JEMS 27(4)

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

Volume 27, Number 4, October 2001

Special Issue: Transnationalism and Identity
Guest editor: Steven Vertovec

Steven Vertovec
Transnationalism and identity [Abstract]
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Bruno Riccio
From ‘ethnic group; to ‘transnational community’? Senegalese migrants’ ambivalent experiences and multiple trajectories [Abstract]
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Ayse Caglar
Constraining metaphors and the transnationalisation of spaces in Berlin [Abstract]
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Nadje Al-Ali, Richard Black and Khalid Koser
Refugees and transnationalism: the experience of Bosnians and Eritreans in Europe [Abstract]
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Pál Nyíri
Expatriating is patriotic? The discourse on ‘new migrants’ in the People’s Republic of China and identity construction among recent migrants from the PCR [Abstract]
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Ruba Salih
Moroccan migrant women: transnationalism, nation-states and gender [Abstract]
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Bridget Anderson
Different roots in common ground: transnationalism and migrant domestic workers in London [Abstract]
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Kevin Robins and Asu Aksoy
From spaces of identity to mental spaces: lessons from Turkish-Cypriot cultural experience in Britain [Abstract]
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Rebecca Golbert
Transnational orientations from home: constructions of Isreal and transnational space among Ukranian Jewish youth [Abstract]
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Katrin Hansing
Rasta, race and revolution: transnational connections in Socialist Cuba [Abstract]
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Reviews

Russell King
Caroline B. Brettell and James F. Hollifield, Migration Theory: Talking Across Disciplines

Daniel C. Turack
Chaloka Beyani, Human Rights Standards and the Free Movement of People within States

Richard O’Leary
Ullrich Kockel, Borderline Cases: The Ethnic Frontiers of European Integration

Pontus Odmalm
Hans Vermeulen and Rinus Penninx (eds), Immigrant Integration: The Dutch Case

Adrian Favell
Jan Blommaert and Jef Verschueren, Debating Diversity: Analysing the Discourse of Tolerance

Tony Warnes
Karen O’Reilly, The British on the Costa del Sol

Soojin Yu, Hans Vermeulen and Joel Perlmann (eds), Immigrants, Schooling and Social Mobility: Does Culture Make a Difference?

Enric Ruiz-Gelices
José C. Moya, Cousins and Strangers: Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires, 1850–1930

Ann Morning
Juanita Tamayo Lott, Asian Americans: From Racial Category to Multiple Identities

Benet Davetian
Arpena S. Mesrobian, Like One Family: The Armenians of Syracuse

Kevin McCormick
Douglass, M. and Roberts, G.S. (eds), Japan and Global Migration: Foreign Workers and the Advent of a Multicultural Society

Kathleen Valtonen
Liisa L. North and Alan B. Simmons (eds), Journeys of Fear: Refugee Return and National Transformation in Guatemala

Lee Siewpeng
Wai Kam Yu, Chinese Older People: A Need for Social Inclusion in Two Communities

