Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (JEMS)
ISSN 1369-183X print / 1469-9451 online

Articles

Caroline Nagel
Hidden minorities and the politics of 'race': the case of British Arab activists in London [Abstract]

Claudia Diehl; Michael Blohm
Apathy, adaptation or ethnic mobilisation? On the attitudes of a politically excluded group  [Abstract]

Kathleen Valtonen
Cracking monopoly: immigrants and employment in Finland  [Abstract]

Martin N. Marger
The use of social and human capital among Canadian business immigrants   [Abstract]

Leslie Reese
Morality and identity in Mexican immigrant parents' visions of the future  [Abstract]

David Mellor; Gai Bynon; Jerome Maller; Felicity Cleary; Alex Hamilton; Lara Watson
The perception of racism in ambiguous scenarios  [Abstract]

Sultana Mustafa Khanum
The household patterns of a 'Bangladeshi village' in England  [Abstract]

Krystyna Iglicka
Shuttling from the former Soviet Union to Poland: from 'primitive mobility' to migration  [Abstract]

Douglas Klusmeyer
A 'guiding culture' for immigrants? Integration and diversity in Germany   [Abstract]

Muhammad Anwar
The participation of ethnic minorities in British politics  [Abstract]

Reviews

Jens Stilhoff Sörensen, International Crisis Group, Is Dayton Failing: Bosnia Four Years after the Peace Agreement; International Crisis Group, Reality Demands: Documenting Violations of International Humanitarian Law in Kosovo 1999; David Chandler, Bosnia – Faking Democracy after Dayton

Abstracts

Caroline Nagel
Hidden minorities and the politics of 'race': the case of British Arab activists in London
Abstract This article uses a case study of activists in London’s Arab communities to address the marginalisation of certain groups in academic analyses of ‘race’ and ethnicity. Theorisation of ‘race’ has become increasingly sophisticated, emphasising the fluidity of racial identities and the contextual specificity of racial ideologies and racialised practices. Yet very few empirical analyses of ‘race’ stray from the rigid categories of ‘race’ and ethnicity found in censuses and other official sources. The implication is that only certain groups ‘count’ as ‘racial’ and should be analysed in terms of ‘race’. Using evidence gathered from intensive interviews with Arab community activists, this paper attempts to challenge rigid conceptions of ‘race’ and, in so doing, to move discussions of ‘racial politics’ beyond standard black–white dichotomies.
Keywords: Race; Arabs; Britain; Immigration; Community activism
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 3: 381-400, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Claudia Diehl; Michael Blohm
Apathy, adaptation or ethnic mobilisation? On the attitudes of a politically excluded group
Abstract This article examines political attitudes and behavioural intentions of immigrants in the field of voting behaviour. Based on a quantitative survey of the population of Turkish origin in Mannheim, Germany, and data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), we show that the political attitudes of immigrants reflect their marginal legal status: immigrants show a lower interest in the political processes of the host country and a lower identification with its political institutions than natives, and this difference is only partly explained by immigrants’ lower socio-economic status. Alienation from institutions in the host country increases migrants’ likelihood of considering ethnically segregated immigrant parties as more suitable for representing their interests than the political parties of the host country. A closer look at the political attitudes of these supporters of immigrant parties reveals, however, little evidence of collective interest formation among this group.
Keywords: Political participation; Immigration; Germany; Ethnic politics
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 3: 401-420, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Kathleen Valtonen
Cracking monopoly: immigrants and employment in Finland
Abstract This article examines unemployment among immigrants in Finland, and their difficulties in accessing the labour market. The study is based on qualitative data from interviews with immigrant jobseekers, and the findings of an exploratory questionnaire that was addressed to representatives of labour unions, employers, and employers’associations. Findings show that immigrant jobseekers consistently encounter blockage at the outer periphery of the labour market at the stage of first enquiries. Immigrant unemployment can be understood as an outcome of 'monopoly'-like mechanisms of exclusion, which are at present being formally articulated in the categorical distinction between jobseekers with an acceptable level of language skill and all those assumed to be deficient in this respect. While social citizenship brings immigrants fully into the citizenry, as members with developed monopoly rights to welfare, their relations to the labour market are precarious. Recent insertion into the secondary labour market carries the risk of segmentation in the future.
Keywords: Finland; Immigrants; Employment; Exclusion; Opportunity hoarding; Access
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 3: 421-438, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd))

