Orientalism and Russian speaking minority regions in Europe: representing Narva

ABSTRACT

This paper uses the concept of orientalism to propose a framework for understanding the relationship between international news media and individual representations of minority groups in Europe. Even though the case study focuses on Narva, Estonia, the model here provides a basis for comparing the identity formation practices, particularly of geographically separated Russian speaking minority groups in Europe. Narva’s large Russian speaking population and geographical proximity to Russia have been pinpointed as security concerns due to the convenient source of information and mass media sponsored by the Russian Federation causing a misrepresentation of Russian speaking minority groups in international media.     

Emplaced mobilities: Lisbon as a translocality in the migration journeys of Punjabi Sikhs to Europe

The arrival in Portugal of recent migrants from the Indian subcontinent is normally a secondary movement from within Europe tied to the search for a regular pathway into legal integration in the EU. However, as favourable migration policy is not paired with easy economic integration onward migration is common. We argue that such complex migration strategies cannot be amply explored through an origin–destination model; instead we suggest that a translocal perspective provides a framework to examine connections and experiences of emplacement in places of passage/reception like Lisbon. Through a qualitative study of the migration journeys and emplaced practices of Punjabi migrants in Lisbon, our findings highlight relationality between multiple scales, elucidating how agency and structure interact at micro and macro levels in shaping migration experiences and outcomes. We show how the materiality of local community structures ensures the navigation of daily life in the city and provides pathways toward legality contributing to wider mobility regimes. Moreover, we illustrate how onward migration represents an individual strategy to realise different aspects of integration in other EU destinations challenging nation-state-bound understandings of citizenship/settlement and integration.     

Children of prisoners: exploring the impact of families' reappraisal of the role and status of the imprisoned parent on children's coping strategies

Qualitative data from a larger study on the impact of parental imprisonment in four countries found that children of prisoners face fundamentally similar psychological and social challenges. The ways that children cope, however, are influenced by the interpretative frame adopted by the adults around them, and by how issues of parental imprisonment are talked about in their families. This article argues that families have to reappraise their view of the imprisoned parent and then decide on their policy for how to deal with this publicly. Their approach may be based on openness and honesty or may emphasise privacy and secrecy, or a combination of these. Children are likely to be influenced by their parents'/carers' views, although these may cause conflict for them. Where parents/carers retain a positive view of the imprisoned parent, children are likely to benefit; where parents/carers feel issues of shame and stigma acutely, this is likely to be transmitted to their children. This is important for social workers and practitioners involved in supporting prisoners' families and for parenting programmes.     

Consequences of religious and secular boundaries among the majority population for perceived discrimination among Muslim minorities in Western Europe

While the concept of symbolic boundaries and ethnic boundary-making is well established in social research, the direct consequences of these boundaries for the integration of migrants have not received much attention. This paper thus analyses whether religious and secular boundaries of national belonging among the majority population have an impact on perceived discrimination among Muslim minorities in Western Europe. To analyse this linkage, data from the International Social Survey Programme measuring the importance of religion as a symbolic boundary of national belonging among the majority have been aggregated as a regional context condition and combined with a Muslim minority subsample from the European Social Survey. The results of the multilevel models reveal that the salience of religious boundaries is associated with less perceived discrimination among Muslim minorities, while secular orientations among the majority seem to be more decisive for subjective perceptions of feeling discriminated against. Overall, the results thus challenge the role of religion as an ethno-religious demarcation and point to the relevance of secular boundaries of belonging for immigrant integration.     

Care earnings in the United States and 24 European countries: The role of social policy and labour market institutions

Care occupations are gendered and remain relatively poorly paid, particularly in the United States. Prior research on the ‘care penalty’ primarily points to individual, relational, and market-valuation factors in explaining the relative earnings of care workers. This study integrates these explanations with a comparative institutional perspective. Using higher-quality data and methods than previous comparative research in the field—that is, harmonized micro-data from the Current Population Survey and EU-SILC from 2005 to 2016, country and year fixed effects models, and a counterfactual analysis—we find that national variance in labour market and welfare state institutions explains most of the difference in the relative earnings of reproductive care workers between the United States and European countries. Higher rates of collective bargaining coverage, stronger employment protection and welfare state spending contribute to higher relative earnings for reproductive care occupations, and lower relative earnings for high-status nurturant care occupations. Differences in the relative earnings of care workers appear to be mostly a construct of social policy and labour market institutions rather than individual, relational, and market-valuation factors.     

