Country Of Settlement Research Articles

Looking for a Safe Place

This article explores human security from the perspective of those who live under the securitization and governance of Islam, i.e. Muslims themselves. I focus on one hand on the insecurities and threats that have been identified by Somali Muslims in the diaspora, and on the other hand on their means for managing insecurity and creating a sense of safety. The challenges, opportunities and experiences of the Somali diaspora are linked to the histories of immigration and race in different settlement countries, and also to global discourses and policies on Islam and Muslims. The experiences of Canadian Somalis will serve as a mirror on the situation in Europe, in particular the Nordic country of Finland, where both similarities and differences may be found.

Transnationalizing Home in Winnipeg: Refugees’ Stories of the Places Between the “Here-and-There”

This article asks how refugees narrate home. Based on extensive interviews (oral histories) with refugees in Winnipeg, Manitoba, who arrived from Europe after the Second World War, from Central America during the 1980s, and from Afghanistan during the 2000s, this article argues that refugees are continually engaged in the process of making home, not only in the sending and receiving countries, but also in countries along their often complex and long migration routes. Listening closely to their stories forces researchers to move beyond “methodological nationalism” and a dichotomous “here-or-there” conceptualization of home, toward a transnationalizing of home. Dans cet article je parle au sujet de comment les réfugiés racontent ce qui est, pour eux, leur maison. La recherche est basée sur les entrevues (histoire orale) avec des réfugiés à Winnipeg, Manitoba. Ceux-ci sont arrivés de l’Europe après la deuxième guerre mondiale, ainsi que de l’Amérique Centrale pendant les années 80, et d’Afghanistan pendant les années 2000. Je parle du processus de s’établir un domicile, dans lequel les réfugiés se sont continuellement engagés, pas seulement dans leur pays d’origine et d’accueil, mais aussi dans les pays tout au long de leurs voies de migration, souvent complexes et longues. L’écoute attentive de leurs histoires fait en sorte que les chercheurs se déplacent au-delà du « nationalisme méthodologique » et de l’idée des pôles opposés représentée par « ici ou là », pour aller chercher les innombrables connections entre les différents pays, ainsi qu’une transnationalisation des maisons.

Ethiopian and Eritrean Immigrants in Britain

This paper explores key aspects of the immigrant experience of 50,000-plus Ethiopians and Eritreans who live in the United Kingdom. We seek to understand the extent to which immigrant life in the UK has acted ‘as a kind of pivot’ between integrating in their country of settlement and enduring forms of connection with their country of origin. This question is explored by an examination of immigrant organising in the UK – in Refugee Community Organisations – and through interviews about their life in the UK and evolving ideas about self-identity. We argue for an open-ended approach to understand immigrants which sidesteps assumptions about forms of collective identity and which asks how the social and policy context has affected immigrant settlement and integration in the UK.

‘Where are you from’ or ‘when did you come’? Temporal dimensions in migrants' reflections about settlement and return

In this article we explore the added value of foregrounding temporal dimensions in migration research. Age at the time of migration, length of stay in the country of settlement and individual life-cycle stages matter for migrants' settlement and return considerations. However, these factors are rarely put centre stage in analyses. We draw on data from sixty-seven informants with different country backgrounds, who had either immigrated recently, arrived as children, or were born in Norway. We find that the implications of temporal dimensions cut across national and ethnic backgrounds. Age at the time of migration and the relative proportion of life spent in the origin and in the settlement country play an important role in migrants' considerations about settlement and return; as does being single, a parent with small children, or retired. An approach foregrounding temporal dimensions thus reveals the changeability of considerations over time and highlights similarities and differences beyond ethnicity.

Learning in and from the West: international students and international women’s organisations in the interwar period

This article explores the importance of higher education to international women’s organisations such as the International Federation of University Women, the International Council of Women, the International Alliance of Women and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and asks how studying abroad contributed to the international cooperation and understanding promoted by these organisations in the interwar period. In particular, it assesses how the movement of ‘Eastern’ women, especially East Asian, to the West for educational purposes at the beginning of the twentieth century benefited the expansion of these organisations beyond Europe, North America and white settler countries such as Australia and New Zealand between the world wars, and to what extent the experiences of international students in the ‘West’ influenced their political activities back home and their involvement in international women’s organisations.

