Is there a European social work identity?

The aim of this paper is to examine whether at this point in time the notion of a ‘European social work identity’ can be sustained. The paper commences with some brief consideration of theories of identity, and particularly draws attention to social constructionist identity theory, highlighting its focus on identity as a process. Ideas about what constitutes ‘collective identity’ are then examined. From this, two particular models of collective identity are presented which are helpful for understanding cultural identities. These are the more ‘traditional’ notion of collective culture being evidenced by the presence of shared histories and traditions, and the more social constructionist view of collective processes and action to form identities – whether imposed by the state or generated by the people – as constitutive of identities in themselves. ‘European identity’, and then ‘European social work identity’, will then be examined using these models of collective identity. The paper concludes that using social constructionist versions of identity (identity as a process of collectivisation), European social work identity can certainly be established.     

Substantive signifiers? Ethnic and religious identifications among second-generation immigrants in the Netherlands

In the context of increasingly ‘culturalised’ discourses on immigrant integration in Europe, this article aims to contribute to a de-essentialised understanding of ethnic and religious identity. Based on the analysis of quantitative data, it reveals the multifarious relationship between identification and culture among second-generation Turkish and Moroccan Dutch in the Netherlands. Some instances of self-identification with nominal labels (‘Turkish’ and ‘Muslim’) appear to go hand in hand with stronger sociocultural orientations in daily life and are more substantive; others (‘Moroccan’) do not. These findings point to different social mechanisms at work in shaping identifications with certain identity labels and once more illustrate that ethnic and religious identifications do not necessarily reflect cultural ‘otherness’.     

Rethinking integration and identity: Chinese migrants in the Republic of Ireland

Using historical narratives and a qualitative research approach, this paper analyses the social, cultural and cognitive causes of differentiation and stratification among Chinese migrants in the Republic of Ireland. It discusses individuals’ diversified capabilities, attitudes and actual levels of integration, as well as their disparate patterns of self-identification. In the research area of Chinese migrants in Ireland, in-group diversity and its implications is still a novel research topic. With this introductory work, the authors seek to draw more attention to this particular group, especially to the need for studies of encounters between subgroups and longitudinal investigations. The paper points out that subgroups of Chinese migrants in Ireland are divided according to social classification and self-categorisation, which have distinct significances for subgroup members’ integration and identity.     

European policy developments and their impact on social work†

ABSTRACT

Europe, in the throes of global trends, dissolves and yet re-establishes boundaries, both on its external perimeter and in terms of its internal social and political structures in a process reminiscent of the early period after the industrial revolutions. Once again it poses a fundamental question for social work: is the profession’s mandate limited to containing the effects of this process at the level of its individual victims or can it play a role in shaping European social policies which would deal with structural issues and further the cause of European integration? By examining the spaces created by the EU’s ambiguous initiatives on social issues – in areas like child welfare, poverty or migration – it will be shown that social ‘rescue’ attempts might only serve to legitimate exclusion and to further the decline of social solidarity within European states – and ultimately the disintegration of the European Union itself. The alternative lies in taking a wider political perspective and practising ‘relational citizenship’, giving people rights to belong and to participate.     

The insertion of Roma in Sénart Project (2000–2007): a local minority-targeted affirmative action following in the footsteps of the French republican citizenship model

Between 2000 and 2007, 34 Romanian families living in shanty towns in a Parisian suburb participated in a local group-specific social integration project. A socio-anthropological study was undertaken 2 years after it ended, including documentary analysis of its archives, interviews with its beneficiaries and the professionals involved and ethnography among three families with distinct integration histories. Using the analysis of the project’s implementation and outcomes, this article sheds light on how exceptional acts of minority identity recognition – sporadic and on a case-by-case basis – were ultimately functional in the performance of a republican redistributive policy on individual access to rights and resources based on the denial of racialised inequalities.     

