Translocal Identities Research Articles

Homemaking as Homesickness. Romanian Migrants’ Strategies of Coping with Cultural Difference

Homemaking achieved materially and emotionally within a diasporic environment represents an important step in the long process of settling in a foreign country. This paper is devoted to explaining the Romanian concept of “home” as it is perceived by Romanian migrants who lived for long periods of time in western European countries. Interviews with Romanian migrants and Moldovan returned migrants, and participant observation during fieldwork revealed different levels of the psychological state of missing the home they departed from, the emotional underpinnings on having to manage life in two places, the concrete andspiritual significance of homemaking in a foreign country, the psychological undertones of “home” and “host” societies, questions on “identity” and “belonging”, ethnic homeland attachments. The reality of pluri-local and/or trans-local identity, and of multi-located homes and specific transnational lifestyles is compared with Romanian collective memory and imaginary of “home” and the strong territorial attachments that are considered by autochthonous ethnopsychologies as part of the Romanian cultural intimacy. The paper analyses both residence (as the material cultures of home, such as design and commodities, the material world of objects that shape a home environment) and dwelling (meanings, values and beliefs, emotional significance of domesticity). For migrants, the various strategies of homemaking are connected in various ways with homesickness as not only longing for a specific residence, but a feeling of loss of a specific past that is even more accentuated for people in a diasporic condition.

Learning and communication in online international higher education in Hong Kong: ICT-mediated translanguaging competence and virtually translocal identity

ABSTRACT This qualitative study investigated the impact of online education on the learning and peer interaction experiences of students from eight universities in Hong Kong over the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. It employed an expansive and spatial notion of translanguaging to explore the process by which students drew on the affordance of virtual communication environments to communicate, study and develop new identities. The findings suggested (1) the students strategically mobilised manifold multimodal resources to constitute their communicative repertoires that facilitated smooth intercultural communication and academic success; (2) such communicative competence centralized the mediating effect of digital semiotic systems and thus might empower the students with disadvantaged language skills; and (3) through translanguaging acts the students developed a virtually translocal identity with an expanded experience of internationalisation of higher education whereby the increasingly interwoven physical and virtual spaces bring extended social networks, learning resources, and career opportunities. The implications of the findings were discussed.

Zoom-ing in on White Supremacy

Zoom-ing in on White Supremacy

“I feel English as fuck”: translocality and the performance of alternative identities through rap

ABSTRACTThis article deploys the concept of translocality, in order to move beyond the transnational framework that underpins global hip hop studies. Over the last forty years rap music has become a vibrant and distinctive part of mainstream British life. Through rap young people construct identities that draw upon their local experiences while also connecting them with young people from other localities. These translocal identities affirm a multi-ethnic, urban experience of England in mainstream popular culture. Based on a year of ethnographic research in London and Bristol, we argue that a distinctive rap culture is produced through the performance, production, circulation, and reproduction of rap in and between English cities.

Patterns of Precarity: Historical Trajectories of Vietnamese Labour Mobility

AbstractIn past and present Vietnam, the dialectic of precarity and resilience shapes the everyday lives of mobile labourers. Vietnamese labour mobility is characterised by an interplay between precariousness ‘at home’ and the uncertainties of migration. The paper aims to highlight continuities and contingencies in the longue durée of Vietnamese work migration through a historical contextualisation of precarious labour relations. Both colonial ‘coolie’ workers and present-day labour migrants share similar experiences, for example socioeconomic marginalisation in the regions of origin, opportunity and risk, and emerging translocal identities.

Regional Text in Modern Socio-Cultural Dynamics

In the modern globalizing transforming world, regionalization processes are intensifying. Selfdetermination of the region is associated with the development of viable programs of socio-economic development. Important components of such a program can be concentrated in the regional text, which reflects the communicative specificity of regional everyday life and the nature of the interrelationships of the regional community with the outside world. Modern regional text is in its infancy. Fixing the key components of a regional culture as a form of being of a person and society established in certain space-time coordinates, it assumes a constant interpretation, undergoes deconstruction in accordance with the changes that occur at the state level and the world as a whole. In the conditions of modern transformation, well-organized communication strategies are of great importance in bifurcation points. It is obvious that such strategies should take into account the interests of the individual and society and should not contradict the general civilization processes. Regional texts carry the idea of organic integrity, unity of nature, man and society.This makes them popular in today's dynamic, unstable social space. However, the cognitive context of using locally rooted texts is expanding. Metaphorizing the world, they create ample opportunities for translocal identities. Keeping the identification potential of local texts, the regional text is open to innovation. In the modern risk-taking social space, it is important to develop a system of values aimed, first and foremost, at achieving human and social security. According to the authors of the article, this goal can be achieved provided the regional community understands the unique value of the local identity, as well as the geopolitical role and socio-economic functions of the region on a nationwide scale. The regional text as a set of cultural constants, fixed by the public consciousness as a significant semantic and ideological complex, has great potential that needs to be developed in order to optimize the existence of man and society.

