Ethnic Identities In A Transnational World

Crossing Boundaries: Ethnicity, Race, and National Belonging in a Transnational World, edited by Brian D. Behnken and Simon Wendt, explores ethnic and racial nationalism within a transnational and transcultural framework in the long twentieth-century (late nineteenth to early twenty-first century).

Contemporary Western society is changing and, controversially, migration is often flagged up as one of the reasons why. The nature of population change challenges the conventional understandings of family forms and networks whilst multiculturalism poses challenges to our understanding of social change, families and social capital. This innovative book provides an overview of the emergence of new understandings of ethnicities, identities and family forms across a number of ethnic groups, family types, and national boundaries. Based on new empirical data from fairly distinct sets of transnational family networks in minority communities with a substantial presence in the United Kingdom – principally, Caribbean and Italian, but also drawing on others such as Indian – it examines their lived experiences and uses the concept of social capital to explore how these families manage to maintain close and meaningful links. Transnational Families discusses, explains and illustrates the substantial problems and issues confronted by communities and families, academics and policy-makers/implementers, and non-governmental organisations within a transnational world. It will be of interest to students and scholars of migration, transnationalism, families and globalisation.

Offering a transnational perspective on the processes of identity transmission and identity construction of mixed families in various parts of the world, this book provides an overview of how local, national, global contexts and inter-group relations structure the development of specific forms of belonging and identification. Featuring nine rich ethnographic studies situated in geographic areas less covered by scholarship on mixed families such as Québec, Morocco, Italy, France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Philippines, Thailand and Israel, the book’s contributions reveal how families’ everyday lives are shaped by historical and sociopolitical contexts, as well as by transnational dynamics and mobility trajectories. The studies illustrate the context-specific realities that shape social definitions of mixedness—whether religious, national, cultural, ethnic or racial—at local and transnational levels. The articulation of local and transnational perspectives on mixed families will be of interest to students and scholars of migration, transnationalism, families, ethnicity, race and racism in the social sciences (anthropology, sociology, history, social work, international relations and global studies). The book will also be of interest to policymakers, as well as activists and practitioners working in organizations offering services to mixed individuals, migrants, and their families.

This book is an interdisciplinary collection of essays on the society and cultures of twenty-first century Japanese transnationals: first-generation migrants (Issei), and their descendants who were born and grew up outside Japan (Nikkei); and Japanese nationals who today find themselves living overseas. The authors-international specialists from anthropology, sociology, history, and education-explore how individual and community cultural identities are deeply integrated in ethnic and economic structures, and how cultural heritage is manifested in various Japanese transnational communities. These papers use individual cases to tackle the bigger issues of personal identity, ethnic community, and economic survival in an internationalized global world. This book, then, offers new perspectives on the anthropology, sociology, history, and economics of an important, though largely under-reported, transnational community. While previous studies have focused on a few specific and well-known cases-for example, the World War II internment of Japanese Americans and their attempts at redress, Japanese agriculture workers in Brazil, or temporary "returnee" dekasegi workers-this book examines Japanese transnationalism from a broader perspective, including Japanese nationals living overseas permanently or temporarily, and Europeans of Japanese ancestry who have recently rediscovered their Japanese roots. Besides looking at Japanese and Nikkei migrants in North and South America, this volume examines some little-explored venues such as Indonesia, Spain, and Germany. The connections among all these Japanese transnational communities-real or imagined are explored ethnographically and historically. And instead of simply focusing on social problems resulting from racial discrimination-and the political actions involved in implementing or fighting it-this volume offers more nuanced dialogue about the issues involved with Japanese transnationalism, in particular how ethnic identity is formed and how Japanese transnational communities have been created, and re-created, all over the world. Also, while until now less attention has been paid to fitting the Japanese case into a larger theoretical framework of globalization and migration studies, the papers presented here-along with a detailed theoretical introduction-attempt to rectify this.

With contributions from some of Canada's leading historians, political scientists, geographers, anthropologists, and sociologists, this collection examines the transnational practices and identities of immigrant and ethnic communities in Canada. It looks at why members of these groups maintain ties with their homelands -- whether real or imagined -- and how those connections shape individual identities and community organizations. How does transnationalism establish or transform geographical, social, and ideological borders? Do homeland ties affect what it means to be "Canadian"? Do they reflect Canada's commitment to multiculturalism? Through analysis of the complex forces driving transnationalism, this comprehensive study focuses attention on an important, and arguably growing, dimension of Canadian social life. This is the first collection in Canada to provide a comprehensive and interdisciplinary examination of transnationalism. It will appeal to scholars and students interested in issues of immigration, multiculturalism, ethnicity, and settlement.

In the continuing debates on the topic of racial and ethnic identity in the United States, there are some that argue that ethnicity is an ascribed reality. To the contrary, others claim that individuals are becoming increasingly active in choosing and constructing their ethnic identities.Focusing on second-generation South Asian Americans, Bandana Purkayastha offers fresh insights into the subjective experience of race, ethnicity, and social class in an increasingly diverse America. Lucidly written and enriched with vivid personal accounts, Negotiating Ethnicity is an important contribution to the literature on ethnicity and racialization in contemporary American culture.

The dissolution of the French Empire and the ensuing rush of immigration have led to the formation of diasporas and immigrant cultures that have transformed French society and the immigrants themselves. Transnational Spaces and Identities in the Francophone World examines the impact of this postcolonial immigration on identity in France and in the Francophone world, which has encompassed parts of Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the Americas. Immigrants bear cultural traditions within themselves, transform “host” communities, and are, in turn, transformed. These migrations necessarily complicate ideals of national literature, culture, and history, forcing a reexamination and a rearticulation of these ideals. Exploring a variety of texts informed by these transnational conceptions of identity and space, the contributors to this volume reveal the vitality of Francophone studies within a broad range of disciplines, periods, and settings. They remind us that the idea and reality of Francophonie is not a late twentieth-century phenomenon but something that grows out of long-term interactions between colonizer and colonized and between peoples of different nationalities, ethnicities, and religions. Truly interdisciplinary, this collection engages conceptions of identity with respect to their physical, geographic, ethnic, and imagined realities.