The Korean diaspora and belonging in the UK: identity tensions between North and South Koreans

Previous studies of North Korean migrants and refugees in the UK have focused on labour issues, inter-Korean diaspora issues and how inter-Korean peninsula geopolitics affects North Korean integration in a third country such as the UK. This paper explains the role of identity formation in processes of belonging and integration for the North Korean group. This group is significant in the sense that the group shares strong beliefs in a unified Korean ethnicity with the South Korean diaspora, and yet comes from a specific Korean state that is territorially divided from the majority of Korean migrants who emigrate from South Korea. This tension creates a number of alternative scenarios regarding expectations of the relationship between national identity, diaspora politics and processes of belonging in a host nation.     

Transnational highly skilled Finnish migrants in Europe: Choosing one's identity

When transnational migration begins to resemble internal mobility, as is the case in the European Union, is there any need for integration into the country of destination, or do intra-European migrants adopt a European identity? This article is based on data collected about highly skilled Finns who have moved within the EU. Most of them continued to form their identity around their country of origin. Nearly 60% of the migrants of the study also identified with Europe, while only one-third identified with their country of residence. The article argues that, for such privileged migrants, the possibility of choice is central to identity formation. Neither the national identity of the new home country nor a European identity per se can substitute the former, more important identity received through socialization. However, moving abroad does have an impact on the ways these migrants ‘do identity’. Adding a dimension of Europeanness to their existing national identity is a way of belonging to a greater collective when the localized identification with the country of residence is not required.     

Bonding and bridging among first generation Asian migrants in Australian protestant churches

Around a third of Asian migrants to Australia self-identify as Christians, and many join churches where they meet fellow migrants and other Australians. Churches might thus be places that can foster the integration of Asian migrants into Australian society. This paper uses social network and social capital theory to examine the prevalence of bonding and bridging among 61,386 churchgoers from 2135 Protestant churches who completed the Australian National Church Life Survey in 2011. We compared levels of bonding and bridging social ties of first-generation Asian migrants (FGAM) with Australians born of Australian-born parents (ABOAP). FGAM joining congregations had fewer social ties than ABOAP, and developed bridging (but not bonding) more slowly. FGAM had lower bonding but higher bridging in MonoAnglo congregations compared with Multicultural or MonoAsian congregations. The results suggest that FGAM who are in MonoAnglo churches may be less tightly bound to their congregation, but more likely to bridge beyond it, than are FGAM in multicultural or largely Asian congregations.     

Transnational Orientation,Cosmopolitanism and Integration among Albanian-Origin Teenagers in Tuscany

Research on transnationalism and integration is increasingly focusing on the intersections between the two concepts. However, the debate is polarised between the country of origin and the host country when migrants' identity and belongingness are concerned. In the case of the children of migrants, the literature also largely lacks references to locality, mobility and cosmopolitanism. This paper explores the integration of Albanian-origin teenagers in Tuscany and the relationship between their transnational orientations and their integration strategies. Findings show that both the social and cultural institutions and the spatial ‘units’ to which these teenagers refer in their integration discourse go beyond their country of origin and their host country. Firstly, there is a translocal dimension to their references—to Florence, Prato and Tuscany and the place of their parental origin in Albania. Secondly, their views and perceptions of integration contain a strong cosmopolitan orientation—both conceptually and spatially. The qualities of space and locality impact on transnational ties, giving rise to cosmopolitan orientation and practices.     

Providing social protection to mobile populations: symbiotic relationships between migrants and welfare institutions

Studies on migration and social protection have shown that a lack of access to formal welfare in receiving countries leads migrants to rely on their informal social networks for support. This paper argues that such clear-cut dichotomies between formal and informal social protection systems ignore the manners in which both welfare-state institutions and migrants work together at the interstices of the formal and informal to cater to national and transnational social protection needs. Based on empirical data collected during 14 months of multi-sited and partially matched-sample ethnography with Sudanese families across the Netherlands and Sudan, this paper investigates how migrants sometimes enter into symbiotic relationships with different welfare-state institutions, such as municipal offices, non-governmental organisations and other immigration institutions, which in turn rely on the support of these migrants to provide social protection to people who would otherwise escape their purview. While these interplays allow migrants, who are sometimes undocumented, to informally participate in the formal social protection system, such practices are embedded within power relationships that are at times risky, especially for migrants.     