Аналітичні компоненти ментальної картографії у соціологічних дослідженнях конфліктів

The paper focuses on theoretical and methodological achievements in the sociology of conflict, particularly the adaptation and development of mental mapping method. The main objective of the study is to define, characterize and specify the basic analytical components of mental mapping with regard to studying a conflict as a social phenomenon. Mental map is defined as an image or model of outer space gradually formed over time in subject’s consciousness. The method of mental mapping was described as a graphic representation of certain area by informant at researcher’s request. The classical concepts of mental mapping and their application in the studies of conflicts are presented in the historical retrospective. Thus, there is an overview of particular cases of the mental mapping methodology implementation, such as the study of relationships between communication channels and perceptions of dangerous urban areas in Los Angeles, the translocal identity of Polish emigrants’ children in Scotland, the “micro-geography of emotions” of migrant children in Paris and Berlin, the perception of Milan by migrants, the conflict topology imaginations of high school students of Israel and Palestine, spatial projections of social conflicts in Cyprus, North Ireland, Belgium, and Ukraine. Authors suggest theoretical and methodological generalization of the mental mapping of conflicts based on the approach of Jack Gieseking or the “Gieseking matrix” composed of four categories (mechanics of method, graphic elements, narratives of place and personalization), each of which contains a set of analytic components and techniques (a total of 57 units). The paper outlines the methodological specifics of analytical components in mental mapping of conflict, and notes the integrative interdisciplinary potential and the prospects for the development of this method.

El estudio del paisaje lingüístico de la migración en Milán. Perspectiva etnográfica y localización espacial

Abstract – The Linguistic Landscape (LL) of Milan reflects the trends of global international migration in this city, which since the 90s has received a massive wave of immigrants from over 150 countries seeking economic opportunity. The city, thus, is characterized by the transnationalization of the labour force (Sassen 2005), which has created translocal communities and identities, spatially mixed in a polycentric pattern. Over time, a growing number of immigrants started their own shops, becoming participants in the LL and building a complex network of relationships with their communities, the host society and other migrant groups. In this superdiversity context (Vertovec 2007), the bottom-up texts on the storefronts demonstrate how shop owners affirm their identities and the relative status of their communities within the LL (Landry, Bourhis 1997; Bagna et al. 2007; Blommaert 2013), creating new linguistic, symbolic, cultural and social spaces (Cenoz, Gorter 2006; Calvi 2016). This paper builds on a previous analysis of the main communication strategies deployed in the commercial LL of migrants in three neighborhoods of Milan (Uberti-Bona 2016), furthering the study of the variables implied. Actors compose their multimodal displays through consideration of their shops’ positions, both in terms of spatial localization on the street and of social relation to the surrounding urban, demographic, and commercial context. The respective roles played by these and other factors can be better ascertained investigating the actors’ intentionality through interviews about their migratory and working experiences, and about their choices in the production of the LL. The paper thus combines the previous etic analysis of two examples of LL with the study of their spatial context and with the emic point of view expressed by the shop owners in three one-on-one, unstructured, interviews.

Hariz Halilovich, Places of Pain. Forced Displacement, Popular Memory and Trans-Local Identities in Bosnian War-Torn Communities

Hariz Halilovich, Places of Pain. Forced Displacement, Popular Memory and Trans-Local Identities in Bosnian War-Torn Communities

Book Review: Book Review Places of Pain: Forced Displacement, Popular Memory and Trans-local Identities in Bosnian War-Torn Communities

Book Review: Book Review Places of Pain: Forced Displacement, Popular Memory and Trans-local Identities in Bosnian War-Torn Communities

‘When I think home I think family here and there’: Translocal and social ideas of home in narratives of migrant children and young people

This paper offers theoretically informed empirical insights into migrant children’s experiences of mobility and home. Drawing on research into the first-generation children of Polish labour migrants in Scotland, the paper explores the meanings that children attach to home and other specific places. In particular, it focuses on questions of the translocal and social nature of migrant children’s sense of place and construction of home. The spoken narratives, subjective maps and drawings analysed here reflect children’s multiple and intersecting relationships and identifications, with both their country of origin and the host country, in addition to how their notion of home is grounded in social attachments. Emphasising the continuing importance of ‘place’ in migrant children and young people’s everyday experiences, the research concludes that subjective homemaking practices are just as important as objective educational attainment and other traditional social indicators in providing an understanding of the outcomes of migrant settlement. It also suggests that there is an emerging translocal identity among some young Polish migrants, whose changing understanding of home incorporates images and emotions from both their locality of origin and their current place of residence.

