International marriage migration: The predicament of culture and its negotiations

Marriage-led migration or migration-led marriage was rarely discussed in public or private realms just over two decades ago. However, international marriage migration (IMM) has become a norm in today's globalised world. While a substantial body of literature deals with this growing practice, existing literature does not adequately address the role that ethnicity plays in the context of IMM. The purpose of this study is to explore the question of ethnicity in IMM in Southeast Asian contexts. It focusses on what we have called the ‘predicament of ethnicity’ and the negotiations around ethnicity, culture and identity among couples where at least one partner migrated for the purpose of the marriage. The study is based on interviews with international couples selected using a snowball sampling method and demonstrates complex and intriguing patterns of cultural and ethnic identity negotiations between international Southeast Asian couples.     

Taiwan's identity in formation: in reaction to a democratizing Taiwan and a rising China

The formation of Taiwanese identity is a good example to make sense of the theoretical debate between primordialism and constructivism. Based on the two-level multinomial logit results, this paper proves that primordial ethnicity in Taiwan becomes less salient; rather, changing sociopolitical contexts turn out to be the dominant factor in shaping ethnic identity. Specifically, it indicates how the democratic transition has brought about various types of mechanisms, which smoothly disenchant the dominant Chinese identity. As the Taiwanese renaissance emerges to take a leading role in Taiwan's political platform, ethnic identity might be reshaped in accordance with this mainstream Taiwanese ideology. This study also shows that reformation of ethnic identity in Taiwan relies as much on cognition of state boundaries as on the evaluation of political-economic conditions on both sides of the Taiwan straits.     

Ethnic identification and the project of individual identity: The life of Mary Ann wodrow Archbald (1768–1840) of little cumbrae island,Scotland and Auriesville,New York

A totalizing and privileging of ethnicity, to the exclusion of other sources of identification, in American historiography has created a tendency to conflate group identity and individual identity in historical subjects. While ethnic group identities are ultimately rooted in cultural representations and ideologies, individual (or personal) identity is the ongoing effort to maintain a sense of continuity. Personal identity assures us we remain the same person that we have been previously. The letters of a Scottish immigrant to the United States are examined to suggest the role of ethnicity in personal identity.     

Capturing the Multiple and Shifting Identities of Farm Women in the Northeastern United States

The identities of women on farms are shifting as more women enter farming and identify as farmers, as reflected by the 30 percent growth in women farmers in the U.S. census of agriculture (USDA 2009). This article draws from identity theory to develop a quantitative measure of the identities of farm women. The measure incorporates multiple roles farming women may perform and weights these roles by their salience to two farm identities, farm operator and farm partner. We use a sample of women on farms (n = 810) in the northeastern United States to assess the measures of role identity in relation to reported decision‐making authority, farm tasks, and farm and individual characteristics. The findings provide a multidimensional view of farming women in the northeastern United States, a far more complex view than traditional survey research has previously captured. This research provides a measure that other researchers can use to assess the multiple and shifting identities of farming women in other sections of the United States.     

“I was discriminated against because I was seen as PRC-Chinese”: The negotiation between ethnicity and nationalism among Taiwanese migrants in Australia

Research on race and ethnicity has focused on conditions under which solidarity will be developed to consolidate collective benefits. For example, facing racial discrimination can bring large-scale affiliations (e.g., people of color, Latinos, or Asians) to fight against racial injustice. Focusing on the negotiation and struggle between ethnicity and nationalism among Taiwanese migrants in Australia—a politicizing context associated with a prior definition of Chinese category, despite inherent differences within it, this article shows the complexity of ethnicity when ethnic identity/solidarity intersects with nationalism and racial discrimination. I argue that Taiwanese migrants attach specific meanings to the ethnic (Chinese) category and constantly connect to and shift its boundaries in different contexts. Meanwhile, they also make a distinction between racial discrimination from white Australians and political hostility from PRC-Chinese. This article proposes a procedural and contextual understanding of ethnic identity, solidarity, nationalism, and boundary making/unmaking within the Chinese category as it is enacted in Taiwanese migrants' everyday lives. It also examines situational variability in the salience of ethnic identifications, racialization of the ethnic category, and people's interpretation of ethnic and national identity when facing racial discrimination.     

