Immigrants' Identities and Host-Country Participation

Immigrants' Identities and Host-Country Participation
Author: Michael David Nicholson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2018
Genre:
ISBN:

While much of our attention has focused on the demographic changes that attend immigration, less attention has been paid to how immigration is affecting the politics of host societies. This dissertation examines why immigrants participate in their host countries' politics at different rates even when they face common institutional and linguistic barriers. While non-naturalized immigrants are often barred from voting and standing for office, they sometimes participate in less conventional ways. They may, for example, volunteer, sign petitions, and participate in boycotts and protests.Their participation rates in such activities, however, vary dramatically across countries, regions,and even within immigrant cohorts. Even after accounting for diversity in their socioeconomic backgrounds and the integration contexts in which they reside, immigrants must often overcome substantial linguistic and logistical challenges in order to participate in these activities, particularly in the years immediately following their arrival. Likewise, even when immigrants are interested in host-country politics, the high cost of participation might encourage them to "pass the buck" to earlier arrivals, immigrant leaders, or natives possessing superior knowledge and resources. Indeed, it remains unclear to date why some immigrants integrate into their host countries' politics more fully than others despite these constraints. Scholars have proposed a number of theories addressing variation in immigrants' host country political participation, emphasizing factors such as host countries' integration policies, the density of immigrants' social networks, and immigrants' political socialization. To date, however, substantial differences across immigrants remain unexplained even upon accounting for these factors. This dissertation examines the covariates of immigrants' host-country participation. I argue that, all else equal, immigrants perceiving linked fate--a sense that their life chances are tied to those of others--are more likely than others to participate in their host countries' politics. Specifically, I extend and generalize U.S. theories of linked fate to immigrants in Europe, arguing that linked fate can enhance such individuals' political efficacy--their belief that they can have an impact on politics, either individually or through their groups--and facilitate their mobilization. To test these hypotheses, I conducted an original survey of 613 first-generation immigrants from Italy and Turkey in three Swiss cantons with significantly different integration policies. I find that individuals perceiving linked fate with other immigrants on the basis of their foreign origins may be more likely than others to engage in Swiss politics. Likewise, Sunni Muslims perceiving linked fate with other Muslims may participate in politics more often than other Sunnis. In addition, I find preliminary evidence that linked fate increases political participation by increasing immigrants' probability of in-group mobilization and enhancing their sense of internal efficacy--the sense that they understand how to participate in politics. To my knowledge, this dissertation represents the first comparative analysis of the relationship between immigrants' linked fate and host-country political behavior in continental Europe. My findings challenge the predominant hypothesis that immigrants identifying with minority ethnic or religious groups participate in host-country politics to improve their self-esteem. They are also robust to variations in immigrants' origins, socioeconomic characteristics, and the integration contexts in which they reside. Ultimately, this dissertation suggests that the linked fate concept provides important insight into how immigrants' identities shape their political incorporation.

Ethnic/Immigrant Associations and Minorities'/Immigrants' Voluntary Participation

Ethnic/Immigrant Associations and Minorities'/Immigrants' Voluntary Participation
Author: Lili Wang
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 107
Release: 2018-07-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9004361871

This article reviews the literature on ethnic/immigrant associations and minorities’ or immigrants’ voluntary participation in major developed countries that have experienced a significant increase of immigrants, particularly after the 1990s. In terms of ethnic/immigrant associations, the author reviews the historical background of research in this area, the size and scope, the formation and development, the memberships, and the financial well-being of these associations, the roles they play in helping immigrants acculturate into the host countries, and the classification of ethnic/immigrant associations. The author also reviews the literature that examines the factors influencing minorities’ and immigrants’ voluntary participation, their formal and informal volunteering, as well we immigrant youth’s voluntary participation.

Re/Formation and Identity

Re/Formation and Identity
Author: Deborah J. Johnson
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2021-12-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 303086426X

This innovative book applies contemporary and emergent theories of identity formation to timely questions of identity re/formation and development in immigrant families across diverse ethnicities and age groups. Researchers from across the globe examine the ways in which immigrants from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America dynamically adjust, adapt, and resist aspects of their identities in their host countries as a form of resilience. The book provides a multidisciplinary approach to studying the multidimensional complexities of identity development and immigration and offers critical insights on the experiences of immigrant families. Key areas of coverage include: Factors that affect identity formation, readjustment, and maintenance, including individual differences and social environments. Influences of intersecting immigrant ecologies such as family, community, and complex multidimensions of culture on identity development. Current identity theories and their effectiveness at addressing issues of ethnicity, culture, and immigration. Research challenges to studying various forms of identity. Re/Formation and Identity: The Intersectionality of Development, Culture, and Immigration is an essential resource for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as clinicians, professionals, and policymakers in the fields of developmental, social, and cross-cultural psychology, parenting and family studies, social work, and all interrelated disciplines.