‘Equally at home on Beacon Hill and Hill 16’? Transnational identities among Irish‐born return migrants from the United States

AbstractIn this article, I examine the transnational identities that return migrants create upon resettlement in their country of origin. Specifically, I draw on interviews with Republic of Ireland‐born return migrants from the United States between the years 1996 and 2006. The analysis shows that return migrants – like other migrant groups – maintain and establish translocal identities and practices that straddle ‘here’ (Ireland) and ‘there’ (United States) upon return. However, the article goes further, asking why returnees develop such border‐spanning social fields. Some recent scholarship suggests that some migrants develop transnational identities as an adaptive response to a hostile receiving society. The analysis here shows a similar process at play for certain return migrants in the post‐return environment. Doubtless, for some returnees, a transnational identity is a natural outgrowth of having spent several years in the United States. Yet for others, one can better explain this transnational identity as a coping strategy to buffer resettlement anxieties and disappointments.

Places of Pain: Forced Displacement, Popular Memory and Trans-Local Identities in Bosnian War-Torn Communities. By Hariz Halilovich. Space and Place, vol. 10. New York: Berghahn Books, 2013. xviii, 269 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Glossary. Index. Photographs. $95.00, hard bound.

Places of Pain: Forced Displacement, Popular Memory and Trans-Local Identities in Bosnian War-Torn Communities. By Hariz Halilovich. Space and Place, vol. 10. New York: Berghahn Books, 2013. xviii, 269 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Glossary. Index. Photographs. $95.00, hard bound. - Volume 73 Issue 1

Beyond “Chinese Diaspora” and “Islamic Ummah” Various Transnational Connections and Local Negotiations of Chinese Muslim Identities in Indonesia

Going beyond the paradigm of a “Chinese Diaspora” and an “Islamic Ummah”, this article examines various transnational connections, translocal imaginings and local negotiations of Chinese Muslim identities in contemporary Indonesia. By constructing Chinese-style mosques, Chinese Muslim leaders have forged a distinctive translocal identity through transnational linkage with Muslims in China and reconfigured it within Indonesian contexts. This transnational imagining is not a form of desire for return to China, but rather an effort to redefine Chinese Muslims’ social position in Indonesia. Moreover, a closer exploration of ordinary Chinese Muslims in Indonesia reveals that their transnational connections are not limited to Muslims in China, and their local participation is not limited to Chinese Muslim organizations.

Bosnian Austrians: Accidental Migrants in Trans-local and Cyber Spaces

This article explores the on-site and online realities of Bosnian immigrants in Austria whose migration, at least initially, started as a forced displacement. It describes how their social networks-performed and sustained both in real and cyber space-are utilized in strengthening social cohesion and trans-local identities in relation to places in Austria and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Ultimately, the article attempts to challenge the established methodological and theoretical orthodoxies in migration studies and to deconstruct the myth about refugees as a 'societal burden' subject to charity, arguing that any strict division between different migration categories and paradigms will miss addressing the multiplicity of ever-changing relationships, meanings and opportunities especially as they are (re)imagined in the realm of cyberspace.

“Local” Hybridity and the “Translocal” Identities of Korean Subalterns and Asian Migrant Workers: Looking at the South Korean Film, Banga, Banga!

As part of redeploying the theoretical potentiality of hybridity, I hold that more attention should be given to the discursive location of Asian minor locales against the discursive power of global metropolitan diasporic location. This attention leads us to a task of localizing hybridity, which can posit the concept of Asian “local” hybridity. The South Korean film, Banga, Banga!, is a cultural text that embodies it vividly. Korean subalterns and Asian migrant workers in the movie speak to people located in global metropolitan cities as well as Asian metropolises. To listen to them attentively, it is necessary to propose the concepts of sub-imperialism, Asian local patriarchy, and translocalism. The marginal city of Ansan emerges as a locale engaging in constant dialogue, exchange, and contestation with the sub-imperialistic and gendered political–economic structures of South Korea. Within such space, Korean subalterns and Asian migrant workers create another language through singing together in spite of their social and cultural differences and conflicts. As they traverse various axes of identity including ethnicity, race, class, and gender, they show their translocal identities and agencies to contest and oppose the sub-imperial Asian local patriarchy. As such, Asian “local” hybridity embodied in Banga, Banga! demonstrates something that is other than mere interstitiality, something that is a kind of other Asian identity with its own specific consciousness of language and self as well as its own dialogic and negotiatory capabilities through its translocal identities and agencies.

