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.     

Muslims in Europe: the lost tribe of Islam?

The Muslim presence in Europe has caused the Christian churches to focus their attention on a number of issues arising out of this presence and the following article is a review of three papers put out by church organizations. Starting chronologically from the earliest paper to the most recent, I have first summarized the contents of each paper before analysing and commenting on them collectively. The three Church Research Papers on Muslims in Europe are Witness to God in a Secular Europe, Conference of European Churches, Geneva 1985, The Image of Islam in German School Textbooks by Udo Tworuschka, Muslims in Europe. No. 32, 1986, and Islamic Law and its Significance for the Situation of Muslim Minorities in Europe, Report of a study project, Muslims in Europe, No. 35,1987.     

From emigrants to free movers: whither European emigration and diaspora policy?

This article examines the level of convergence in the field of emigration and diaspora policies of the European Union Member States. The analysis of policies of 28 states shows that the convergence of emigration and diaspora policies is more pronounced in the area of intra-EU mobility. Moreover, EU states tend to apply territorial limitations to their emigration and diaspora policies. Therefore, it might be expected that future convergence will concern only the EU core. The most developed area of intervention of the individual EU Member States is heritage promotion, but it predates the EU and is a derivative of the historical emigration from Europe. Today, considering the diversity of EU emigrants, traditional heritage promotion is challenging, both on the national and EU level.     

The Harki Identity: A Product of Marginalisation and Resistance to Symbolic Violence?

This paper seeks to demonstrate that since their arrival in France in 1962, the Harkis – the Algerians who fought with rather than for the French side against the Algerian independence movement (1954–1962) – have been the victims of symbolic violence. They have been assigned by the French state to the periphery of French towns, French history and French identity. As, since 25 September 2001 (the first national Harki remembrance day) and 5 December 2002 (when President Chirac inaugurated the Algerian war memorial in Paris), the Harkis ceased to epitomise ‘the archetype of official non memory’ (Rosello, 1998 Rosello, M. 1998. Declining the stereotype- Ethnicity and representations in French cultures, Hanover: University Press of New England.  [Google Scholar], p. 170), this paper ultimately asks whether the end of a certain form of symbolic violence may not result in the ‘delegitimisation’ of the Harkis’ main (historical) claims and, consequently, in the weakening of the Harki identity.     

Other identities in ethnofederations: women’s and sexual minorities’ advocacy in Belgium

This article considers the experience of the impact of ethnofederations on social identities that cut across such an ethnic divide. Based on a series of in-depth interviews focusing on the structure and operation of women’s and lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender movement organizations in Belgium, we demonstrate that these groups experience constraints of the dominant ethno-linguistic identity. These results in a ‘federalism disadvantage’ for identities cross-cutting the ethnic divide, the result of which is a neglect of policy competencies situated at the federal level.     

Post-communist invocation of Europe: memorial museums’ narratives and the Europeanization of memory

ABSTRACT

How do post-communist memorial museums in East-Central Europe tell stories about double occupation (by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union), collaboration, the Holocaust and victim narratives, and how have these narratives been influenced by accession to the European Union? How do the museums reference trends set by Holocaust memorial museums? The article shows that one group of museums invokes Europe and the Europeanization of the Holocaust. Other museums seek to contain certain aspects of the memory of Nazism so that it cannot compete with stories of Soviet crimes. Both incorporate elements from Holocaust memorial museums, indicating how universalized Holocaust remembrance is.     

Trapped in small business? An investigation of three generations of migrants from Turkey to Western Europe

This article examines the self-employment behaviour of three generations of migrants from Turkey living in Europe to understand its implications for their economic adaptation into the receiving societies. It specifically investigates the likely generational differences in their propensity to engage in small businesses and the extent to which they are transmitted across generations. The research is based on the 2000 Families Survey, which draws parallel samples of migrant and non-migrant families from their origins in Turkey and traces them across Turkey and Europe over multiple generations. The data are drawn from a subset of personal interviews with 1743 economically active settlers nested within 836 families. The results challenge the assimilation theory but lend support to the disadvantage thesis by demonstrating that the younger generations, including the better educated, are significantly engaged in small, low-status businesses of their parents regardless of their language proficiency, citizenship status and country of residence.     