Books received, to June 2001

Abstracts

Steven Vertovec
Transnationalism and identity
Abstract Transnationalism and identity are concepts that inherently call for juxtaposition. This is so because many peoples’ transnational networks of exchange and participation are grounded upon some perception of common identity; conversely, the identities of numerous individuals and groups of people are negotiated within social worlds that span more than one place. In this introductory article, the transnational perspective on migration studies is first discussed, followed by some critiques and outstanding questions. The final section summarises points raised by the contributing authors of the main papers in this themed issue of JEMS, especially with regard to various ways transnational settings and dynamics affect the construction, negotiation and reproduction of identities.
Keywords: Transnationalism: identity: migration
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4: 573-582, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Bruno Riccio
From ‘ethnic group; to ‘transnational community’? Senegalese migrants’ ambivalent experiences and multiple trajectories
Abstract The article discusses the ambivalent experiences of Senegalese migrants within the ‘transnational’ spaces uniting Italy and Senegal. It is argued that to name transnational what was previously called ‘ethnic group’ does not necessarily prevent a reified conceptualisation of migratory phenomena. With the aim of providing an ethnographic representation which is respectful of the complexity and the multiplicity of trajectories characterising a transnational community, I describe practices as well as narratives from both the context of origin and the context of migration. I show that there are various ways of being transmigrant and that transnational migration, rather than being an homogeneous system, encompasses a wide range of different and situationally varied practices. I also try to convey the ambivalences and tensions shaping representations and self-representations. Contradictory yet coexisting narratives inform Senegalese self-representation and their different attitudes towards Italians: some more open to negotiation, others more inward and critical.
Keywords: Transnationalism; Migration; Senegalese; Italy; Anti-essentialism
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4: 583-599, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Ayse Caglar
Constraining metaphors and the transnationalisation of spaces in Berlin
Abstract This paper deals with the impact of the formal principle of membership on the public and scholarly narratives of immigrants´ presence in society. It argues that ‘ghetto’ is a root metaphor of German political culture and explores how this concept, which situates minorities in stigmatised ethnocultural sites in the city, confines the frameworks and the terminology of immigration debates and the representation of immigrants in the social imaginary in Germany. The ghetto trope of immigrant discourse in Berlin reduces the inscription of difference and belonging in urban space to a simple model of seclusion based on ethnic ties. This constructs a blindness to the transnational spaces of German Turks which provide an arena for the re-imagination and negotiation of Turkish immigrants´ sociality and belonging to Berlin beyond the given categories of ethnicity and community.
Keywords: Transnational social spaces; Ghetto; Berlin; German Turks; Urban spaces
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4: 601-613, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Nadje Al-Ali, Richard Black and Khalid Koser
Refugees and transnationalism: the experience of Bosnians and Eritreans in Europe
Abstract The study of transnationalism has largely bypassed refugees, or in rare cases has focused specifically on their political activities. Proceeding from recent perspectives in international migration studies which suggest that there may be at best only a blurred conceptual distinction between refugees and other migrants, this article subjects two refugee groups – Eritreans and Bosnians in various European countries – to the type of transnational analysis more commonly found among labour migrants. It extends the focus from political activities to show how refugees can become involved in a range of economic, social and cultural transnational activities. At the same time, the paper identifies a range of obstacles which differentially influence the desire and capacity of the study populations to participate in these activities. On the basis of this empirical evidence, we make the case for a fuller incorporation of refugees in the contemporary study of transnationalism. At a more conceptual level, the paper charts the evolution of transnational characteristics among the study populations. The implication, which extends beyond the refugee context alone, is that transnationalism is not a ‘state of being’, as is sometimes implied by the existing literature, but rather that transnationalism is a dynamic process.
Keywords: Refugees; Transnationalism; Bosnia; Eritrea
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4: 615-634, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Pál Nyíri
Expatriating is patriotic? The discourse on ‘new migrants’ in the People’s Republic of China and identity construction among recent migrants from the PCR
Abstract After 1978, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) moved to (re-) legitimise, both by institutional and discursive means, allegiance to China in established overseas Chinese communities. In this paper, I attempt to show how it has progressed to the next step: celebrating migration as a patriotic and modern act, and encouraging transnational practices among people who are in the process of leaving China. More specifically, I discuss how the state discursively constructs ‘new migrant’ culture; how it engages in imagining the transnational community of new migrants and operationalises imaginaries of the home province and the homeland. I also explore how identity construction among recent migrants is manipulated by elites that participate in this state-promoted imagining process.