A Comparative Study on the Cultures of the Dungan and the Hui Peoples

The Dungan people derive from China's Hui people, and now live mainly in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Their population is over 110,000. This people has now developed a separate ethnicity outside China, yet they have close relations with the Hui people in culture, ethnic characteristics and ethnic identity. This paper aims to compare the cultures of the two peoples in terms of ethnic identity, religion and lifestyle so as to show the influence of region, political context and ethnic background on the two peoples.     

The Farmhouse Joy (nongjiale) Movement in China's Ethnic Minority Villages

In China, establishments known as ‘Farmhouse Joy restaurants’ (nongjiale) which originally emerged around the suburbs of big cities and were associated with the foodstuffs of ethnic majority Han Chinese farmers, have now, as a result of a variety of development projects and local initiatives, emerged in ethnic minority and other remote villages located deep in the mountains. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in villages in Hubei and Yunnan provinces, this study examines how a new conception of ‘original ecology’ has played a dynamic role in the transformation of these nongjiale in ethnic and remote areas. This transformation results from a new symbolic synthesis and rapprochement between what are commonly understood to be ‘farmers' foods’, desires to experience an original ecology and understandings of ethnicity in China, a synthetic construction clearly aimed at attracting urbanite consumption. Important differences have emerged between villages participating in this process of synthesis. Those villages with strong claims to ethnic minority status have to carefully convert what are in fact ethnic foods into what are seen as ethnically unmarked ‘farmers' foods' in their nongjiale, while villages without such ethnic backgrounds paradoxically have to construct artificial ethnic symbols by mechanisms of imitation or pretence.     

DOMINANT GROUP ETHNIC IDENTITY IN THE UNITED STATES:

This article explores several issues pertaining to the nature of dominant group ethnicity in the United States. Dominant group ethnic identity tends to be less visible and less salient as a result of dominant status. This "hidden' ethnicity has resulted in the systematic un-derdevelopment of the study of race and ethnic relations with regard to the analysis of the role of dominant group ethnicity. In addition, the taken-for-granted nature of dominant group identity has facilitated attempts by the dominant group to maintain its dominant position in the system of ethnic stratification. Finally, this article examines the process through which dominant group ethnicity has evolved and assesses the consequences of these changes for race and ethnic relations in the United States.     

SUBJECT AND SUBSTRATUM : ON JAPANESE IMPERIAL NATIONALISM

This paper addresses the theoretical and philosophical questions concerning how an individual identified him/herself as a member of an ethnic, racial, or national community in the context of Japanese Imperialist discourse during the 1930's. The central focus is Tanabe Hajime. Together with his mentor Nishida Kitaro, Tanabe established the so-called Kyoto School of Philosophy in the 1920's. With his background in the philosophy of sciences and mathematics, and modern European metaphysics, Tanabe created a philosophical argument for the multi-ethnic nation-state, and proposed the universalistic concept of Japanese national identity which positively evaluates and integrates individuals of different ethnic backgrounds into one. He constructed the Logic of Species (Shu no Ronri) according to which a member of the Japanese Empire could identify with Japan precisely because she or he can participate in the Japanese State which represents the whole, inclusive of all the ethnic groups. Relying upon the Hegelian concept of negativity, he explained the two different levels of belonging: particularistic belonging to the specific identity (shu) such as ethnicity, and universalistic belonging to the generic identity (rui). And he further demonstrated that ethnic identity is far from fixed, and is brought into the subject's self-awareness only insofar as the subject negates it and is free from it. In other words, the subject becomes aware of her/his ethnic origin only when s/he negates it thereby participating in a higher order of social formation, the State, under which ethnic multiplicity is subsumed. Thus the species of ethnicity is constituted only insofar as it is negatively mediated by the genus, that is, the State. Tanabe saw the essential form of human freedom in this negative relation of the subject to his ethnicity, and understood a subject's belonging to a nation as a dialectic and negative process of mediation between the species and the genus. While postwar Japan was built upon the premises of ethnic nationalism, Japanese imperial nationalism of the pre-war period was afraid of ethnic nationalisms which could challenge the Empire's rhetoric of multiethnicity and pluralism. Tanabe's Logic of Species was a response to such needs of Japanese Imperialism and it represented a philosophical attempt to undermine ethnic nationalism. Not surprisingly, it served as a metaphysical foundation for the idea of the Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere.     