Martin N. Marger
The use of social and human capital among Canadian business immigrants
Abstract  Social capital in the form of ethnic networks and family ties is assumed to function critically in the establishment and operation of immigrant-owned businesses. In this paper I argue that, although the formation and expenditure of social capital may typify the experiences of many immigrant entrepreneurs, some enter the host society with sufficient human capital that enables them to forego the utilisation of social capital in the adaptation process. To test this hypothesis, interviews were conducted with 70 immigrant entrepreneurs in the province of Ontario between 1993 and 1995. All interviewees entered Canada under the auspices of the Canadian Business Immigration Program, a federal program designed to attract immigrants with demonstrable business and managerial skills, a critical form of human capital. All, therefore, had pre-migration intentions of entrepreneurship in the receiving society. What is found among these business immigrants is a minimal reliance on social capital in establishing and operating their firms. It is concluded that immigrants entering the host society with pre-migration intentions of business ownership possess sufficient human capital that enables them to disregard the formation and utilisation of social capital in their economic adaptation.
Keywords: Immigrant enterprise; Social capital; Business immigrants; Canada
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 3: 439-453, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Leslie Reese
Morality and identity in Mexican immigrant parents' visions of the future
Abstract The tendency for immigrants to evaluate their circumstances in the host country in terms of the life they knew in their native country has been described as a ‘dual frame of reference’. Although the immigrant family may be living in crowded conditions and the parents working long hours for a minimum wage, family members can nonetheless compare their circumstances to those they left in their home country and feel that they are better off in their new land. However, for first-generation Mexican immigrant parents in the United States, for whom the traditional child-rearing values of respect, obedience and family unity form a significant ethnic marker, the dual frame of reference takes on an additional perspective. Although the home country is viewed as a land of economic hardship, it remains a treasured source of core moral values that continue to give coherence to everyday life. This study examines ways in which the twofold nature of the immigrants’ frame of reference, in which the host country exemplifies both material good and moral decay, contributes to their differential adoption of US customs and values as well as heightened insecurity regarding their children’s futures. The adaptive struggle confronting Mexican immigrants in the US is played out in moral terms: how does one raise children who surpass their parents economically but do not fall prey to the moral dangers of contemporary American society?
Keywords: Immigration; Culture; Religion; Latino; US/Mexico; Transnationalism
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 3: 455-472, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd))