Friends or foes? Migrants and sub-state nationalists in Europe

ABSTRACT

How do sub-state nationalists respond to the growing presence of cultural diversity in their ‘homelands’ resulting from migration? Sub-state nationalists in Europe, in ‘nations without states’ such as Catalonia and Scotland, have been challenging the traditional nation-state model for many decades. While the arguments in favour of autonomy or independence levelled by these movements have become more complex, sub-state nationalist movements remain grounded by their perceived national community that is distinct from the majority nation. Migration to the ‘homeland’ of a sub-state nation, then, presents a conundrum for sub-state elites that we label the ‘legitimation paradox’: too much internal diversity may undermine the claim to cultural distinctiveness. We engage with three common intervening variables thought to influence how sub-state nationalists confront the ‘legitimation paradox’: civic/ethnic nationalism, degree of political autonomy, and party competition. Our overarching argument is that none of these factors have a unidirectional or determinate effect on the sub-state nationalism-immigration nexus, which is why the nuanced case studies that comprise this Special Issue are worthwhile endeavours.     

北欧各国配子捐赠制度及其对我国的启示

配子捐赠有助于不孕不育患者实现为人父母的美好愿望。而随之产生的一系列伦理法律问题仍有待探讨解决。匿名配子捐赠存废问题、卵子捐赠的可接受性问题和捐赠配子的补偿问题是北欧各国讨论中较突出的问题。北欧国家对这些问题做了大量研究,积累了丰富经验,并制定了法律法规。中国的配子银行建设仍在起步阶段,需要借鉴北欧经验,以便更好地满足配子捐赠的需要。     

Formation of European identity: ethnic minority groups in Central and Eastern Europe in generational perspective

Research into European identity has mostly focused on majority populations in Western European countries, neglecting new member states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) as well as ethnic minority groups. This paper contributes to filling this gap by exploring and investigating processes of European identity formation of five ethnic minority groups in four CEE countries. A generational perspective was applied by conducting qualitative in-depth interviews with three generations of ethnic minority group members. The results support the instrumental approach of identity construction. In all minority groups researched, the young generation, due to more positive personal experiences and perceived benefits from the European Union, have developed more positive images and perceptions of Europe and a greater sense of European identity than older generations. Furthermore, ethnic group-specific processes of identity formation were found.     

Europe's failed ‘fight’ against irregular migration: ethnographic notes on a counterproductive industry

Despite Europe's mass investments in advanced border controls, people keep arriving along the continent's shores under desperate circumstances. European attempts to ‘secure’ or ‘protect’ the borders have quite clearly failed, as politicians themselves increasingly recognise – yet more of the same response is again rolled out in response to the escalating ‘refugee crisis’. Amid the deadlock, this article argues that we need to grasp the mechanics and logics of the European ‘border security model’ in order to open up for a change of course. Through ethnographic examples from the Spanish-African borders, the article shows how the striving for border security under a prevailing emergency frame has generated absurd incentives, negative path dependencies and devastating consequences. At Europe's frontiers, an industry of border controls has emerged, involving European defence contractors, member state security forces and their African counterparts, as well as a range of non-security actors. Whenever another ‘border crisis’ occurs, this industry grows again, feeding on its own apparent ‘failures’. This vicious cycle may be broken, the article concludes, once policy-makers start curtailing the economies of border security underpinning it – yet the challenges are formidable as the industry retrenches along with the political response to the drama it has itself produced.     

The Meaningful Involvement of Service Users in Social Work Education: Examples from Belgium and The Netherlands

This article links the development of service user involvement championed in the United Kingdom to two examples in Dutch-speaking qualifying social work programmes: one from Belgium and one from the Netherlands. In both projects, a longer lasting cooperation with more marginalised service users was established. The Belgium project highlights social work lecturers and service users living in poverty, working in tandem to deliver a module to social work and socio-educational care work students. The example from the Netherlands involves young people from a homeless shelter as peer-researchers, working together with social work students.

Both projects, one focusing on social work education and on social work research, highlight striking similarities in the positives and challenges of working with service users including how this challenges both groups preconceptions of the other, deepens learning but also creates greater potential for confrontations which need to be managed creatively. The article also identifies the pre-requisites for this to be effective including appropriate resourcing, training, facilitative skills and acknowledges that collaborations can be extremely fragile. However, such projects need further investment, experimentation and implementation on an international scale to share learning and promote creative approaches for the development and learning of social work students.