Ethnic,gender and class identities of Polish migrant mothers: intersecting maternal narratives with transnationalism and integration

ABSTRACT

Based on a doctoral study of Polish migrant mothers living in Germany and the United Kingdom, this paper examines women's narratives pertinent to ethnicity, gender and social class, as well as the mutual entanglements of these dimensions. While the ethnic identity matrix often evokes dimensions of transnationalism and integration, the addition of the femininity component illustrates the diversity among contemporary Polish migrant women in Western Europe with regard to their identity practices. The analyses of transnational, translocal and cosmopolitan orientations highlight their binding to a contextualized understanding of femininity – its various markers and corollary epitome of motherhood, particularly in the Polish context. The main findings comprise an ideal-type based typology of migrant mothering, which sheds light on how mobility and gender intersect. The discussions adopt the social class lens in an attempt to focus on the implications of certain maternal and migrant identities among Polish women. By underscoring the value of both integration and transnationalism perspectives, the paper calls for additional aspects of translocality and hybridization, seeing them as noticeable social markers of the Polish female migrants’ biographies.     

Shas and the resignification of the intersection between ethnicity and religion

Current analyses of ethnicity and religion emphasise the subordination of the one to the other in the construction of collective identities. One line of research perceives religion as a resource of political mobilisation, while another conceptualises religion as the essence of ethnicity. As opposed to these analyses, this article explores how these two markers intersect and constitute each other in the process of identity formation. I centre on the ways Shas, an ethno-religious movement in Israel, mobilises hegemonic ethnic and religious markers of Middle East and North African (MENA) Jews in order to construct its collective identity. The analysis of Shas’s newspapers shows how, by suffusing religious traditions with ethnic meaning and marking an ethno-class collective as religious, Shas interweaves ethnicity and religion and resignifies their relation. This identity project is intended to redefine the symbolic boundaries of the Jewish nation and to redeem MENA Jews from their marginality. Intersectional analysis as applied in this article explains why different ethno-class and religious collectives imagine themselves as sharing a common identity, illumines why particular identity markers are chosen out of the numerous existing categories, and provides an explanation for the flexibility of social movements.     

Why irregular migrants arrive and remain: the role of intermediaries

Despite many efforts to combat irregular immigration, there is a widespread perception of a failure of public policies in this field. But because unauthorised immigrants are officially excluded from formal labour markets, housing markets and most welfare provisions, they can settle if they find other sources of work, income, housing, and social protection. In this regard, a crucial role is played by various intermediaries: people or institutions who favour the entrance of immigrants, their entry into the labour market, accommodation, response to their social needs, and possibly regularisation. They can act for profit, but also for moral reasons. They can break the laws and work in the shadows, but they can also work in legal forms. In this article, I will explore the identities of these intermediaries and their practices of support towards irregular migrants. My purpose is to show (1) what precisely constitutes intermediation, in what activities it can be factored, and what the main categories of intermediaries are; (2) that the implementation of migration policies is hindered not only by migrants’ practices to circumvent controls but also by the action of these intermediaries. For this reason, too, it is so difficult to eradicate.     

Interpreting conflict and integration through the reciprocity lens: mobility and settlement in a historical perspective on the Sierra Leonean coast

ABSTRACT

In recent years, Sierra Leone has witnessed intense population movements. During the civil war (1991–2002), many populations fled the fighting zones of the interior to take refuge on the coast. Since the conflict ended, new populations have reached the coastal area with the hope of accessing economic opportunities in the fishing business. Mobility, along with changing sociopolitical and economic conditions, has generated conflict between immigrants and Sherbro populations, who consider themselves autochthonous and deny migrants the freedom to access political and land rights. The paper argues that present dynamics of conflicts are rooted in long-term patterns of settlement and relationships of reciprocity between groups. Relations between migrants and local populations are grounded in a sociocultural idiom that implies the institutionalization of practices of reciprocity between local inhabitants (hosts) and later settlers (strangers). The host/stranger reciprocity system is an emic model of cultural action embedded in historical and power relations between groups. It implies the progressive integration of strangers into the host society. This paper highlights how, in a situation of conflict, long-established social relationships between groups are reevaluated with reference to norms of integration and reciprocity. The paper draws on Sherbro oral traditions to show how social memories about interethnic relations are reframed with reference to values and expectations of reciprocity, in order to explain the recent conflict that opposes Sherbros to immigrants. Sherbros use oral traditions to interpret these tensions in a long-term perspective, thereby expressing their own view on settlement, conflict and integration.     

Living in mobility: trajectories of Brazilians in Belgium and the UK

Within the social sciences, migration has traditionally been conceived of as a unidirectional, purposeful and intentional process from one state of fixity (in the place of origin) to another (in the destination). By mapping the trajectories of Brazilians who currently reside in Belgium or the UK, this article draws attention to a group of people whose mobile practices do not fit this definition. On the contrary, their experiences are marked by an ongoing mobility that consists of a multiplicity of potential routes, which are often unstable and which may be accompanied by changes in status. These Brazilians tend to ‘live in mobility’ in order to improve the quality of life at home. As such, leaving home becomes a strategy of staying home, which challenges what is usually evoked by the concept of ‘migration’, whereby ‘building up a new life elsewhere’ and ‘integration’ are seen as key. Whereas our respondents themselves have a more circular or mobile perspective, the receiving society discursively frames migration as one-way, and thus as a ‘threat’ that calls for social integration, control and the maintenance of national identity.     