David Mellor; Gai Bynon; Jerome Maller; Felicity Cleary; Alex Hamilton; Lara Watson
The perception of racism in ambiguous scenarios
Abstract Recent theorising on the nature of racism suggests that over the last few decades it has come to be expressed in more subtle and ambiguous ways because while many Whites proclaim egalitarian values, their cognitions and behaviour are influenced by prejudices that are buried deep in their psyche. This leads to the possibility that those who perpetrate and those who experience racism may have different interpretations of events that involve racism. Essed (1991) has suggested that because they are exposed to racism systematically, those who experience racism are in a good position to detect it if they have both knowledge of normal behaviour for particular situations, and a general knowledge of racism. Using Essed’s model of the assessment of racist events, the descriptions of six videotaped ambiguously-racist scenarios given by 40 Caucasian students and 40 Asian students were analysed to determine whether situational or general knowledge of racism was evident. Contrary to expectations, the Asian students, who belong to a group targeted with racism in Australia, were less likely to see racism in the scenarios. Finding the scenarios to be acceptable indicated a lack of situational knowledge, and hence, an inability to use general knowledge of racism if it exists. The role of cultural values in the application of situational knowledge is discussed, and further empirical investigations of Essed’s model are proposed.
Keywords: Perceptions; Racism; Ambiguous scenarios; Essed
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 3: 473-488, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Sultana Mustafa Khanum
The household patterns of a 'Bangladeshi village' in England
Abstract  The existence of racism as well as an apparent inability to achieve parity within British society forces the majority of Bangladeshi immigrants to think about their future in the homeland. This encourages them to maintain links with the sending society. One way to maintain such links is for men to have two wives. One resides in England while the other remains in the homeland to look after property, particularly arable land. In the course of time, the latter may join her husband and the co-wife in England. Strict immigration regulations may mean that some migrants fail to bring their spouses and children to the UK. Such complexities have given rise to the evolution of differential household patterns amongst this community, quite distinct from existing British or Asian household patterns. The present article deals with the changing pattern of household composition among Bangladeshis in England. In the course of mapping UK Bangladeshis’ domestic situations it becomes clear that traditional family patterns have been affected by the migration process and by the strict immigration regulations governing family reunion in ways that have resulted in some UK Bangladeshi women finding themselves in extremely impoverished and insecure situations.
Keywords: Bangladeshis; Migrant women; Household patterns; Manchester
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 3: 489-504, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Krystyna Iglicka
Shuttling from the former Soviet Union to Poland: from 'primitive mobility' to migration
Abstract This paper describes and analyses the phenomenon of shuttle mobility from the countries of the former Soviet Union into Poland during the decade after the collapse of the communist rule. I suggest that such pendulum movements are an ephemeral population phenomenon characteristic of the transition period in the CEE region, and I introduce the term primitive mobility to characterise these temporary population movements. Furthermore, the analysis presented in this paper emphasizes that, along with the development of networks and institutions created by both pendular migrants and receiving communities, some part of this mobility transforms slowly into more permanent migration. Both official statistics on channels of legal migration to Poland and the results of two surveys – on the Polish eastern border and in the Warsaw urban agglomeration – were used in this study.
Keywords: Shuttle mobility; Migration; Poland; Former Soviet Union
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 3: 505-518, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Douglas Klusmeyer
A 'guiding culture' for immigrants? Integration and diversity in Germany
Abstract  The CDU’s recent proposal for a national ‘guiding culture’ as the basis for immigrant integration has aroused considerable controversy in Germany.  This essay examines the underlying assumptions and framework of this approach to integration. It argues that this approach rests on a Romantic understanding of culture that obscures fundamental internal differences within majority cultures and further marginalises minorities. In postulating a unitary, homogeneous vision of German national culture, the CDU has forgotten the sharp conflicts that long divided German Protestants and Catholics, and which reached their apex during the Kulturkampf of the 1870s. Moreover, focussing on immigrant integration as primarily a cultural matter ignores the relationships of power that shape any integration process. The importance of looking at the institutional and structural dimensions of such a process is made clear by comparing the Federal Republic’s experiences with integrating the expellees/refugees of the 1950s and the East Germans after 1990. The CDU’s notion of a ‘guiding culture’ for immigrants should be understood as illustrative of a broader pattern among elites in modern liberal-democratic states to invoke cultural and other ascriptive characteristics as a rationale in order to deny full and equal membership to minorities and other disadvantaged groups.
Keywords: Citizenship; Germany; Immigration; Multiculturalism; Nationalism
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 3: 519-532, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd )

Muhammad Anwar
The participation of ethnic minorities in British politics
Abstract How far have ethnic minorities participated in the British electoral process in the last two decades? In this article their comparative registration and turn-out levels as well as their voting patterns are examined. In addition, the responses of the political parties to the participation of ethnic minorities in politics and the representation of ethnic minorities at national and local levels of the British political system are presented. It is clear from the evidence that we have a long way to go to reflect multi-ethnic Britain in the House of Commons and in other political institutions.
Keywords: Ethnic minorities; Political participation; Britain
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 3: 533-549, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)