Overcoming the Fear of the “Other”: Building Trust Between British Muslims and the Wider Community

Initiatives that seek to build community trust are timely given the increasing focus on terror-related attacks and the rise in associated hate crimes as well as scrutiny of the way Muslim leadership is responding to such incidents. This paper details a novel and proactive model that aims to improve and build trust between Muslims and the wider community. The Trust Building Project was found to accomplish its two objectives. Not only was there an improvement in participant knowledge of Islam scores but there was also evidence suggesting trust had improved through engagement, understanding and through getting to know one another. Listening and learning sought to dispel myths and highlight shared morals and values. We propose that through these interactions the basis to building a more trusting society can be formed. It is unclear to what extent this could reduce incidents of hate crime and discrimination, however social change has been shown to occur where there are grass roots initiatives and suggestions are made to examine how this work can be rolled out nationally in order to address the trust deficit seen within our society today.     

East-European immigrants responding to the recession in Britain: is there a trade-off between unemployment and over-qualification?

Most studies demonstrating the vulnerability of labour migrants following the recession have focused on unemployment. This article examines how the labour market performance of East-European workers in the U.K. has been affected by the recession by focussing on four possible employment outcomes: unemployment, self-employment, over-qualification and part-time jobs. By showing the relatively low rates of unemployment amongst East-European migrants, which have become even lower following the recession, it argues that the vulnerability of immigrants in periods of economic downturn cannot always be solely measured in higher rates of immigrant unemployment. Labour migrants may be prompted to take jobs (any jobs) below their skills and qualifications, thus suggesting a ‘trade-off’ between unemployment and over-qualification.     

In the shadow of fortress Europe? Impacts of European migration governance on Slovenia,Croatia and Macedonia

ABSTRACT

This article analyses European integration's effects on migration and border security governance in Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia in the context of ‘governed interdependence’. We show how transgovernmental networks comprising national and EU actors, plus a range of other participants, blur the distinction between the domestic and international to enable interactions between domestic and international policy elites that transmit EU priorities into national policy. Governments are shown to be ‘willing pupils’ and ‘policy takers’, adapting to EU policy as a pre-condition for membership. This strengthened rather than weakened central state actors, particularly interior ministries. Thus, in a quintessentially ‘national’ policy area, there has been a re-scaling and re-constitution of migration and border security policy. To support this analysis, social network analysis is used to outline the composition of governance networks and analyse interactions and power relations therein.     

Strangers within? Russian-speakers’ migration from Latvia to London: a study in power geometry and intersectionality

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to contribute to debates on ethnic identification and migration through a focus on a specific group – Russian-speakers from the Baltic state of Latvia who have migrated to the UK. Twenty-six interviews with members of this group were gathered in London and the wider metropolitan area during 2012 and 2014. Russian-speakers represent uniquely combined configurations of ‘the other within’: in most cases, they are EU citizens with full rights; yet, some still hold non-citizens’ passports of Latvia. While in Latvian politics Russian-speakers are framed as ‘others’ whose identities are shaped by the influence of Russia, interview findings confirm that they do not display belonging to contemporary Russia. However, London is the ‘third space’ – a multicultural European metropolis – which provides new opportunities for negotiating ethnic identification. Against the background of triple ‘alienation’ (from Latvia, from Russia and from the UK), we analyse how ethnicity is narrated intersectionally with other categories such as age and class. The findings show that Russian-speaking migrants from Latvia mobilise their Europeanness and Russianness beyond alienating notions of (ethno)national identity. The paper also demonstrates that being open to ethnicity as a category of practice helps us towards a progressive conceptualisation of often overlooked dimensions of integration of intra-EU linguistic ‘others’.     

Did the Difference Between Black and White Americans in Anger-Out Decrease During the First Decade of the Twenty-First Century?

