Volume 26 Number 4 October 2000
To coincide with the publication of the Report of the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, JEMS features a review symposium where the report is assessed from respectively UK, North American and Continental European perspectives. More ...
Articles
Symposium
Reviews
Abstracts
David Owen and Anne E. Green
Estimating
commuting flows for minority ethnic groups in England and Wales [Abstract]
Cristóbal Mendoza
African employment
in Iberian construction: a cross-border analysis
[Abstract]
Barbara Dietz
German and Jewish
migration from the former Soviet Union to Germany: background, trends and implications
[Abstract]
Brian Aboud
Re-reading Arab
World–New World immigration history: beyond the prewar/postwar divide
[Abstract]
Roger Zetter and Martyn Pearl
The
minority within the minority: refugee community-based organisations in the UK and the
impact of restrictionism on asylum-seekers
[Abstract]
Hans De Witte and
Bert Klandermans
Political racism in Flanders and the Netherlands: comparing the electoral success of
extreme-right parties
[Abstract]
Michael Banton,
Will Kymlicka and Charles Westin
Report of the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain: UK, North American and
Continental European perspectives
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
Vol. 26 No. 4)
Gary P. Freeman
Will
Kymlicka and Wayne Norman (Eds), Citizenship in
Diverse Societies
August
Gächter
Albrecht
Weber (Ed.), Einwanderungsland Bundesrepublik
Deutschland in der Europäischen Union: Gestaltungsauftrag und Regelungsmöglichkeiten
Hans van Amersfoort
Zlatko
Skrbiš, Long Distance Nationalism: Diasporas,
Homelands and Identities
Alastair Bonnett
George Lipsitz, The Possessive Investment in
Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics
Jeroen Doomernik
Jeanette
Money, Fences and Neighbors: The Political Geography of Immigration Control
Diane Frost
Barbara
Bush, Imperialism, Race and Resistance: Africa and
Britain 1919–1945
William J. Haller
Frank Bonilla,
Edwin Meléndez, Rebecca Morales and María de los Angeles Torres, Borderless Borders: US Latinos, Latin Americans, and
the Paradox of Interdependence
Mary Chamberlain (Ed.), Caribbean
Migration: Globalised Identities
Frank den Hertog
Daphne
Berdahl, Where the World Ended: Re-Unification and
Identity in the German Borderland
Dirk Jacobs
Peter
Marcuse and Ronald van Kempen (Eds), Globalizing
Cities: A New Spatial Order?
Khalid Koser
Steven Vertovec and Robin Cohen (Eds), Migration,
Diasporas and Transnationalism
Donald M. MacRaild
William
E. Van Vugt, Britain to America:
Mid-Nineteenth-Century Immigrants to the United States
Ann Morning
Margo J. Anderson
and Stephen E. Fienberg, Who Counts? The Politics of Census-Taking in Contemporary
America
Chana Moshenska
Jan
Lucassen and Leo Lucassen (Eds), Migration,
Migration History, History: Old Paradigms and New Perspectives
Mark Levene
Ross
Mallick, Development, Ethnicity and Human Rights in
South Asia
Kalwant Bhopal
Jessica
Jacobson, Islam in Transition: Religion and Identity among British Pakistani
Youth
Books received, to August 2000
David Owen and Anne E. Green
Estimating
commuting flows for minority ethnic groups in England and Wales
Abstract
Various
studies have pointed to the persistent labour market disadvantage faced by many
individuals from minority ethnic groups in Great Britain. Analyses have also
shown that minority ethnic groups remain spatially concentrated in particular
parts of the urban and regional system, and that they are over-represented in
areas of socioeconomic disadvantage. There has been considerable debate about
the skills and spatial dimensions to labour market mismatch, and minority ethnic
issues have been given particular prominence in the work of the Social Exclusion
Unit and Policy Action Teams. However, analysts in Great Britain examining the
ethnic minority dimension to the problem of labour market mismatch are hampered
by a lack of data, including detailed local information on journey-to-work flows
disaggregated by ethnic group. This article is concerned with estimating
commuting flows by ethnic group in England and Wales, and using these estimates
to examine commuting patterns by ethnic group in 1991 in the context of
employment change over the preceding inter-censal period, in order to provide
some insights into labour market mismatch.
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 26 No. 4:
581-608, © 2000 Taylor and Francis Ltd.)