Service Delivery or Political Mobilization? Explaining Migrant Engagement in Voluntary Organizations Across European Cities

This paper analyzes migrant organizational engagement by focusing on involvement in political and service-delivery organizations in several European cities. Do organizational involvement patterns show a common trait by which migrants are mostly engaged in service delivery organizations rather than organized in associations active in politics? Or do differing political contexts across Europe affect migrants’ organizational engagement in political and non-political organizations? In order to analyze these questions, we draw from – and bridge – several strands of literature on the nonprofit sector, interest groups, political behavior and social movements. Past research has demonstrated that contextual factors are critical in understanding the varying patterns of involvement in political organizations across countries. In this paper, we specifically focus on the effect of policies adopted at the local and national level to integrate migrants in the settlement countries across European societies. We examine whether two dimensions of the political context – one concerning policies and legislation on migrants’ individual rights, the other relating to the group/collective rights granted to migrants – shape the types of organizations in which migrants engage. The empirical analysis focuses on engagement in organizations by migrants in 9 European cities (Barcelona, Budapest, Geneva, London, Lyon, Madrid, Milan, Stockholm, Zurich). We use data collected between 2004 and 2008 on random comparable samples of between 600 and 1,000 migrants in each city. We employ negative binomial regressions and multinomial logistic regressions to analyze the distribution of migrant affiliations in 18 different types of nonprofit organizations (including both political and non-political types) using individual and group/city level predictors.

Migrant Acculturation and the Workplace

Berry's (1997; 2001) migrant acculturation theory has emerged as one of the more prominent theoretical frameworks to shed light on the patterned dynamics characterising the experience of migrants - regardless of country of origin or country of settlement. For Berry (2001, p. 621) ‘acculturation’ refers to the process of psychological change in a person (the migrant) resulting from contact and involvement with representatives of other cultures (usually and typically the host country culture). It invariably entails relinquishing elements of the person's culture of origin (‘culture shedding’) and adopting and internalising elements of the host country culture (‘culture learning’). Adjustment to the host culture is a function of those situations and incidents where the migrant interfaces with representatives of the host culture i.e. social contexts/settings. Acculturation, being a consequence of social encounters through which migrant integration and absorption into the (host) community is ‘achieved’, occurs when the migrant, for example, participates in sport, religious and/or other community-based activities. It is through these social encounters that the migrant becomes aware of (’learns’) about culture... own culture of origin and other or host culture and detects similarities and differences relative to his/her expectations about the host culture. It is also at this stage that unanticipated or under-acknowledged features of the host culture would induce ‘culture shock’. Drawing on the work of several scholars, Brown and Holloway (2008, p. 34) defines ‘culture shock’ as “…anxiety that results from losing the familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse, and their substitution by other cues that are strange” – a phenomenon therefor firmly rooted in the social more so than the physical context. In as much as the community and the neighbourhood (as social context) are primary drivers of migrant acculturation that may facilitate or constrain acculturation, so too does the work setting serve as a supportive or constraining social context. For those migrants who secure some form of employment relatively early in their settlement in the host country, the work setting becomes a proxy for ‘community’ by virtue of its social character and dynamics, with the difference that the focus and nature of social relationships are framed by the fundamental purpose of the institution, the nature of work to be performed, the dependence relationship between employer and employee, as well as the very clear power relationships (and power differentials) that characterise and inform organisational functioning and hence direct employee behaviour in the workplace. It is consequently a natural extension of acculturation theory to posit that the workplace would facilitate but potentially also constrain migrant acculturation and adjustment in his/her adopted country. It can be further argued that because of the heightened significance of work and working to the migrant (cf. Matejicek, 2008), the workplace will assume a far more prominent position as an acculturation context than may be generally acknowledged. Some support for this line of reasoning is suggested, for example, in work with expatriates that found that perceived organisational support directly impacted on expatriate adjustment and consequently expatriate performance (Kraimer et al., 2001).