Studies have found blacks in the USA report lower levels of anger-out and higher levels of anger-in than whites. However, most of the research on anger expression has been based on data from limited samples. The current study investigates the black–white difference in anger-in and anger-out in a sample representative of Americans aged 40 and older. Data are from the two most recent waves of the Americans’ Changing Lives (ACL) surveys. In 2001, the ACL assessed both outcomes, with anger-out re-assessed in 2011. Thus, individual-level change in anger-out can be investigated. Drawing on literature on “anger privilege,” civility, the politicization of anger, and related topics, we develop and evaluate hypotheses about: (1) the race difference in anger-out over time, (2) race as a moderator of the gender difference in both forms of anger expression, and (3) the impact of controlling for perceived discrimination on anger expression. We find blacks to report greater expressive reticence with regard to their anger (i.e., anger-in) than whites in 2001. That race difference became nonsignificant when discrimination was controlled. The race difference in anger-out was of borderline significance in 2001 and became significant after discrimination was controlled. Longitudinal analyses show that the race difference in anger-out decreased over time. The rate that anger-out decreased by did not significantly differ by race. We discuss processes that that could contribute to our results. We also speculate about how current trends in political anger expression might be related to the patterns we observe.     

Are Blacks and Hispanics Disproportionately Incarcerated Relative to Their Arrests? Racial and Ethnic Disproportionality Between Arrest and Incarceration

Do large racial and ethnic disparities in prison populations reflect systematic racial and policy discrimination in the criminal justice system, or do they reflect disproportionate involvement of blacks and Hispanics in “serious” or street crime? Our investigation of this question keys off the approach initiated by Alfred Blumstein is his pioneering studies on the topic. While yielding important findings, there are, however, substantial gaps in the empirical literature on the racial disproportionality issue. We attempt to fill those gaps by (1) using both data on prison admission as well as in-stock prison populations, (2) presenting more recent racially and ethnically disaggregated arrest and incarceration data from Pennsylvania for 2003–2007, and (3) including Hispanic offenders in our racial and ethnic disproportionality comparisons. Our results indicate, first, that the representation of blacks, whites, and Hispanics among offenders admitted to state prison and in the prison population corresponds closely to their representation in arrest statistics. Second, using arrests as a marker of violent offending, the overrepresentation of blacks among offenders admitted to state prisons occurs because they commit a disproportionate number of frequently imprisoned (i.e., violent) crimes. Third, for those offenses where there is a within-race difference between arrest and incarceration representation, Hispanics experience the greatest disadvantage. Fourth, failing to account for Hispanics in white and black estimates tends to inflate white proportions and deflate black proportions of arrests, admissions, and prison population estimates, masking the “true” black and white racial disproportionality. We conclude that while there is a need for continued concern with possible racial discrimination in justice system processing, this concern should not distract attention from what arguably is the more important matter—ameliorating the social environmental conditions that foster disproportionate minority (especially black) involvement in violent crime.     

Contained mobility and the racialization of poverty in Europe: the Roma at the development–security nexus

ABSTRACT

This paper starts from the observation that, since the collapse of eastern European state socialism, the Roma have become the subject and target of Europe-wide development programs and discourses, while, at the same time, they have been problematized in terms of social, public and national security. Due to the ways in which development and security have ambiguously come together in Europe’s recent history, I will argue that the living conditions of the poorest among the Roma have not only worsened, but also, and more fundamentally, the divide between Europe’s rich and poor has become seriously racialized and almost unbridgeable. I explain how the bio- and geopolitical conditions under which development and security have merged in Europe’s engagement with the Roma have led to a situation in which the official aim of Roma-related development programs – the improvement of their living conditions and life chances – tends to result in a dreadlock.     