Cristóbal Mendoza
African employment
in Iberian construction: a cross-border analysis
Abstract
International labour immigration into Southern Europe has been highlighted as a
main migration trend in Europe since the mid-1980s. Yet little research has been
done on specific labour market processes that 'allow' immigrants to find work in
the context of high European unemployment. More than 'absolute' labour
shortages, it seems that immigrants fill the 'holes' in labour supply that home
populations have left. This article explores this issue for the construction
sectors in Portugal and Spain. Construction is a key industry for both economies
and one that employs substantial number of African workers. Yet its structure
varies considerably depending on national economic circumstances. This in turn
affects African labour outcomes. These outcomes are examined here through the
analysis of in-depth interviews with African employees and employers in Girona
(Spain), and Algarve and Setúbal (Portugal). The cross-border comparison
reveals a different role being played by immigrants in the construction industry
on either sides of the border. Construction is thus the main employer of African
males in Portugal providing jobs for immigrants throughout their working lives
in the country, but it plays a more marginal role for Africans in Spain. The
Girona survey clearly shows that construction offers unskilled work on a
temporary basis to immigrants, even subjected to local variations in labour
demand. Unlike in Spain, Africans in Portugal secure skilled manual jobs in
construction. A main reason for this is the unattractiveness of construction for
non-immigrant white workers due to low wages and high levels of casual work
within the sector. The article concludes that the Portuguese and Spanish
construction markets operate in ways that are consistent with segmentation
labour market theories. In the case of Spain, segmentation occurs by type of
work, with Africans being placed in a clearly-defined niche of unskilled,
manual, short-term jobs. In Portugal, the whole construction sector appears to
be an immense 'reservoir' of unstable, low-paid work left behind by white native
workers.
Barbara Dietz
German and Jewish
migration from the former Soviet Union to Germany: background, trends and implications
Abstract
With the break-up of the Soviet Union, emigration from its successor
states has increased considerably since the beginning of the 1990s. The most
important receiving country of this outmigration has been Germany, which
admitted approximately 1.63 million ethnic Germans and 120,000 Jews from the
former Soviet Union between 1990 and 1999. In this article I explore the
background and the implications of this recent emigration movement of Germans
and Jews from the former Soviet Union to Germany. First, the migration movement
of ethnic Germans and Jews will be described in the light of the German
admission policy. Second, the social and cultural background and the emigration
motivation of German and Jewish migrants will be examined. Finally, the
integration of these recent immigrant groups from the former Soviet Union into
Germany will be explored, with reference to the concept of segmented
assimilation.
Brian Aboud
Re-reading Arab
World–New World immigration history: beyond the prewar/postwar divide
Abstract
Historical accounts of Arab migration to and settlement in the ‘New World’
are commonly structured in terms of a dominant theme of disruption or
discontinuity centred on an immigration hiatus variously located during the
interwar and World War II periods. The narratives are, hence, organised around a
prewar/postwar dichotomy that posits distinctive and mutually exclusive
migratory waves – one spanning the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, the other commencing immediately after World War II. This article
presents a more nuanced, if not an alternative, reading of that immigration
history as it pertains to flows from Arab World sources to Canada and Australia
and, for purposes of comparison, to the USA. This (re)reading locates
continuities in global structures and in micro-level migratory processes and
entry regulation practices that transcend the prewar/postwar divide and that
link Arab World-New World migrations across time and space.
Roger Zetter and Martyn Pearl
The
minority within the minority: refugee community-based organisations in the UK and the
impact of restrictionism on asylum-seekers
Abstract
Since the mid-1990s, policies and
legislation for refugees and asylum-seekers have become increasingly
restrictionist in the UK. Disentitlement to housing and welfare benefits and
fragmented service delivery have caused widespread social exclusion and
destitution amongst asylum-seekers.
The article examines some of the consequences
of these policy shifts for refugee community-based organisations (RCOs). The
article shows how, on the margins, RCOs have articulated the needs and expanded
their activities for their client groups in an increasingly constrained policy
arena. However, the vital resources that RCOs could provide are often as
neglected and marginalised as the groups they serve. Financial and legal
constraints to RCO action have resulted in pragmatic responses, a generally poor
quality of service provision, very limited access to public resources, lack of
co-ordination and networking, and limited professional capacity. These
shortcomings are underpinned by institutional and structural determinants which
the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act reinforces. These flaws in the current
framework of provision are explored. Some ways in which practice can be improved
are outlined. Pessimistically the article concludes that, despite the rapid
increase of demand for RCO services, the scope for major repositioning of RCOs
away from the margins is unlikely.
Hans De Witte and
Bert Klandermans
Political racism in Flanders and the Netherlands: comparing the electoral success of
extreme-right parties
Abstract
In this article, a multi-disciplinary approach is used to explain the electoral
breakthrough of the Vlaams Blok in Flanders (Belgium) relative to the marginal
electoral performance of the extreme right in the Netherlands. Drawing on
insights from various disciplines – mainly historical science, political
science, sociology and social psychology, a conceptual frame is developed to
explain this difference. Three factors are highlighted: supply, demand, and
mobilisation. In terms of supply, an extreme right-wing party needs a
‘strong’ structure in order to grow. A
‘fertile soil’ is also needed. This means that a large enough number of
citizens must hold attitudes that make them susceptible to the message of an
extreme right-wing party. Demand will mostly be guided by ethnocentrism and (to
a lesser degree) by a negative attitude towards politics. Interaction of supply
and demand in the context of mobilisation can lead to an ‘upward spiral’. A
stronger structure implies greater means and more human resources to convince
the ‘reservoir’ of voters. When societal circumstances allow, this can lead
to an electoral breakthrough, which in turn further strengthens the structure of
the party, its means to communicate with potential voters and its opportunities
for placing topics on the political agenda. In this article, we will demonstrate
that supply and demand are stronger in Flanders than in the Netherlands.
Right-wing extremism in Flanders experienced an upward spiral, whereas in
the Netherlands it remained caught in a web of organisational weakness.