A ‘most imperial’ contribution: New Zealand and the old age pensions debate in Britain, 1898–1912

AbstractThe extent of imperial influences upon nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British life, including in the development of social policy, has attracted significant scholarly interest in the past decade. The bearing of New Zealand's 1898 Old-Age Pensions Act upon the British debate over elderly poverty exemplifies the contested transfer of social policy ideas from settler colony to ‘Mother Country’. Reformers in Britain hailed a model non-contributory pension system with an imperial pedigree. However, the widely acknowledged distinction between ‘old’ countries such as Britain, and ‘new’ countries of English-speaking settlement, characterized the New Zealand example's reception. While progressives identified the colony as a ‘clean slate’ lacking the obstructive historical inheritance of the Poor Law, critics of state-funded pensions warned against drawing policy-making lessons from New Zealand. Yet when a reformist Liberal government introduced an Old Age Pensions Bill in 1908, it used Britain's age to justify the legislation's relative conservatism.

Return Visits as a Marker of Differentiation in the Social Field

This article sets out to examine how differences within a migrant community are expressed through return visits, and particularly through visitors’ narratives about their country of origin. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with Burundians living in Norway and the UK, I argue that the Burundian social field is characterized by two opposing positions regarding the possibility of return, and that the political field in the country of settlement plays an influential role in how those two positions are defined. Two narratives called ‘instability and alienation’ and ‘progress and opportunities’ from return visits are used to express support for one or the other of these two positions. I also argue that Bourdieu’s conceptualization of social practice is highly relevant for migration research because it allows for analysing differences within a migration community, and that the advantages of combining habitus, capital and field should be further explored, both theoretically and comparatively.

Migration management in the EU’s eastern neighbourhood

In this article we review migration policies that have evolved in the eastern neighbourhood of the European Union, that is, in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. We ask how they compare with those that have been adopted by European Union member states and migrant settler countries such as Australia. We also use this regional perspective to comment on the application of the systems methodology in migration studies.

The Emergence of Lifestyle Reasoning in Return Considerations among British Pakistanis

AbstractThis article discusses the growing popularity of lifestyle reasoning in return considerations among Pakistani migrants and their children in Britain. Although lifestyle arguments are by no means new to scholarship on return migration, I argue that British Pakistanis' settlement history has led to return reasoning beyond purely economic considerations. Changes in status, power, and position, with respect to both countries of origin and settlement, have translated to a more confident capacity to aspire, and therefore to think along lifestyle considerations, whether the decision is to settle or to return. Lifestyle reasoning can therefore to be considered a sign of British Pakistanis' change in confidence about their position in the country of settlement. Policy Implications If the UK wants to engage with Pakistani returnees, it needs to recognize the variety of returns beyond the economic: political, lifestyle and relationship returns are all present in the array of typologies enacted by British Pakistanis Any UK policy about return should consider that both pull and push factors influence return decisions, and those are articulated around economic, political, lifestyle, and relationship considerations. Policy makers should consider lifestyle return reasoning a symptom of the maturation of British Pakistani citizenship in the country of settlement, rather than systematic evidence of their alienation.

Contextual and Family Determinants of Immigrant Women’s Self-Employment

While a growing body of literature addresses the experience of migrant women’s involvement in self-employment, this work has focused on relatively few groups and has emphasized gender to the neglect of other contextual factors, such as family, class and ethnic resources, structures of opportunity and the nature of migrants’ relations with networks in countries of origin and settlement. In this article, I draw on multi-sited ethnography to explore Vietnamese, Russian-speaking Jewish, and Israeli women immigrants’ patterns of self-employment. Results suggest that contrary to being an end in itself, in most cases self-employment is simply a strategy that immigrant women engage in to obtain income while coping with an array of opportunities, impediments, and obligations framed by the structure of opportunities and disadvantages as well as transnational concerns.

The Rise of Associational Activity: Early Twentieth Century German Sailors' Homes and Schools in Antwerp and Rotterdam

This case study focuses on the functioning of German immigrant organisations in Antwerp and Rotterdam in the early twentieth century. It is often assumed that patriotism is central to a good understanding of German associational life abroad. Based on case studies of the sailors' homes and German schools in Antwerp and Rotterdam, I argue that a focus on opportunity structures may provide a better understanding of associational life than an emphasis on its supposed patriotic character. The strongly differing opportunity structures, then, can be explained by both looking at the type of organisation and the political environment in the country of settlement.