Coping with perceived discrimination: does ethnic identity protect mental health?

Using data (N = 2,109) from a large-scale epidemiological study of Filipino Americans, this study examines whether ethnic identity is linked to mental health and reduces the stress of discrimination. The strength of identification with an ethnic group is found to be directly associated with fewer depressive symptoms. In other words, having a sense of ethnic pride, involvement in ethinic practices, and cultural commitment to one's racial/ethnic group may protect mental health. Self-reports of racial/ethnic discrimination over a lifetime and everyday discrimination in the past month not due to race/ethnicity are associated with increased levels of depressive symptoms. Yet ethnic identity buffers the stress of racial/ethnic discrimination. This suggests that ethnic identity is a coping resource for racial/ethnic minorities that should not be overlooked. The strong link between ethnic identity and better mental health has implications for social-psychological theories on race/ethnicity and assimilation in the United States.     

ETHNIC PILGRIMAGES: PEOPLE OF LITHUANIAN DESCENT IN LITHUANIA

A fascinating element in ethnic identity construction and reconstruction processes is the role of homelands. Ethnic identity is dependent in part on whether homelands are constructed as a place or as an idea. This social construction is partially determined by when and how individuals or their ancestors emigrated. The experiences of Lithuanian American economic immigrants, political emigres, and their offspring are explored. For many European Americans (including Lithuanian Americans), traditional measures of ethnicity (such as language retention and endogamy) are not as important as contemporary constructed or invented symbols of ethnic identity (such as ethnic festivals and display of ethnic artifacts). I argue that trips or "ethnic pilgrimages" to the ancestral homelands have received relatively little attention in the ethnicity literature but are central mechanisms of ethnic reconstruction and renewal.     

Entrepreneurs and producers: Identities of Finnish farmers in 2001 and 2006

The farmers' role within the EU has recently been under reconstruction: in addition to primary agricultural production farmers should fulfil multiple functions such as maintaining the rural landscape, conserving nature and providing services. One essential feature of this new role is the demand for entrepreneurship. Farmers should be capable of competing in the worldwide, global agricultural market. They are also encouraged to diversify into business activities beyond agriculture. How do farmers see themselves in this situation? Is their self-perception compatible with this new reconstruction of the farming economy and the farmers' role? Research, thus far, seems to indicate that traditional or production oriented identities are still dominant among farmers. But there is also some evidence that new identities, such as the entrepreneurial identity, are emerging. In our study we are especially interested in how Finnish farmers have met the demand for adapting to the role of an entrepreneur. We approach the issue of the farmers' changing role from a social psychological perspective by utilizing the concept of identity. Our empirical evidence comes from two nation-wide postal questionnaire data sets, both containing samples from three subgroups: conventional farmers focusing solely on primary agricultural production, diversified farmers who also had other business besides agricultural production, and rural non-agricultural small-scale businesses. The results show that Finnish farmers do not experience “entrepreneur” as something distant from themselves and as not fitting in with their world of ideas, as the work of some researchers would depict. Instead, the majority of Finnish farmers, especially diversified farmers, conceive of themselves both as entrepreneurs and as producers.     

