JEMS 25(1)

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (JEMS)
ISSN 1369-183X

Volume 25 Number 1 January 1999

Michael Banton
National integration and ethnic violence in Western Europe [Abstract]

Steve Vertovec
Minority associations, networks and public policies: re-assessing relationships [Abstract]

Tetty Havinga and Anita BöckerCountry of asylum by choice or by chance: asylum-seekers in Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK [Abstract]

Maykel Verkuyten, Sofie van de Calseijide and Wieger de Leur
Third-generation South Moluccans in the Netherlands: the nature of ethnic identity [Abstract]

Kalwant Bhopal
Domestic finance in South Asian households in East London [Abstract]

Sigrid Bafekr and Johan Leman
Highly qualified Iranian immigrants in Germany: the role of ethnicity and culture [Abstract]

Richard Tomlins
Race equality initiatives in housing provision: organisational change and the role of gatekeepers [Abstract]

Paula Baraitser
Family planning and sexual health: understanding the needs of South Asian women in Glasgow [Abstract]

Reviews

Ryszard Cholewinski
Sebastian Poulter, Ethnicity, Law and Human Rights: The English Experience

Adrian Favell
Shamit Saggar (Ed.), Race and British Electoral Politics

Maykel Verkuyten
Cora Govers and Hans Vermeulen (Eds), The Politics of Ethnic Consciousness

Hans van Amersfoort
Tomas Hammar, Grete Brochmann, Krisof Tamas and Thomas Faist (Eds), International Migration, Immobility and Development: Multidisciplinary Perspectives

Adrian Favell
Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe
Christiano Codagnone, Questione Nazionale e Migrazioni Etniche: La Russia e lo Spazio Post-Sovietico

Paul B. Rich
Tessa Blackstone, Bhikhu Parekh and Peter Sanders (Eds), Race Relations in Britain: a Developing Agenda

David M. Reimers
Anthony Gronowicz, Race and Class Politics in New York Before the Civil War

Steven J. Gold
Min Zhou and Carl l. Bankston III, Growing up American: How Vietnamese Children Adapt to Life in the United States

Philip Martin
Kevin F. McCarthy and Georges Vernez, Immigration in a Changing Economy: California’s Experience

Peter S. Li
Eleanor Laquian, Aprodicio Laquian and Terry McGee (Eds), The Silent Debate: Asian Immigration and Racism in Canada

Albert Martens
Marco Martiniello (Ed.), Multicultural policies and the state: a comparison of two European societies

Talip Kucukcan
Julie Mertus, Jasmina Tesanovic, Habiba Metikos and Rada Boric (Eds), (foreword by Cornel West), The Suitcase: Refugee Voices from Bosnia and Croatia

Hilda Scattergood
Muhammed Anwar, Between Cultures: Continuity and Change in the Lives of Young Asians

Giuseppe Sciortino
Jeffrey Cole, The New Racism in Europe: A Sicilian Ethnography

Amalendú Misra
Tom Griffiths and Libby Robin (Eds), Ecology and Empire: Environmental History of Settler Societies

Books received, to November 1998

Abstracts

National integration and ethnic violence in Western Europe
Michael Banton

Abstract When ethnically distinctive immigrant groups settle in industrial societies, ethnic violence may be expected to increase as a result of the competition promoted by processes of national integration. The relevant evidence for West European countries permits only a tentative evaluation of this hypothesis. The integration of non-European groups has progressed furthest in the British group of countries, followed by the Nordic, French, German and Italian groups. Ethnic violence appears to be highest in the countries at the head of this list but many relevant variables remain poorly identified.

Minority associations, networks and public policies: re-assessing relationships
Steve Vertovec

Abstract Economic and political restructuring in Western societies has wrought a variety of new modes of exclusion, including unequal access to public resources and policy making. These have particularly affected members of immigrant and ethnic minority populations. New forums, types of representation and modes of participation are needed to bring about more democratic developments surrounding a range of public policies (including education, housing, health and social care).
In the first part of this article a variety of forms of immigrant and ethnic minority representation, consultation and participation in the policy process are reviewed. In the second part, new directions are discussed, particularly by way of calls to recognise institutionally (a) the so-called ‘new pluralism’ and the inherent multiplicity of identities among all members of the public, (b) new modes of social and political networking, and (c) associationalist political frameworks intended to facilitate more democratic forms of policy formation and delivery.

Country of asylum by choice or by chance: asylum-seekers in Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK
Tetty Havinga and Anita Böcker

Abstract This article seeks to illuminate the reasons underlying an asylum-seeker’s choice of country of refuge. An examination of the statistics on asylum applications in the countries of the European Union reveals some specific patterns of origin and destination. Why, for example, do so many asylum-seekers go to the Netherlands? The authors consider the question of just how much choice the asylum-seeker has. Next, the importance is analysed of three groups of factors in explaining the patterns of destination of asylum-seekers: (1) ties between the country of origin and the country of asylum, (2) the characteristics of the countries of destination and, (3) events during the actual flight and travel which might influence the destination of the asylum-seeker.