Woven Webs: Trading Textiles around the Indian Ocean

Throughout its long history, the changing networks of the Indian Ocean textile trade have served as circuits of material communication, transmitting cultural values embodied in cloth, defining and redefining identities and relationships. This paper explores some of the cultural ramifications of this venerable trade. From ancient times, India was a major exporter of textiles, sitting at the centre of a complex regional network of exchanges which inserted Indian cottons and silks as prestige items into the textile regimes of societies all around the Indian Ocean. The balance between indigenous production marking local identity and Indian imports marking elite status and trans-local identity was disrupted by the spread of the competing globalisations of Islam and Christianity. Colonialism expanded networks and forged new connections, redirecting a significant portion of production through metropolitan centres towards a global market and facilitating a dynamic process of cultural exchange. By the late 20th century India was no longer the dominant player in a regional system, but one of several players in a global system. Nevertheless, within this new system particular networks continue to connect the disparate communities of the Indian Ocean and to play a complex role in negotiating identification with and resistance to competing globalisations.

Heroes or zeros? Portuguese–Canadian youth and the cost of mobilising different sociolinguistic resources

This critical sociolinguistic paper adopts a materialist view of how multiple languages and identities are negotiated in an effort to re-examine multilingualism and why people invest in certain sociolinguistic practices. The focus is on the social and linguistic resources and performances of Portuguese–Canadian youth in student cultural associations or clubs in Toronto. The sociolinguistic work carried out in these Portuguese clubs provides a rich context in which to explore diverse linguistic repertoires and trans-local identities which are the hallmark of a postmodern, globalised world. These student associations are flexible transnational spaces where young people should be free to construct their multiple sociolinguistic identities as they see fit. They should be able to assert their creative agency without the constraints of traditional ethnolinguistic gate-keepers like Portuguese teachers, parents or community leaders who can impose homogenised or ‘legitimate’ ways of speaking and being Portuguese. Yet, this hypothetical freedom and flexibility are not easily achieved and they often come at a cost. At issue are questions surrounding authenticity, legitimacy, dominant linguistic and nationalist ideologies, and access to material and symbolic capital that structure the Portuguese–Canadian community as a market and position some people as ‘heroes’ of the Portuguese cause, and others more like ‘zeros’.

Personal Narratives and Cosmopolitan Identities

The article addresses the debates on transnational communities and the construction of global identities by reflecting upon personal narratives of frequent work-related mobility. It explores the process of “cosmopolitanization” through narratives of self-transformation during perpetual assignments of expatriation and repatriation. The discussion is based on autobiographical evidence, namely, personal diary vignettes, the analysis of which reveals the importance of emplacement and translocality in the reconstitution of identity during transient inhabitation of places. The article informs the studies on global or mobile careers exploring some aspects of a translocal identity in the context of practiced cosmopolitanism.

Digital discourse: language in the new media

Foreword Introduction: Fresh Perspectives on New Media Sociolinguistics PART 1 - METADISCURSIVE FRAMINGS OF NEW MEDIA LANGUAGE 1. Voicing Sexy Text: Heteroglossia and Erasure in TV News Representations of Detroit's Text Message Scandal 2. WHen Friends Who Talk Stalk Together: Online Gossip as Metacommunication 3. Join Our Community of Translators: Language Idelogies and Facebook PART 2 - CREATIVE GENRES: TEXTING, MESSAGING AND MULTIMODALITY 4. Beyond Genre: Closings and Relational Work in Text-Messaging 5. Japanese Keitai Novels and Ideologies of Literacy 6. Micro-Blogging and Status Updates on Facebook: Texts and Practices 7. Multimodal Creativity and Identities of Expertise in the Digital Ecology of a World of Warcraft Guild 8. Ride Hard, Live Forever: Translocal Identities in an Online Community of Extreme Sports Chrstians 9. Performing Girlhood Through Typographic Play in Hebrew Blogs PART 4 - STANCE: IDEOLOGICAL POSITION-TAKING AND SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION 10. Stuff White People Like: Stance, Class, Race and Internet Commentary 11. Banal Globalization? Embodied Actions and Mediated Practices in Tourists' Online Photo-Sharing 12. Orienting to Arab Orientalism: Language, Race, and Humor in a YouTube Video PART 5 - NEW PRACTICES, EMERGING METHODOLOGIES 13. From Variation to Heteroglossia in the Study of Computer-Mediated Discourse 14. SMS4science: An International Corpus-Based Texting Project and the Specific Challenges for Multilingual Switzerland 15. C me Sk8: Discourse, Technology and Bodies Without Organs Comment Index