Economic participation and national self-identification of refugees in the Netherlands

This study examines whether refugees self-identify as a member of the host society. We use survey data of more than 2,500 Somali, Iraqi, Afghani, Iranian, and ex-Yugoslavian refugees in the Netherlands. The results show that economic participation in the host country is positively related to refugees’ national self-identification. In addition, we find that refugees’ social ties with Dutch natives are associated with national self-identification and that the relationship between economic participation and national self-identification is partially explained by these social ties. Perceived discrimination is not related to refugees’ national self-identification. Implications of these findings for debates on immigration and integration are discussed.     

The ambiguity of Europe and European identity in Finnish populist political discourse

Europe is a profoundly flexible concept and, in Ernesto Laclau’s terms, a ‘floating signifier’ which is given various meanings depending on the speaker’s political aims. The article focuses on current populist and nationalist political discourses in Finland and the articulation of Europe and European identity in the political rhetoric of The Finns Party. In the rhetoric, Europe is given contradictory meanings. On the one hand, it is perceived as a cultural and value-based community which shares a common (Christian) heritage and values. Identification with Europe and the promotion of European communality are particularly pronounced when a threat towards ‘us’ is experienced as coming from outside the imagined European borders. On the other hand, the European integration process and Europe as a political project can be articulated as threats not only to national independence, identity and cultural particularity but to European cultural identity as well.     

Identities beyond ethnic-based subordination or conflict in the Southeast Asian borderlands: a case study of Lao villagers in northeast Cambodia

This paper explores everyday expressions of identity by Lao villagers living in northeast Cambodia near the border with Laos, and uses this to reflect on trends in studies of identity in the remote borderlands of Southeast Asia. I argue that while ethnicity is certainly crucial, discipline-specific emphases – ethnic-based subordination or conflict for social studies and political studies, respectively – result in less attention to other important dynamics shaping identity. Furthermore, I suggest that low-profile case studies not strongly linked to ethnic-based subordination or conflict – such as the Lao in Cambodia – require study for a more comprehensive view of identity in the borderlands. The case study from northeast Cambodia identifies four key dynamics shaping identity: inter-state relations, ethno-national identities, cross-border livelihoods and social status. I show how minimal inter-state tensions and varied personal connections to Laos were important in facilitating villagers’ involvement in lucrative illegal cross-border logging in Laos, but the latter were never used to justify this practice. Instead in this everyday setting, villagers emphasised their sense of marginalisation within Cambodia and thus demonstrate their regular prioritisation of status.     

Disability and identity: the challenge of epilepsy

Through examining the case of people with epilepsy (which, as we demonstrate, has an ambiguous status in relation to both popular and academic conceptions of disability) we explore the fluid, negotiable and contingent nature of identity and, in particular, the identification as ‘disabled’. Disability, we argue, cannot be reduced to either biology or social oppression, or even primarily to biological or social factors: it is the outcome of a complex interaction between a multiplicity of factors – biological, environmental, social, psychological, cultural and political – which will interact and be experienced differently by different people, at different times and in different situations. Rather than conceiving of disability in ‘all or nothing’ terms and of differing explanations as competing and mutually exclusive, it would be more productive to see them as partial and potentially complementary contributions to the better understanding of a complex and multifarious reality.     

EU ideology

The idea of Europe was radically transformed after the accomplishment of the idea of European unification. The European Union (EU) and Europe at the beginning of the twenty-first century were defined by a broad common ideology that consists of ideologies such as antinationalism, social democracy, pacificism and environmentalism. These ideologies are presented by pro-EU scholars and politicians as ideologies rooted in European history and parts of European identity and as being mostly absent in the American policies. The emergence of EU ideology is traced in the relaunch of European integration in the mid-1980s and in Delors’ conflict with Thatcher. It is argued that the emergence of EU ideology is the result of two long-term historical developments: the deepening and enlargement of European integration; and the changing relations between the USA and Europe. It is concluded that the emergence of EU ideology resembles the emergence of nationalism and national ideologies.     