Polish Migration after the Fall of the Iron Curtain

Poland has been an emigration country for more than a century. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the enlargement of the European Union in 2004, coupled with unrestricted entry to the United Kingdom, Sweden and Ireland, caused one of the biggest emigration flows in Poland’s postwar history. On November 19, 2006, the New York Times reported that 800,000 Poles left the country since Poland joined the EU. The number of Polish residents who stayed abroad for at least two months tripled between early 2004 and early 2007 from approximately 180,000 to 540,000 (Kaczmarczyk and Ok olski, 2008). In May 2011, Germany opened its doors fully to jobseekers from Poland paving the way for a flood of cut-price carpenters, plumbers and other budget labour of the kind that swept Britain in 2004 (Hall et al., 2011). Norway and Belgium have also become destinations for post-accession Polish migrants (Mostowska, 2012, 2013). With this exodus Poland became one of the largest exporters of labour within the enlarged European Union. According to the 2011 Polish Census, 2,06 million Poles have resided abroad for at least three months, including 1,6 million who lived outside Poland for longer than 12 months (GUS, 2012). While the scale of Polish migration has remained on the rise, Polish permanent emigration has been steadily decreasing, giving ways to new migration patterns. The fairly stable migration flows that marked the post-WWII period have dissolved into more complex, transitory patterns in terms of temporary settlement and shifting migration status (Engbersen, Van der Leun and de Boom, 2007). Polish migration no longer takes the form of unidirectional movement from country of origin to destination country that ends with permanent settlement. Post-enlargement migratory movements from Poland have become much more differentiated and have led to a more diverse and floating populations (Danilewicz, 2010; Urba nska 2009). Paraphrasing Bauman’s (2000, 2005) work on “liquid modernity”, Polish international migration has become “liquid”. Polish migrants, who for decades regarded the United States as the “promised land”, shifted their focus to Western Europe, much more geographically accessible. Polish migration took a form of ‘pendulum’ or ‘circular’ migration and in some cases transnational commuting. These movements have been governed by the ebb and flow of economic demands and the state of labour markets at home and abroad (Favell, 2008; Mostowska, 2013). The current issue of International Migration presents a collection of articles, many penned by Polish migration scholars, on a wide variety of issues with important migration policy ramifications. The collection opens with an article by Isa nski et al. based on an online survey of post-accession Polish migrants who use their spatial mobility to adapt to the new context of post-communist space and EU enlargement in order to enhance their professional qualifications and pursue educational goals. Rather than relying on transnational networking for improving their condition in the country of settlement, many Poles tend to settle within mobility, staying mobile as long as they can in order to improve or maintain a particular quality of life. Their experience of migration becomes their lifestyle, their leaving home and going away, paradoxically, a strategy of staying at home, and, thus, an alternative to what international migration is usually considered to be: emigration or immigration. This does not mean that some Polish migrants do not “extend their stay abroad” and decide to settle outside Poland (McGhee, 2013; Ryan et al., 2009; Ryan and Sales, 2013).

Pacific Studies: Quo Vadis?

Looking back to the past this paper discusses why Pacific studies and in particular Australasian studies became an area of interest in tertiary education in Europe. What subject areas initiated these studies, and how do past legacies shape the present? With cutbacks in higher education over the past two decades the future of interdisciplinary studies and the humanities looks bleak. At the same time due to global business and increased political communication across borders there is a vibrant interest in and need for such studies among businesses and students. For most Europeans the literature of settler countries, with their European legacy, makes access to ways of thought and culture easier than studies of countries with other mythological backgrounds. In today’s multicultural environment such studies can provide knowledge for an understanding of other cultures and increase tolerance of the ‘other’. Area studies have relevance to our situation in Europe with increased migrancy, not least as a result of Schengen and EU regulations.

EU membership as a factor for harmonization of ethnic relations within the Countries of Union

The author emphasizes that some of the post-Communist states have not grown out of ethnic conflicts, antagonism and enmity, which break peaceful life, ruin public relations, cause considerable human losses and streams of refugees. For their peaceful settlement countries must develop models of ethnic relations harmonization. The author focuses on three issues, which contribute to the outbreaks of conflicts: the thing which causes conflicts is not ethnic affiliation, but nationality, officially defined by the USSR, and this should left behind; internal borders (nowadays state frontiers) established by the USSR for expansion and strengthening of authoritarianism, which now often stir up disputes; a level of ethnic violence in the post-Soviet countries is comparatively low. Materials on protection of minority rights in ten CEE countries members of the EU testify that the potential of joining the EU as a catalyst for reforms must be analyzed more thoroughly. The EU possesses resources and possibilities to use the process of integration for constructive settlement of invisible and threatening problems in the continent.

