Theorising the power of citizenship as claims-making

I advance a conceptual approach to citizenship as membership through claims-making. In this approach, citizenship is a relational process of making membership claims on polities, people and institutions, claims recognized or rejected within particular normative understandings of citizenship. Such a conceptual shift moves scholarship beyond typologizing—enumerating how citizenship is (or is not) about status, rights, participation and identity—to identifying the mechanisms through which claims on citizenship have power. This framework requires a relational approach and attention to dynamics of recognition within contexts of structured agency. Immigrants and their children can make claims to modify the normative content of citizenship, affect recognition evaluations and change the allocation of status and rights. But they are also constrained by legal structures, a society's institutional practices, and prevailing public perceptions. Citizenship as claims-making may require a reassessment of boundary approaches and a turn to metaphors of positionality, as well as more serious commitment to mixed-methods research. The stakes of understanding citizenship's power, as practice and status, are especially high right now. Yet based on existing scholarship, it is not entirely clear how much citizenship matters, in what ways, for whom, or why. This is the challenge for future scholarship.     

Chinese Language Media in the United States: Immigration and Assimilation in American Life

Qualitative Sociology - The upsurge of Chinese language media—publications, radio, television, and the Internet—mirrors the linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomic diversity of the...     

"黔电送粤"中水电真实移民成本问题研究

现行“黔电送粤”的电价未能反映真实移民成本。理应在厘清真实移民成本主要组成部分的基础上,在谈判和核定电价时加以考虑,促使真实移民成本成为电价的构成要素,这对于解决各族移民的脱贫致富,具有重要意义。     

Social Support Interventions in Migrant Populations

The phenomenon of immigration has led to an important increasein the number of social programmes and services for migrantpopulations in many European countries. However, some investigationshave shown that the use of formal resources is extremely lowin these groups. In contrast to the limited utilization of programmesand services, research in the field of social psychology hasrevealed that the primary source of help and support for immigrantsis their own informal social network. After analysing the characteristics,advantages and limitations of formal and informal support systems,this paper presents a typology of social support interventionswith migrant populations that integrates both types of support.Four levels are differentiated: dyadic interventions, socialnetwork interventions, mutual aid groups and community interventions.The development of programmes to strengthen the informal supportsystem is emphasized as an alternative to integrating formaland informal resources in social work practice with migrantpopulations.     

Border Crossings and Diasporic Identities: Media Use and Leisure Practices of an Ethnic Minority

The diaspora of peoples whose origins were in the Indian subcontinent (South Asia) and who are now living in Western countries (especially the U.S. and UK) provides an interesting example of processes of negotiation of new hybrid cultures and identities, using new technologies, such as the Internet, and older technologies like the video player, cable or satellite television, radio, and telephone. These developments may require a revision of the classic sociological picture of assimilation as a zero sum model of acculturation, in which the acculturation of immigrants and their children involves the gradual replacement of their ethnic culture by that of the culture of the host nation. The electronic media, in the context of policies of multiculturalism, may lead to an accentuation of religio-ethnic differences. Contrary to previous assumptions, middle-class immigrants may be more inclined to resist cultural assimilation than their lower-class counterparts.     

论非自愿移民的历史地位与作用

非自愿移民是在国际移民理论研究中受排斥的领域 ,显然极不正常。非自愿移民是中国移民史的主流形态 ,非自愿移民在中国社会经济发展中起了重要作用。有中国特色的移民理论是中国移民实践全部历史经验的继承与发展     

战后移民与澳大利亚人口变迁

二战后澳大利亚推行大规模的移民计划 ,从非英语国家接纳了大量移民。这促进了澳大利亚人口的快速增长 ,也导致其人口的民族及文化结构和年龄结构的重大变迁。     

20世纪美国黑人大迁徙与南部三农问题之关系

南北战争后,美国南部长期面临农业生产方式落后、农民贫困、农村社会发展缓慢等三农问题。上述问题与南部的种族问题相互交织,加剧了南部社会的落后与黑暗。这其中,南部黑人受害最为深重,他们被迫大规模迁徙到美国其他地区。20世纪美国有两次黑人大迁徙的高潮,到20世纪70年代有600多万南部黑人迁徙。美国南部的三农问题是黑人大迁徙的经济原因,但黑人大迁徙又反过来推动了三农问题的解决,由此可见迁徙自由对于解决三农问题的重要意义。     

Identity,security and the nation: understanding the South Korean response to North Korean defectors

From the Cold War era of the ‘veteran heroes’ to the present view of escaped North Koreans in terms more akin to ‘refugees’ and sometimes even just ‘migrants’, perceptions of North Korean defectors in South Korea have changed as swiftly as the number and origins of Northerners entering the South have expanded. At the same time, government policy for these ethnic ‘brethren’ has evolved considerably, particularly as South Korea has seen fundamental shifts in its independent identity, with important repercussions for the way its citizens view themselves as a collective. This article explores some of the key influences behind changes to policy and perceptions regarding North Korean people in South Korea over the period from 1997 to 2012, by applying international relations theory on national identity and its role in policy formation and change through the need to secure different parameters within that identity.     

Standing up to complexity: researching moral panics in social work

Moral panics are central to social work policy and practice. Voluntary agencies and statutory bodies (including governments) create and sustain moral panics in order to raise awareness of, and win support for, their own understandings of social issues and problems. This is not a neutral enterprise; on the contrary, moral panics often have consequences that are negative, whether intended or unintended. Far from leading to greater social justice and a more equal society, they may reinforce stereotypes and lead to fearful, risk-averse practice. This paper discusses one such moral panic in 2013 that centred on the story of ‘Maria’, a Bulgarian Roma child living in Greece. The paper explores the meaning and use of the concept of moral panic before unpacking this case-study example in more detail. We argue that the moral panic over ‘Maria’ has much to tell us about ideas of welfare and protection, institutional racism and children and childhood, as well as the connections between ‘private troubles’ and ‘public issues’. We conclude that social work as a profession must stand up to complexity, and in doing so, be aware of its own role in relation to moral panics.