Contextual moderators of the link between national and European identity among European youth

Identification with Europe can constitute an important part of psychological citizenship for European citizens. From a self-categorization perspective, higher-order (e.g. with Europe) and lower order subgroup identities (e.g. with the nation) may interfere with each other if they are seen as incompatible. We were interested in contextual moderators at school and country level of youth’ national identity on identification with Europe. We used multi-level regression analyses based on data from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study, collected from 14-year old students (n?=?71,282) from 22 European countries. Results showed strong positive effects of national identity at the individual, and classroom-level on European identity. However, main effects of national identity at the individual level were qualified by a number of interactions with contextual-level moderators. The relationship between national and European identity was weaker for adolescents attending classrooms or living in countries with lower average levels of trust in EU institutions. Living in countries with higher gender and income inequalities, less friendly immigration policies, and a communist past lessened the association between national and European identity. Results point to the powerful effects of context in shaping the relationship between national and European identity.     

The Uses of the Past and European Integration: Austria between Lisbon,Ireland, and EURO 08

This article examines Austrian national identity negotiations through a qualitative analysis of the country's ideologically heterogeneous media, with a focus on Austria's most widely read paper (and its popular readers’ letters pages) between April and August 2008. This turbulent period coincided with widening opposition to the EU's Lisbon reform treaty, Austria's co-hosting of the European football championship, and the collapse of the country's coalition government. This analysis of media coverage and readers’ letters focuses on the rhetorical strategies underpinning various discursive constructions of Austria's place within the EU. The following key findings are discussed: projections of perceived social ills and resulting anxieties onto the EU; the interpretative uses of the past—historical episodes selected from Austrian and other national contexts—to make sense of and politicize the present; constructions of ‘European ideals’ in juxtaposition to perceived ‘European realities’; and competing models of national identity in relation to the European ‘network state.’     

A position embedded in identity: subalternity in neoliberal globalization

ABSTRACT

Gayatri Spivak asserts that subalternity is a position without identity and has no examples. This paper demonstrates that identities – imposed and subscribed to, contingent yet naturalized – have to be taken into account, particularly when we consider that such identities are inscribed into a war of positions. It argues that the notion of ‘subaltern’ in Gramsci, followed through in the idea of ‘subjugated knowledges’ in Foucault, read commonly as marginality, intervenes in established social relations to expose that Time is asynonymous with History. Subalternity, emblematized through positions, which are held by identities, plays a crucial role in negotiating that discontinuity between Time and History. The paper ‘relocates’ subalternity by redefining it as a process – in order to convey this, I use ‘subalternized’ instead of ‘subaltern’; identity, then, is also necessarily a process, captured temporarily in the course of political–cultural engagement. The essay reads the positions of racialized and gendered subalternized knowledges in the contexts of neoliberal globalization, in North America and South Asia, through the processes of identity-makings of two groups – the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center (Minneapolis, USA) and the Feminist Dalit Organization (Lalitpur, Nepal).     

New York City's Latino ethnolinguistic repertoire and the negotiation of latinidad in conversation

Latino collective politics has received greater attention from scholars and policy analysts than the micro‐processes of everyday interaction among U.S. Latinos – the stuff with which collective efforts are constructed. In this article, I argue that latinidad – a sense of shared Latino identity – is best understood by taking into account the negotiations of collective identities in everyday, situated social practices. I ask: how do Latinos invoke latinidad in their everyday interactions, and to what end? In doing so, I present a conversation between two New York City Latinos, Roberto and William, who subtly invoke latinidad as they explore a possible business connection. Through discourse analysis of their exchange, I show that within one conversation two people can invoke latinidad through the adoption of different strategies of affiliation. Drawing on Benor's ( 2010 ) ethnolinguistic repertoire framework, I show some of the linguistic resources that New York City Latinos access to index latinidad. I find that Benor's framework could be expanded to account for the arsenal of distinctive linguistic features used by members of panethnic groups. For U.S. Latinos, such an arsenal includes features of multiple varieties of both Spanish and English. The results further suggest that shared Latino identity implies a basis for cooperation, in this case, cooperation with the potential to yield economic benefits.     

