Pushing the Boundaries: Responses to Ethnic Conformity Pressure in Two Turkish Communities in Belgium

Previous research has demonstrated that ethnic communities try to maintain ethnic boundaries through group pressure to conform to premigration cultural patterns, which mainly happens indirectly through social control. So far however, little attention has been given to how group members respond to this indirect ethnic conformity pressure, as well as to the factors that shape these responses. Drawing on in-depth interviews with second- and third-generation Turkish Belgians, we examine and explain different responses to ethnic conformity pressure and link these to ethno-cultural change and boundary change. We distinguish three negotiation strategies, namely conformity, creativity and disregard, and find that the choice for a particular strategy is first and foremost shaped by the agent’s gender, their embeddedness in the Turkish community, and the availability of an alternative support network, both of which are shaped by exclusion in the larger society. In addition, also the severity of the norm violation, the social structure of the community and parental expectations play a role. Findings are interpreted in terms of ethnic boundary dynamics, and implications for ethno-cultural change are discussed.