Keywords: China; Nationalism; Transnationalism: Media, Diaspora Politics
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4: 635-653, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Ruba Salih
Moroccan migrant women: transnationalism, nation-states and gender
Abstract Most writing on transnationalism emphasises the counter-hegemonic nature of transnational practices, by portraying them as acts of resistance and as signs of the decline of the modern nation-state. Those analyses which do acknowledge the role of nation-states and global economic restructuring in shaping and directing transnational social and political fields fail, however, to explore how these structures operate in a gendered way. By shedding light on the material and the normative conditions which forge, shape, or impede Moroccan women's movements and their transnational practices, this article suggests that rather than a uniform process, transnationalism is a complex and varied terrain experienced differently according to gender and class and their interplay with normative constraints. While not denying the symbolic and emotional significance of women's transnational practices between Italy and Morocco, this article suggests that the material, economic and normative conditions under which migrant women live impinge upon the construction of their social personhood within a transnational field.
Keywords: Transnationalism; Migration: Gender: Nation-states; Identity
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4: 655-671, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Bridget Anderson
Different roots in common ground: transnationalism and migrant domestic workers in London
Abstract Reproductive labour is increasingly globalised. The United Workers' Association (UWA), a migrant domestic workers’ group based in London that has successfully campaigned for changes in immigration rules, is taken as a case study of transnationalism from below. Members link with their countries of origin through remittances and communications with family, and use the organisation to meet up with women from the same region and/or state. However, what is particular about this group is that gender, a common immigration status, and shared employment experiences have provided a basis for members to organise despite national, ethnic and religious differences. Their struggle for visas has met with opposition both by the receiving state and by their states of origin. For most however, the struggle has been ultimately successful.
Keywords: Transnationalism; Domestic workers; Migrants
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4: 673-683, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Kevin Robins and Asu Aksoy
From spaces of identity to mental spaces: lessons from Turkish-Cypriot cultural experience in Britain
Abstract This article is concerned with the culture of Turkish Cypriots in Britain, and at the same time with the problems of finding an adequate theoretical language to theorise those experiences. First, it seeks to bring out the particularity of Turkish-Cypriot culture, located as it is between British, Cypriot and Turkish reference points. We argue that this is a culture that is distinctively, and often uncomfortably, placed between national and transnational conditions of existence. The article looks particularly at the experiences of Turkish-Cypriot women, seeking to explore their sense of cultural positioning as they live their lives in London. In its more theoretical sections, the article seeks to work against the national discursive frame of community and identity that is generally used to describe Turkish-Cypriot culture, suggesting instead an alternative approach that shifts from identity to experience and thinking about experiences.
Keywords: Turkish Cypriots; Women; London; Culture; Identity; Experience
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4: 685-711, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Rebecca Golbert
Transnational orientations from home: constructions of Isreal and transnational space among Ukranian Jewish youth
Abstract This article addresses the transnational and diaspora orientations of Ukrainian Jewish youth at home, as articulated in discourse and practice. It suggests that young Ukrainian Jews locate their everyday experiences and relationships within transnational space, thereby transnationalising the local and localising the transnational. Within this local/global continuum, a vibrant transnational Ukrainian Jewish youth culture is emerging with its own unique characteristics, which simultaneously challenge assumptions about practices of diaspora and transnationalism and seek to redefine these concepts and their distinctions.
Keywords: Transnationalism; Diaspora; Youth; Home; Returnees; Ukrainian Jews
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4: 713-731, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Katrin Hansing
Rasta, race and revolution: transnational connections in Socialist Cuba
Abstract Within the past three decades the Jamaican Rastafari movement has been transformed from a local Caribbean to a global cultural phenomenon. Reggae music and other popular cultural media have been the primary catalysts in this international spread of the movement. As a result, Rastafari has lost its original territorial moorings and become a travelling culture. Global in scope, Rastafari has nevertheless been localised in very different ways, depending on where the movement has been appropriated. This article examines the processes involved in the transnational journey of the movement’s ideas, images and music and the multiple mechanisms involved in its indigenisation with specific reference to Rastafari’s emergence and development in Cuba. In particular it looks at how the movement has entered the island, why and by whom it has been taken on, and how it manifests itself locally.
Keywords: Transnational cultural flows; Rastafari; Cuba
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 27 No. 4: 733-747, © 2001 Taylor and Francis Ltd)