Travelling concepts and crossing paths: a conceptual history of identity

The concept of identity is ubiquitous in public discourse even though its meaning is often imprecise or nebulous – it is maybe because of this that its contents can be taken for granted. One speaks of individual, personal, group, social, collective and political identity; of identity formation, crisis, diffusion, conflict and politics; a multiple identity may be pathological or a component of an integrated identity; culture and ideology but also knowledge and experience supposedly enrich identity; identity may be rigid or open to development and growth – and so on. Against this background the present paper explores the argumentative uses of the concept of identity in psychoanalysis and in social psychology and sociology.     

Immigration,segregation and social cohesion: is the ‘German model’ fraying at the edges?

In this article, we analyse immigrant integration against the background of German society’s social cohesion. First, we examine the integration process and policies with regard to the integration of first-generation labour migrants into the German ‘national society’ since the 1960s. Even though these ‘guest workers’ were confronted to ethnic and political exclusion owing to the so-called German integration model, they experienced socio-economic integration and, at the local level, some form of political participation. Secondly, we analyse the policies and the integration process of immigrant youth, specifically those of Turkish descent, into contemporary German society, the social cohesion of which is impeded by social exclusion and urban segregation. Our hypothesis is that – in spite of a long-standing refusal to recognise itself as an immigration country – Germany has to some extent incorporated its migrants and achieved an integration consensus, while paradoxically, national integration models in several other Western European countries are currently going through a deep crisis.     

Digital identities – overcoming visual bias through virtual embodiment

ABSTRACT

This study sheds new light on the role of identity in virtual environments when virtual representation of self is in support of disabled individuals and the potential impact of their virtual identity on work opportunities. It is widely understood that individuals who live with disability often experience a lifetime of bullying, exclusion, marginalization and rejection. They often experience workplace bias and discrimination. Yet, when they can create an identity and experience embodiment in virtual environments, the results can be extraordinarily powerful – even life-changing. This research builds on nearly a decade of ethnographic research in 3D online immersive social virtual worlds; seven of those years working with disability communities to answer the following: RQ1: In a virtual world where one can choose any avatar form, how does that visual sense of self-representation influence one’s ability to gain access to a social network, to be a leader in that network, and to find work? RQ2: How does realism in representation influence work experiences in these digital worlds? The results reveal the importance of choice in online representation of avatars in creating work and online social engagement. Implications contribute to our understanding of visual bias in the workplace and how emerging virtual reality technologies may open new avenues for meaningful work and social interactions for people with disabilities.     

The enclosures of colonization: Indigeneity,development, and the case of Mapithel dam in Northeast India

This paper examines the Mapithel dam in Northeastern state of Manipur in India as a site of contestation between the state-led development agenda and the affected tribal people. Based on discursive field experiences, the paper reflects upon the competing values in relation to land use and ownership systems and raises a question – as to whether in the name of development, is the government eroding tribal people’s right over their land and resources? The Mapithel dam issue not only invites serious deliberations beyond dam construction and its social and ecological ramifications but also contemplates on the various dynamics in and through cultural identity, politics, and natural resources. The paper addresses some key aspects of the very political closure approach which emphasizes state’s hegemony through forceful intrusion into the life, livelihood, and ‘lebenswelt’ of tribal people and infringement of their traditional rights.     

Developing social work students’ professional identity: the role of England’s Professional Capabilities Framework

ABSTRACT

Developing professional identity is a key aim of social work education. This paper argues that the Professional Capabilities Framework (PCF) – a holistic, capability approach to student assessment used in England’s social work education programmes – is ideally placed to promote the development of students’ professional identities. The paper discusses two research studies, each of which was stimulated by significant policy changes in England’s social work profession. The author draws out the implications of both studies for supporting social work students to develop their professional identities. It is concluded that the PCF is valued by practice educators as an assessment and teaching tool, while acknowledging that its future is uncertain due to the lack of continuity impacting on England’s social work profession. This paper is equally of relevance for social work educators outside the UK who may be developing and evaluating their assessment approaches and also for those experiencing the impact of rapid policy changes in their own countries.