Social network evolution during long-term migration: a comparison of three case studies in the South Wales region

Ten years after Poland joined the European Union (EU), a sizable number of the once considered short-term migrants that entered the United Kingdom (UK) post-2004 have remained. From the literature, it is known that, when initially migrating, social networks composed of family and friends are used to facilitate migration. Later, migrants’ social networks may evolve to include local, non-ethnic members of the community. Through these networks, migrants may access new opportunities within the local economy. They also serve to socialise newcomers in the cultural modalities of life in the destination country. However, what if migrants’ social networks do not evolve or evolve in a limited manner? Is cultural integration still possible under these conditions? Using data collected from three case studies in the South Wales region – Cardiff, Merthyr Tydfil and Llanelli – from 2008–2012, the aim of this article is to compare Polish migrants’ social network usage, or lack thereof, over time. This comparison will be used to understand how these social networks can be catalysts and barriers for cultural integration. The findings point to the migrants’ varied use of their local social networks, which is dependent upon their language skill acquisition and their labour market mobility in the destination country.     

EU post-accession Polish migrants trajectories and their settlement practices in Scotland

The presence and the apparent permanence of post-accession EU migrants in the UK is of significant interest to both academics and politicians. Studies have debated whether migration from new accession countries to the UK mark a new type of migration often described as ‘liquid’ and ‘open ended’, or whether these migrants will settle in the new destination countries. Based on a qualitative study of Poles who have lived in Scotland for at least six years, we observed four typologies of what we call migrants’ settling practices: (1) stayers, (2) over-stayers, (3) circular and transnational migrants and (4) economic migrants. The findings from this study demonstrate that Polish migrants do not have fixed ideas about the duration of their migration (in terms of a sense of permanence) but instead focus on diverse links, anchors or attachments in Scotland and Poland in describing their settling practices. Thus, the main contribution the article makes is to present an in-depth understanding of what settlement means from the perspective of migrants themselves. This paper concludes by providing a short comment on implications of the outcome of the Referendum on EU membership ‘Brexit’ in June 2016 on Polish migrants settling practices.     

Past,present and future: how the Lithuanian Diaspora in the Netherlands accumulates human capital from social capital

This paper explains how social capital activates the accumulation of human capital within a Diaspora context. Our study focused on migrants in the Lithuanian Diaspora and revealed unexpected differences in the way low- and high-skilled migrants developed and applied social capital in order to accumulate human capital. Namely, despite a less privileged point of departure, low-skilled Lithuanians appeared stronger in developing new social networks, and were more driven to strengthen their human capital than high-skilled migrants. The study provides novel empirical and theoretical insights by explaining the significance of social capital in the accumulation of human capital among Diaspora communities. In so doing, the study provides important insights for integration policy development for immigrant-receiving countries, offering a different perspective on high- and low-skilled migrant mobility and integration intentions.     

Determinants of cultural assimilation in the second generation. A longitudinal analysis of values about marriage and sexuality among Moroccan and Turkish migrants

Employing Dutch longitudinal information on 1250 second-generation Moroccan and Turkish migrants we investigate cultural assimilation using attitude questions on marriage and sexuality (including measures of homophobia). Two theoretical approaches guide our analyses. First, it is expected that the family of origin may push migrants in a more conservative direction. Second, it is expected that aspects of individual achievement in social, cultural and socioeconomic domains may pull migrants in more liberal directions. We find that Moroccan and Turkish migrants have considerably more conservative values about marriage and sexuality than natives, but there is also variation within the second generation. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses for migrants indicate that the role of parents is particularly important: migrant children of religiously more orthodox parents and children of parents who were poorly integrated socially and culturally in their youth, currently have more conservative values about marriage and sexuality, even when individual characteristics are controlled for. Of the various aspects of individual achievement, we find that especially social integration of the second generation is a relevant predictor of liberal values, and not socioeconomic indicators of integration. These results remain significant in a stringent longitudinal test which minimises the bias due to reverse causation.     