Inter-ethnic friendship and negative ties in secondary school

This paper investigates several different aspects of inter-ethnic relationships. It focuses on friendships and negative ties between secondary school students from different ethnic backgrounds, introducing and measuring two different aspects of ethnicity: self-declared ethnicity, and ethnicity based on peer perception. These are first applied separately and then together on a sample of secondary school students in Hungary consisting of two ethnic groups: Roma and non-Roma Hungarian (N = 420). Friendships and negative ties are modelled using cross-sectional exponential random graph models for sixteen classrooms separately, and then individual models are summarized using meta-analysis. Based on the social identity approach, we predict that inter-ethnic friendships are less likely, and negative ties are more likely, than those within ethnic groups; and that majority students reject their minority peers more than the other way around. Moreover, minority students are expected to exclude those whom they perceive as minorities, but who, at the same time, identify with the majority group, since these classmates might seem to them as “traitors” of their “original” ethnic group. Results mostly confirm our hypotheses, emphasizing the role of perceived ethnicity: majority students tend to dislike peers whom they perceive as minorities, regardless of these peers’ self-declared ethnicity; on the other hand, minority students are likely to send friendship nominations towards their perceived minority classmates if these also declare themselves as minorities, but, as predicted, negative nominations if these declare themselves as majorities. This supports our general idea that different ethnicity aspects might influence friendships and negative ties in different ways, and inconsistencies in someone's ethnic categorization might play an important role in social rejection.     

Who am I? Who do you think I am? Stability of racial/ethnic self-identification among youth in foster care and concordance with agency categorization

While it has been well documented that racial and ethnic disparities exist for children of color in child welfare, the accuracy of the race and ethnicity information collected by agencies has not been examined, nor has the concordance of this information with youth self-report. This article addresses a major gap in the literature by examining 1) the racial and ethnic self-identification of youth in foster care, and the rate of agreement with child welfare and school categorizations; 2) the level of concordance between different agencies (school and child welfare); and 3) the stability of racial and ethnic self-identification among youth in foster care over time. Results reveal that almost 1 in 5 youth change their racial identification over a one-year period, high rates of discordance exist between the youth self-report of Native American, Hispanic and multiracial youth and how agencies categorize them, and a greater tendency for the child welfare system to classify a youth as White, as compared to school and youth themselves. Information from the study could be used to guide agencies towards a more youth-centered and flexible approach in regard to identifying, reporting and affirming youth's evolving racial and ethnic identity.     

National Minority, National Mentality, and Communal Ethnicity: Changes in Ethnic Identity of Former Soviet Union Jewish Emigrants on the Israeli Kibbutz

In this paper we examine and compare the ethnic identity of the Jews in the former Soviet Union (FSU) and the process of change in ethnic identity among the new immigrants from the FSU. This analysis considers the role of the kibbutz as the first experience of Jewish community in their lives, as well as the location of the first phase of their process of absorption and resocialization into new and unfamiliar surroundings. The data are drawn through a longitudinal research design, with a pre‐ and post‐analysis of changes in the ethnicity of migrants studied from their arrival on the Israeli kibbutz until the completion of the five‐month kibbutz programme. We found that pre‐migration Soviet Jews defined their ethnicity as a discriminated national minority with a weak symbolic ethnicity content. The ambivalent nature of the ethnicity of Jews while in the FSU was expressed in the fact that although a majority were deculturized from traditional dimensions of Jewish life, they nevertheless felt they belonged to a specific ethnic group. Post‐migration ethnicity was found to be remarkably altered; the former ambivalence was dissolved. On the macro‐level, membership in the economically and politically successful Russian‐speaking group of Israeli society is a source of self esteem, rather than a sign of shameful otherness. On the micro‐level of ethnicity, the encounter in the initial phase of absorption in Israel, within the kibbutz Jewish community, often demands a re‐examination of their private concept of Jewishness, serving as a first step in resolving their ambivalent ethnic identity. Consequently, their new ethnic identity may now well have weaker boundaries, but a more positive (non‐alienating) content than that left behind.     

