Anthropology And Migration

This collection pushes migration and "the minor" to the fore of literary anthropology. What happens when authors who thematize their “minority” background articulate notions of belonging, self, and society in literature? The contributors use “interface ethnography” and “fieldwork on foot” to analyze a broad selection of literature and processes of dialogic engagement. The chapters discuss German-speaking Herta Müller’s perpetual minority status in Romania; Bengali-Scottish Bashabi Fraser and the potentiality of poetry; vagrant pastoralism and “heritagization” in Puglia, Italy; the self-representation of European Muslims post 9/11 in Zeshan Shakar’s acclaimed Norwegian novel; the autobiographical narratives of Loveleen Rihel Brenna and the artist collective Queendom in Norway; the “immigrant” as a permanent guest in Spanish-language children’s literature; and Slovenian roots-searching in Argentina. This anthology examines the generative and transformative potentials of storytelling, while illustrating that literary anthropology is well equipped to examine the multiple contexts that literature engages. Chapter 4 of this book is available open access under a CC By 4.0 license at link.springer.com.

Brettell's new book provides new insight into the processes of migration and transnationalism from an anthropological perspective. It has been estimated at the turn of the millennium that 160 million people are living outside of their country of birth or citizenship. The author analyzes macro and micro approaches to migration theory, utilizing her extensive fieldwork in Portugal as well as research in Germany, Brazil, France, the United States and Canada. Key issues she discusses include: the value of immigrant incorporation vs. assimilation models; the impacts on individual, household and community as well as institutions and states; the role of ethnicity and ethnic groups; the effects of clandestine or illegal immigration; the differing commitments to host vs. sending communities; the shift from city enclaves to suburban areas; the constraints and opportunities that lead to ethnic entrepreneurship; the role of religion in transnational linkages; and the differing experiences of men and women as migrants. Brettell also explores the relevance of life histories and oral narratives in understanding the immigration process and the mediation of boundaries in a new society. This book provides a fresh perspective on the contemporary experience of migration and will be indispensable to instructors and researchers in anthropology, race and ethnic studies, immigration studies, urban studies, sociology, and international relations.

The field of anthropology of migration and multiculturalism is booming. Throughout its hundred-odd year history, studies of migration and diverse or ‘plural’ societies have arguably been both marginal and central to the discipline of Anthropology. However, recent years have witnessed the rapid growth of anthropological studies concerning these topics. This has particularly been the case since the 1970s, when anthropologists developed a keen interest in the subject of ethnicity, especially in post-migration communities. Since the 1990s, migrant transnationalism has become one of the most fashionable topics. There is still much to do in research and theory surrounding this field, not least with regard to contemporary public debates around multiculturalism, immigration and ‘integration’ policy. This book presents essays pointing toward a number of possible new directions – both theoretical and methodological – for anthropological inquiry into migration and multiculturalism, including innovative ways of examining diversity discourses, urban conditions, social complexities, scales of analysis, transnational marriages, entangled politics and interwoven cultures. This book was published as a special issue of the Ethnic and Racial Studies.

The field of anthropology of migration and multiculturalism is booming. Throughout its hundred-odd year history, studies of migration and diverse or ‘plural’ societies have arguably been both marginal and central to the discipline of Anthropology. However, recent years have witnessed the rapid growth of anthropological studies concerning these topics. This has particularly been the case since the 1970s, when anthropologists developed a keen interest in the subject of ethnicity, especially in post-migration communities. Since the 1990s, migrant transnationalism has become one of the most fashionable topics. There is still much to do in research and theory surrounding this field, not least with regard to contemporary public debates around multiculturalism, immigration and ‘integration’ policy. This book presents essays pointing toward a number of possible new directions – both theoretical and methodological – for anthropological inquiry into migration and multiculturalism, including innovative ways of examining diversity discourses, urban conditions, social complexities, scales of analysis, transnational marriages, entangled politics and interwoven cultures. This book was published as a special issue of the Ethnic and Racial Studies.

Brettell's new book provides new insight into the processes of migration and transnationalism from an anthropological perspective. She analyzes macro and micro approaches to migration theory, utilizing her extensive fieldwork in Portugal and many other countries. Key issues she discusses include: immigrant incorporation vs. assimilation models; the impacts on individual, household and community as well as institutions and states; ethnic group composition; illegal immigration; city vs. suburban enclaves; ethnic entrepreneurship; the role of religion; men and women as migrants; and the use of oral histories in understanding immigration and the mediation of new social boundaries. This book will be indispensable to instructors and researchers in anthropology, race and ethnic studies, immigration studies, urban studies, sociology, and international relations. Visit our website for sample chapters!

During the last decade the issue of migration has increased in global prominence and has caused controversy among host countries around the world. To remedy the tendency of scholars to speak only to and from their own disciplinary perspective, this book brings together in a single volume essays dealing with central concepts and key theoretical issues in the study of international migration across the social sciences. Editors Caroline B. Brettell and James F. Hollifield have guided a thorough revision of this seminal text, with valuable insights from such fields as anthropology, demography, economics, geography, history, law, political science, and sociology. Each essay focuses on key concepts, questions, and theoretical frameworks on the topic of international migration in a particular discipline, but the volume as a whole teaches readers about similarities and differences across the boundaries between one academic field and the next. How, for example, do political scientists wrestle with the question of citizenship as compared with sociologists, and how different is this from the questions that anthropologists explore when they deal with ethnicity and identity? Are economic theories about ethnic enclaves similar to those of sociologists? What theories do historians (the "essentializers") and demographers (the "modelers") draw upon in their attempts to explain empirical phenomena in the study of immigration? What are the units of analysis in each of the disciplines and do these shape different questions and diverse models and theories? Scholars and students in migration studies will find this book a powerful theoretical guide and a text that brings them up to speed quickly on the important issues and the debates. All of the social science disciplines will find that this book offers a one-stop synthesis of contemporary thought on migration.

Images have become an integral part of the political regulation of migration: they help produce categories of legality versus illegality, foster stereotypes, and mobilize political convictions. Yet how are we to understand the relationship between these images and the political in the discourse surrounding migration? How can we, as anthropologists, migration scholars, or documentary filmmakers visually represent people who are excluded from political representation? And how can such visual representations gain political momentum? This volume not only considers the images that circulate with reference to migrants or draw attention to those that accompany, show, or conceal them. The book explores the phenomena of migration with the help of images. It offers an in-depth analysis of the documentary approaches of Ursula Biemann, Renzo Martens, Bouchra Khalili, Silvain George, Raphael Cuomo and Maria Iorio, Alex Rivera, and Rania Stepha, which evoke the particularities of migrant lifeworlds and examine urgent questions regarding the interrelations between politics and poetics, mobility and mediation, and the ethics of probability and possibility. The author also discusses his own cinematic practice in the making of Tell Me When (2011), A Tale of Two Islands (2012), and Intimate Distance (2015), a trilogy of films that explore the potential to communicate the bodily, spatial, and temporal dimensions of the experience of migration.

Includes statistical tables.