational European identities, European Identity and Culture scrutinizes the cultural formations that have either reignited or emerged in often contradictory relations to the EU project, including local, regional and transnational allegiances. A rich, interdisciplinary investigation of the role of culture in the formation of European identity, whether as a central building block to unity or as a formidable obstacle to a common sense of purpose, this book will be of interest to scholars across the social sciences and humanities working on questions of political culture, European integration, citizenship and (trans-) national identity.




Migration and Identity


Book Description

The theme of Migration and Identity is of special concern at a time both of massive worldwide migration and of apparently intensifying national, ethnic, and racial conflicts. Problems of migration and the resulting reconfigurations of social identity are fundamental issues for the twenty-first century. This volume spans the whole complex global web of migratory patterns with contributions linking Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North and South America, without losing the particularities of local and personal experience. This paperback edition in the Memory and Narrative series explores these issues and the sustaining or abandoning of memory and identity as people move between fundamentally different cultures, in a number of recent social settings, from a number of methodological perspectives. These focused "case studies" offer glimpses into the interior migration experiences, into the processes of constructing and reconstructing identity without forgetting that, both theoretically and empirically, the problem of identity is complex and multifaceted. All of the essays rely heavily on oral history and personal testimony, highlighting the experience of individuals and small groups, without ignoring the tension that exists between the local and the global. Memories of oppression or totalitarianism are one of the driving forces behind some of these migrations; and the transmission of memories and myths between family generations is one of the ways in which migrations are interpreted. In looking both backward and forward, Migration and Identity, offers an acute view of migratory patterns and their impact on the newcomers and the local cultures. It will be of interest to cultural and oral historians and researchers of concerned with migration and integration. Rina Benmayor is professor of oral history, Latino studies and literature in the Department of New Humanities for Social Justice at California State University Monterey Bay. She is currently president of the International Oral History Association. Her recent publications include Telling to Live: Latino Feminist Testimonies and Latino Cultural Citizenship. Andor Skotnes is associate professor of history of the Americas at The Sage Colleges in Troy, New York. He teaches courses in working-class, African-American, Native American, and Latin American history and culture, and in oral history.