Preface: Biography and Ethnicity: Development and Changes in Senses of Socio-cultural Belonging in Migrant Populations in the US and Germany

Abstract

This special issue is based on the empirical research carried out for our project Biography and Ethnicity: Development and Changes in Senses of Socio-cultural Belonging in Migrant Populations in the United States and This research and collaborative teaching project at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Nova Southeastern University (USA) and at the Center of Methods in Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences at Georg-AugustUniversity of Gottingen (Germany) between 2006 and 2008 was characterized by a differing methodological and interdisciplinary approach. Whereas the US-team of researchers followed a psychological and social-anthropological approach, the team of researchers from Germany consisted of sociologists. The German team primarily conducted biographical-narrative interviews, while the team in Florida applied participant observation techniques in addition to biographical and openended interviews. The persons belong to different groupings of migrants who have settled in Germany and the United States in order to escape socio-political ethnic conflicts or difficult living conditions in their countries of origin, whereby most of these immigrants may be considered political refugees. The goal of our study was to investigate the processes behind the creation and transformation of ethnic belongings and, in general, collective belongings of various groupings of migrants in variant social contexts. In particular, we examined how different living conditions and different societal contexts influenced the development and transformation of the sense of collective belonging. [1] Interviews were conducted with migrants from Guatemala, Haiti, and Cuba now living in South Florida as well as migrants from Cuba, Poland, Iran, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and the successor states of former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union now living in Germany. This special issue will introduce the theoretical and methodological considerations as well as the empirical findings of the US and German research teams. The articles reflect upon and compare the interrelated life courses and current life situations of these different groupings of migrants. [2] This special issue also includes an article by Alex STEPICK and Carol DUTTON STEPICK who were kind enough to contribute an article describing their research dedicated to the same or very similar themes. For many years, these researchers have made migration to South Florida the focus of their work. Their article focuses on migrants' experiences in the country of immigration and describes the coexistence between the established residents and newcomers from Cuba, Haiti, and other Caribbean and Latin American countries. The following chapter, an