Third-generation South Moluccans in the Netherlands: the nature of ethnic identity
Maykel Verkuyten, Sofie van de Calseijde and Wieger de Leur

Abstract Frederic Barth recommended taking what people themselves think and believe as the starting point for an analysis of ethnicity. As the concept of thinking used by Barth was rather underdeveloped and limited, his central idea of boundary construction and maintenance being problematic is interpreted here as the need to focus on a broader, more argumentative notion of ordinary thinking. This results in a notion that keeps Barth's emphasis on everyday interaction but focuses on what people actually say, how they say it, and that examines ideological effects. Ethnic minority identity among third-generation South Moluccans living in the Netherlands is examined in terms of the diversity of comparisons and distinctions which are made and the way they are accounted for. An outline is presented of how the interviewees define 'real' Moluccans, differentiate themselves from the Dutch and define themselves in opposition to other ethnic minority groups.

Domestic finance in South Asian households in East London
Kalwant Bhopal

Abstract This article examines South Asian women’s experiences of domestic finance in households in East London. The findings indicate that women’s level of education and economic activity affects their access to domestic finance. This is also related to women’s marital status and family type. There are significant differences between white and South Asian households in the organisation of domestic finance. In lower income households, men are more likely to control domestic finance, women hand over their wage packets to their husbands and men decide how women’s earnings are spent. In these households couples are more likely to employ the ‘whole wage’ system. In other low income households, couples employ the ‘allowance’ system. Women in low income households were more likely to have an ‘arranged marriage’ (‘traditional’ families) and have low levels of education. Those in higher income households are more likely to share the control of domestic finance and employ the ‘allowance’ or ‘joint management’ system of domestic finance. Women in high income households were more likely to be cohabiting with their partners (‘cohabiting’ families) and have high levels of education.

Sigrid Vafekr and Johan Leman
Highly-qualified Iranian immigrants in Germany: the role of ethnicity and culture

Abstract In parallel with their fellow countrymen and women in the USA and France, Iranians resident in Germany, and in particular the group of intellectuals whom we are discussing here, have founded various cultural associations. They meet each other regularly at scientific-cultural events. The following description is the result of participation at these meetings and of numerous discussions and interviews held with the individuals involved between 1994 and the end of 1997.
It has emerged that a matrix of culturally determined awareness, emotions and patterns of interrelations is at work. An ‘Iranianness’ that is conveyed in literature, music and art appears to correspond with what the individuals concerned perceive as being part of the essence of their being. They have not found what is so essential to them – a new homeland, and they know that they will not find it.
The findings support the need to further the ethnicity debate. Culture-based communal sensitivity with ethnic connotations does indeed exist.

Race equality initiatives in housing provision: organisational change and the role of gatekeepers
Richard Tomlins

Abstract This article examines the implementation of radical race equality initiatives which were introduced at a junior organisational level within a large British housing association. It suggests that these strategies contributed to the increasing numbers of minority ethnic households housed by and applying to the association for accommodation. These successes, however, can be seen as having been achieved at the expense of the quality of the accommodation allocated to minority ethnic households. It is also argued that the strategy paid insufficient attention to ethnic diversity.
The article also discusses the change processes which were observed. It suggests that organisations may have 'organisational power vacuums' caused by the conscious or unconscious withdrawal of formal authority from an organisational resource area. These are seen as offering 'opportunity spaces' for officers including those at a junior organisational level to become 'change activists', in essence the opportunity to act independently of the organisation to sponsor radical change in policy and/or practice. However, it is suggested that unless the strategies of change activists are sensitive to the boundaries of an opportunity space and the means of rooting initiatives in organisational custom, convention and/or authority they may not succeed in bringing about radical change. Instead their initiatives may result in 'static reassertion', the reversion of the organisation to historic practice and perhaps the creation of greater barriers to future organisational change.

Family planning and sexual health: understanding the needs of South Asian women in Glasgow
Paula Baraitser

Abstract This study enabled South Asian women living in Glasgow to discuss the constraints on their use of family planning services. Semi-structured interviews were completed with 20 South Asian women. The results show that only a minority of women experience linguistic barriers to contraceptive service use. The South Asian visitors to the clinic who were interviewed identified few barriers to their own service use but described other groups of South Asian women as unable to access family planning services because of lack of information about existing services, little knowledge of sexual health issues and embarrassment in sexual health consultations. The groups identified by the interviewees as experiencing these constraints were women who had recently immigrated and unmarried South Asian women although none of the respondents belonged to these groups.
The implications of these findings for service providers are considered particularly with regard to the claim of some groups within a community to speak for others. The importance of locally specific data for planning services is discussed in addition to difficulties related to responding to this information which is often contradictory.