Dynamics in intention to stay and changes in language proficiency of recent migrants in the Netherlands

This study focuses on consequences of changes in intention to stay for Dutch language proficiency of recent migrants. It is anticipated that migrants who decide at a later instance to stay longer in the Netherlands have made less language investments and therefore have a lower proficiency than migrants who decided to stay longer or permanently at an earlier stage. Hypotheses are tested using Dutch panel data from the data set ‘Causes and Consequences of Social and Cultural Integration Processes among recent migrants.’ In this survey, migrants have been interviewed twice in the first years after migration to the Netherlands. Results provide that migrants who maintain a temporary intention and migrants who intend to circulate between country of origin and The Netherlands experience the smallest improvement and have the worst command of Dutch at the second wave. Changing a temporary intention to stay into a circular one improves the command of the Dutch language the most, whilst changing a temporary intention into a permanent one also strongly increases second language proficiency. Migrants changing a temporary intention into a permanent one do not differ in their language proficiency at wave 2 and experienced change herein from migrants maintaining a longer or permanent perspective.     

Caste,kinship and the realisation of ‘American Dream’: high-skilled Telugu migrants in the U.S.A.

ABSTRACT

Literature on the Indian diaspora domiciled in the U.S.A. largely portrays the group as educated, highly skilled migrants in pursuit of their American Dream, without critically engaging with the regionally particularised migration trajectories that predispose only certain groups to become skilled migrants from the global South to the North. Migration studies bracket skilled migrants as those who make rational choices and choose formal routes to migrate whereas unskilled migrants often rely on informal channels of kinship or ethnicity to migrate. Unsettling this proposition, in this article, based on an ethnographic study of the high-skilled Telugu professionals in the U.S.A. and their families living in Coastal Andhra, India, I show how aspirational and topographical migration pathways from Coastal Andhra to the U.S.A. are created and sustained through networks of kinship, caste and endogamous transnational marriage alliances. These high-skilled migrants (doctors, engineers and scientists) from the dominant castes have successfully manoeuvred spatial mobility and social upward mobility by utilising ‘caste capital’ within a transnational social field. Moreover, decades of migration from the dominant castes have shaped a caste-inflected transnational habitus among its members who see migration of their youth to the U.S.A. as desirable, and at times, also inevitable.     

Creating transregional collective nostalgia: the organising role of Catholic parishes among Louisiana migrants in Great Migration-era Los Angeles

Scholarship on the African American Great Migration insufficiently examines the interactional, emotional, religious, ethno-regional, and generational diversity of migrant experiences. This study applies insights from the transnational migration literature to illuminate complexities of Black internal migration and incorporation during this era. Using data from 47 in-depth interviews with first- and second-generation Louisianans who arrived in Los Angeles between 1931 and 1973, the article elucidates the distinctive organising role that local Catholic religious institutions played in creating and reinforcing transregional collective nostalgia and a sense of ‘being from’ Louisiana during resettlement. First, within the Black migrant concentration in Los Angeles, Louisiana migrants created an enclave in which Catholic parishes were used to geographically organise the city. Second, parishes organised social life and reinforced the migrant community by stimulating co-migrant contact, Louisiana-centred interaction, and support for adaptation. Finally, migrants shaped how parishes functioned by incorporating elements of Louisiana-based practices into Los Angeles routines, thereby preserving continuity between two places in both practical and nostalgic terms.     

Beyond the Ballot: Immigrant Integration Through Civic Engagement and Advocacy

This conceptual article outlines the current literature on immigrant integration, immigrant civic engagement practices, opportunities to include other civic engagement activities into existing concepts of immigrant integration, and suggestions for future research and practice. The authors support a framework of civic and political integration of immigrants that goes beyond voting, and purposefully delineates categories that are commonly used to distinguish immigrants based on their eligibility for citizenship and participation in elections. Civic community organizing activities for all immigrants, regardless of citizenship status, can help build individual and community identity and empowerment as well as help mitigate stressors associated with immigrant feelings of social isolation. Implications for theory and practice on the role noncitizen immigrants play in the policy-making process and how they are received (or systematically left out) of this civic engagement process are also discussed.     

Cross-border mobility,transnationality and ethnicity as resources: european Somalis’ post-migration mobility practices

Based on a qualitative study, this article explores post-migration mobility practices developed by Somali women and men who have settled in Europe. It focuses on the ‘politics of mobility’, considering cross-border mobility an unequally distributed resource through which people access different forms of capital, and thus an element of social differentiation. The article reveals that respondents invest resources in places other than those where they acquired them, benefiting from a favourable symbolic exchange rate between the different places. Furthermore, while a significant part of the economic, social and cultural capital of these migrants is acquired within ethnically diversified contexts, it is mostly reinvested in networks and places where their Somali ethnicity becomes an asset—either in ethnically homogeneous networks or in activities that address Somali people's needs. Cross-border mobility, transnationality and ethnicity become core resources that enable these migrants to mobilise their capital where it can be valued most highly and to access advantageous social positions, thus fostering upward social mobility. The article argues that these strategies are less the result of an identity-based ethnic preference than a compensatory mechanism implemented by people who have few prospects of having their assets valued within the wider networks in their country of residence.