Ethnicity as Policy Expedience: Clan Confucianism in Ethnic Tujia-Miao Yongshun

In this paper, I examine the lack of attention given to ethnicity in Yongshun County in Tujia-Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Western Hunan. Contrary to most other papers on Chinese ethnic politics, my discussion is on the lack of ethnicity. The aim of this paper is to serve as a reminder that, in a case like Yongshun, ethnic identification means more to a visitor than to the locals. Yongshun's Tujia and Miao people do indeed form one community, but it is because of clan Confucianism not ethnicity. Modernisation is yet to replace local conventions, and villagers who advance most quickly in the market willingly make sacrifices for siblings and children. The government and the Party assume the leadership role to meet the locals' mentality of dependency. The lesson of my four visits to Yongshun is the following: while everyone seems to agree that Yongshun's residents are ethnically Tujia and Miao and they have seen some degree of modernisation, neither ethnicity nor modernisation has a clear meaning to them.     

Bi-Cultural Socialization and Ethnic Identity in Daughters Adopted from China

Abstract

To varying degrees, parents who adopt children from China attempt to bring Chinese people, language, and culture into daily life as a way to help their adopted children feel proud about their ethnic heritage. Do attempts to provide bi-cultural socialization really influence ethnic identity? And, if so, what are the costs and benefits? In this article we draw on a longitudinal study of families with children adopted from China to describe their pre-teen and teenage daughters' orientations toward Chinese identity. The results indicate that Chinese ethnicity is an important component of adolescent identity for many adoptees, and that the odds of its being important are directly related to bi-cultural socialization influences within and outside of the family. Chinese ethnic identity does not appear to compromise the importance of American identity or closeness with family members who are not of Chinese descent. However, it does have the potential to magnify feelings of loss of birth parents and distress associated with pre-adoption histories in China.     

Intermarriage,Ethnic Identity,and Perceived Social Standing Among Asian Women in the United States

This study investigates the consequences of Asian women's intermarriage—whether it is associated with higher social standing and lower ethnic identity, using data on Asian women (N = 589) from the National Latino and Asian American Survey (NLAAS). The socioeconomic status of partners of women who intermarried and partners of women who married men of the same ethnicity are compared. The potential associations between intermarriage and two subjective measures—ethnic identity and perceived social standing—are explored. The study rejects the hypothesis based on the conventional belief that Asian women in the United States find “better” partners with higher socioeconomic status from other racial or ethnic groups. The findings support the view that marital assimilation leads to identificational assimilation and demonstrate that intermarriage is not associated with higher perceived social standing. The results suggest that educational and occupational endogamy plays a larger role in Asian women's intermarriage than social exchange.     

Sexual Behaviors and Attitudes and Ethnic Identity During College

This study examined ethnic differences in sexual behaviors and attitudes, and associations between ethnic identity commitment and sexual behaviors and attitudes. African American (32%), Latino American (29%), and European American (39%) first-year college students (N = 434; 52% female) completed surveys about their sexual behaviors (number of partners, condom use, and alcohol use before intercourse) and attitudes (conservative attitudes, condom-related beliefs, and fear of AIDS) and ethnic identity commitment. Analyses of covariance and hierarchical linear regressions were performed. Among the three groups, Latino Americans reported riskier condom-related behaviors and attitudes, whereas European Americans were less fearful of AIDS. Ethnic identity commitment was a protective factor against risky attitudes regardless of ethnicity. For sexual behaviors, however, ethnic identity served as a protective factor only for European Americans. This study contributes to the understanding of adolescents' sexuality during college and the role of ethnic identity in their sexual experiences.     

Looking beyond ethnicity: the negotiation of Chinese Muslim identity in Penang,Malaysia

The conflation of ethnic and religious identities, particularly that of Malay and Muslim, has long historical and political roots in Malaysia. Being one of the most safeguarded identity marks in Malaysia, Islam has become part of the core of Malay ethnicity and plays a prominent role in ethnic politics. Muslim converts from ethnic minorities, such as the Chinese and Indians, are therefore faced with social expectation and pressure to ‘become Malay’. This paper discusses the difficulty and improbability of Chinese Muslim identity in the previous literature and the recent development that enables the decoupling of religious and ethnic identities. By looking beyond ethnicity, the most salient social divider in Malaysia, and looking into other possibilities, such as religious identity, this paper aims to paint a picture of social relations and identification that is more complex yet flexible amongst the Chinese Muslim converts in Penang.