Race and Gender Concordance: Strategy to Reduce Healthcare Disparities or Red Herring? Evidence from a Qualitative Study

Healthcare treatment differences persist for African Americans even after controlling for socioeconomic status (van Ryn and Burke 2000). Although blacks represent a sizable percentage of the middle class, most disparities research does not address class heterogeneity. Furthermore, research indicates patient–provider race concordance may mitigate racial disparities in health care (Laveist and Neru-jeter in J Health Soc Behav 43(3):296–306, 2002; IOM in Unequal treatment: confronting racial and ethnic disparities in health care. National Academies Press, Washington, 2002). This study explores race and gender preference for black middle-class women in healthcare settings. The study uses in-depth interviews and focus groups to explore the experiences of thirty African American women between 38 and 67 in a large urban area. The majority of respondents expressed a strong preference for a female OB/GYN (of any race) while 9 preferred a female primary care provider (of any race). Although the women did not express an explicit race preference, they had a strong affinity for black female providers. Importantly, respondents complicated the idea of provider-level race preference by noting that other site-level factors like wait times and the site’s racial composition affected their racial preferences. Although increasing racial diversity among providers is generally positive, respondents suggest that alone will not ameliorate racial disparities. The complexities of the healthcare encounter, including time pressure, clinical uncertainty, and the patient’s desire for expertise regardless of race or gender, all impinge on respondents’ race preferences. Lastly, women noted that site-level factors may be conflated with the race of provider such that having a black provider does not necessarily lead to better care or protect women from discrimination or bias.     

Making the “Other” from “Us”: The Representation of British Converts to Islam in Mainstream British Newspapers

There is now a great deal of literature that shows how Islam and Muslims are routinely represented in negative ways in the mainstream newspapers. With overt or covert reliance on Orientalist discourse, discourses of cultural clash and extremism, including terror, are prevalent. Not only are Muslims less likely to feature in “normal” stories, abuse and prejudice against them is also more unlikely to constitute “news”. British converts to Islam have only recently begun to receive more focused attention, both in academia and in the mainstream press. Occupying a unique position in respect to the idea of the “other” and of integration in a multicultural society, converts offer a powerful point of critique of these concepts. The aim of this study is to understand how and in what discourses British converts to Islam are represented, and thereby contribute empirical knowledge to these theoretical concerns.     

Independence and identity ignored? New Zealand's reactions to the Statute of Westminster

This article concentrates on New Zealand's constitutional and cultural identity through the fascinating political meanderings between independence and dependence in political and constitutional matters that surrounded the ratification of the Statute of Westminster. New Zealand was the last of the Dominions to pass the Statute in 1947, sixteen years after it could have done in 1931 when most other Dominions did. New Zealand did not ratify this critical Act because it did not wish to appear ‘disloyal’ to Britain even though the ‘Mother Country’ had no problems with this happening. New Zealand's position mirrored the country's ambivalence between a separate national identity and interdependence moored with Britain and the Commonwealth. Though this may seem contradictory, these policies and positions accurately reflected what was perceived as New Zealand's interests. The politics and reactions of New Zealand towards the Statute of Westminster betrayed the reality that New Zealand's independence lay, in the government's mind of that era, in the country's dependence and deference to Britain whether London wanted it or not.     

Devout Muslims or tough highlanders? Exploring attitudes toward ethnic nationalism and racism in Europe’s ethnic-Chechen Salafi communities

This is the first article that systematically deconstructs the idealised, widely shared view and formal self-representation of Salafis as a de-culturalised group of Muslim believers who are solely devoted to the idea of a uniform Muslim identity and are indifferent to the notions of ethnic nationalism and racism. Drawing on unique interviews with EU-based ethnic-Chechen émigré Salafis, the article illuminates the ways they draw boundaries and consequently construe their ethnic and racial identities as superior and opposed to Muslims stemming from the Middle East and Central Asia. Below the surface of coherent ideologically shaped self-representations, the diaspora Salafis’ identities reflect the idea of Chechnya’s mountainous topography being conducive to a superior ‘national mentality’, racial purity, and cultural uniqueness. Intriguingly, the diaspora-Chechen Salafis’ attitudes toward Middle Easterners and Central Asians employ a rhetoric which entails similarities with the notion of imagined geographies and to some extent resembles Western Orientalist discourse. In stark contrast to leading Salafi scholars’ statements emphasising a united Muslim identity, which are routinely echoed by outsiders, this article points out the maintenance of strong ethnic-nationalist and racist resentments amongst individual members of this religious community.