Beyond the insider–outsider divide in migration research

This article engages critically with the insider–outsider divide in research with migrants and advocates a more nuanced and dynamic approach to positionality. In migration research, the insider–outsider divide typically assumes a specific form: an insider researcher is a member of the migrant group under study, whereas an outsider researcher is a member of the majority population in the country of settlement. This divide is a discursive reality that researchers must relate to, regardless of its analytical merits. Our analysis builds on the authors’ experiences in twelve different fieldwork situations, where research was often conducted from hybrid positions that did not fit the archetypal insider–outsider divide. First, we discuss the relational construction of insider–outsider divides in migration research, focusing on the interplay between researcher characteristics and particular social contexts. Second, we address the specific characteristics or markers through which researchers are interpreted and positioned. These markers differ in terms of their visibility to informants, and in the extent to which researchers can modify them or communicate them selectively. Third, we examine how these characteristics are actively managed in fieldwork settings. Fourth, we identify five types of ‘third positions’ in migration research, positions that deviate from the archetypal insider–outsider divide: explicit third party, honorary insider, insider by proxy, hybrid insider-outsider, and apparent insider. The article explores some of the advantages and challenges inherent in different positions and argues that strategic and reflexive management of positionality should be included in ethical considerations about the research process.

Somali Associations' Trajectories in Italy and Finland: Leaders Building Trust and Finding Legitimisation

Previous research on migrant associations has explained their formation and maintenance by highlighting migrant groups' cultural characteristics or the political opportunity structures (POS) available in the countries of settlement. Past research has also focused on associations in relation to migrants' political participation in the countries of settlement, applying the notion of social capital. The aim of this article is to enrich the debate on migrant associations by analysing their trajectories. This analysis will also make use of the concepts of POS and social capital. The article analyses Somali associations' developmental trajectories over time in two different settlement-country contexts—Italy and Finland. The argument put forward is that, while political opportunity structures do matter, they are not sufficient to explain Somali associations' trajectories. Findings show that similar characteristics and networking processes of associations have been observed in both locations. The long-term functionality of associations is often in the hands of the associations' leaders, who exhibit similar uses of social capital. Leaders are the ‘professionals of mobilisation’, which also has consequences for the professionalisation of their associations.

Migrants’ perception of the police: Should it be a cause for concern in Finland?

Existing criminological research studies have premised that race/ethnicity is one of the most salient factors producing dissatisfaction with the police. As immigrants are bound to bring with them into new countries their past experiences, values and norms as well as opinions about the police. Newcomers’ past experiences with the police in their country of origin may form the basis of their misconceptions and could pose a challenge to policing ethnic minorities at the street level in their country of settlement. This paper discusses African migrants’ perceptions and the factors that influence these perceptions and attitudes towards the police in Finland. Some of the participants’ judgements have been influenced by their past experiences with the police both in Finland and in their countries of origin in Africa. The paper argues that if the police are to have the confidence of immigrants they need to proactively and meaningfully engage with immigrant groups in society. Data for this analysis are based on observations and interviews with 35 African immigrants in the Finnish city of Turku.

Ideal ages for family formation among immigrants in Europe.

This paper investigates ideal ages for marriage and parenthood among immigrants from over 160 countries origins living in 25 European countries. Ideals regarding the timing of family formation are indicative of how individuals perceive the family life course and provide insight into family-life aspirations and the meaning attached to these transitions. Using data from the European Social Survey (Round 3, 2006; N=6330) and a cross-classified multilevel modeling approach, we investigate associations between the influences of the dominant family formation timing patterns in countries of origin and settlement, individual-level characteristics, and ideal ages. We make innovative use of a standard demographic measure, the singulate mean age of marriage, to measure family formation patterns. Results suggest that residential context influences are associated with the timing ideals of all migrants, but origin influences seem to be associated with the ideals of only the most recent migrants.