Bringing Outsiders In

Bringing Outsiders In
Author: Jennifer Hochschild
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 393
Release: 2011-05-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0801461979

For immigrants, politics can play a significant role in determining whether and how they assimilate. In Bringing Outsiders In, leading social scientists present individual cases and work toward a comparative synthesis of how immigrants affect—and are affected by—civic life on both sides of the Atlantic. Just as in the United States, large immigrant minority communities have been emerging across Europe. While these communities usually make up less than one-tenth of national populations, they typically have a large presence in urban areas, sometimes approaching a majority. That immigrants can have an even greater political salience than their population might suggest has been demonstrated in recent years in places as diverse as Sweden and France. Attending to how local and national states encourage or discourage political participation, the authors assess the relative involvement of immigrants in a wide range of settings. Jennifer Hochschild and John Mollenkopf provide a context for the particular cases and comparisons and draw a set of analytic and empirical conclusions regarding incorporation.

Immigrant Associations, Integration and Identity

Immigrant Associations, Integration and Identity
Author: João Sardinha
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2009
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9089640363

This book sheds light on the integration processes and identity patterns of Angolan, Brazilian and Eastern European communities in Portugal. It examines the privileged position that immigrant organisations hold as interlocutors between the communities they represent and various social service mechanisms operating at national and local levels. Through the collection of ethnographic data and the realisation of 110 interviews with community insiders and middlemen, culled over a year's time, Joo Sardinha provides insight into how the three groups are perceived by their respective associations and representatives. Following up on the rich data is a discussion of strategies of coping with integration and identity in the host society and reflections on Portuguese social and community services and institutions.

Citizenship, Political Engagement, and Belonging

Citizenship, Political Engagement, and Belonging
Author: Deborah Reed-Danahay
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2008-07-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0813545110

Immigration is continuously and rapidly changing the face of Western countries. While newcomers are harbingers of change, host nations also participate in how new populations are incorporated into their social and political fabric. Bringing together a transcontinental group of anthropologists, this book provides an in-depth look at the current processes of immigration, political behavior, and citizenship in both the United States and Europe. Essays draw on issues of race, national identity, religion, and more, while addressing questions, including: How should citizenship be defined? In what ways do immigrants use the political process to achieve group aims? And, how do adults and youth learn to become active participants in the public sphere? Among numerous case studies, examples include instances of racialized citizenship in “Algerian France,” Ireland’s new citizenship laws in response to asylum-seeking mothers, the role of Evangelical Christianity in creating a space for the construction of an identity that transcends state borders, and the Internet as one of the new public spheres for the expression of citizenship, be it local, national, or global.

The Changing Face of Home

The Changing Face of Home
Author: Peggy Levitt
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2002-12-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1610443535

The children of immigrants account for the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population under eighteen years old—one out of every five children in the United States. Will this generation of immigrant children follow the path of earlier waves of immigrants and gradually assimilate into mainstream American life, or does the global nature of the contemporary world mean that the trajectory of today's immigrants will be fundamentally different? Rather than severing their ties to their home countries, many immigrants today sustain economic, political, and religious ties to their homelands, even as they work, vote, and pray in the countries that receive them. The Changing Face of Home is the first book to examine the extent to which the children of immigrants engage in such transnational practices. Because most second generation immigrants are still young, there is much debate among immigration scholars about the extent to which these children will engage in transnational practices in the future. While the contributors to this volume find some evidence of transnationalism among the children of immigrants, they disagree over whether these activities will have any long-term effects. Part I of the volume explores how the practice and consequences of transnationalism vary among different groups. Contributors Philip Kasinitz, Mary Waters, and John Mollenkopf use findings from their large study of immigrant communities in New York City to show how both distance and politics play important roles in determining levels of transnational activity. For example, many Latin American and Caribbean immigrants are "circular migrants" spending much time in both their home countries and the United States, while Russian Jews and Chinese immigrants have far less contact of any kind with their homelands. In Part II, the contributors comment on these findings, offering suggestions for reconceptualizing the issue and bridging analytical differences. In her chapter, Nancy Foner makes valuable comparisons with past waves of immigrants as a way of understanding the conditions that may foster or mitigate transnationalism among today's immigrants. The final set of chapters examines how home and host country value systems shape how second generation immigrants construct their identities, and the economic, social, and political communities to which they ultimately express allegiance. The Changing Face of Home presents an important first round of research and dialogue on the activities and identities of the second generation vis-a-vis their ancestral homelands, and raises important questions for future research.

Chinese Immigrants in Europe

Chinese Immigrants in Europe
Author: Yue Liu
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2020-03-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3110616386

We are living in a world in which the visible and invisible borders between nations are being shaken at an unprecedented pace. We are experiencing a wave of international migration, and the diversity of migrants – in terms of how they identify, their external and self-image, and their participation in society – is increasingly noticeable. After the introduction of the Reform and Opening Up policy, over 10 million migrants left China, with Europe the main destination for Chinese emigration after 1978. This volume provides multidisciplinary answers to open questions: How and to what extent do Chinese immigrants participate in their host societies? What kind of impact is the increasing number of highly qualified immigrants from China having on the development and perception of overseas Chinese communities in Europe? How is the development of Chinese identity transforming in relation to generational change? By focusing on two key European countries, Germany and France, this volume makes a topical contribution to research on (new) Chinese immigrants in Europe.