Diasporas, Cultures and Identities

Martin Bulmer, John Solomos

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138817418
• eBook ISBN: 9781317995609
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Diasporas, Cultures and Identities brings together a range of original research papers from Ethnic and Racial Studies that are concerned with the question of the role of diasporic ties and the social, cultural and political processes that are engendered by the changing experiences of these communities. Chapters cover a range of geopolitical and empirical contexts and serve to highlight the diverse theoretical and empirical questions that have become an integral part of the study of race and ethnicity in the contemporary environment. The study of the role of diasporas in modern societies has proceeded apace over the past two decades. Although the role of diasporic communities has been the subject of historical reflection for some time, it is only now that the concept of diaspora has become a core theme in the social sciences and humanities. We have seen an ongoing discussion about notions such as diaspora, transnationalism and cosmopolitanism and their appropriateness as conceptual frames of reference for analyzing the diverse experiences of communities that have become dispersed across the globe. This collection makes an important contribution to this body of scholarship and research.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.

Introduction

Martin Bulmer and John Solomos

The study of the role of diasporas in modern societies has proceeded apace over the past two decades. New bodies of research and scholarship have emerged in a number of social science and humanities disciplines that have sought to explore the changing role of diasporic communities across the globe. Although the role of diasporic communities has been the subject of historical reflection for some time it is the current period that the concept of diaspora has become a core theme in the social sciences and humanities. Over the past two decades we have seen an on-going discussion about notions such as diaspora, transnationalism and cosmopolitanism and their appropriateness as conceptual frames of reference for analysing the diverse experiences of communities that have become dispersed across the globe (Werbner 2004; Vertovec and Cohen 1999).

We have reflected key aspects of this body of scholarship in the pages of Ethnic and Racial Studies over the past two decades, both through the publication of key theoretical studies as well as in the form of rigorous empirical studies of specific diasporic communities. The role of diasporas and their impact on cultures and identities historically and in the contemporary period has been an important strand of research on race and ethnicity for the past three decades. In this period we have seen numerous studies of diasporic communities and networks and the social, cultural and political processes that are engendered by the changing experiences of these communities. We have also seen an impressive number of monographs, articles in refereed journals and edited collections that have explored key facets of the history and contemporary forms of diasporic communities and their changing experiences (Brubaker 2005; Cohen 2008; Papastergiadis 1998).

The growing bodies of research and scholarship on these issues have helped to highlight the important role that diasporic cultures and identities have had in the contemporary globalised environment. The various chapters included in this collection highlight the diverse theoretical and empirical questions that have become an integral part of the study of diasporic cultures and identities in the current environment. We therefore wish to make some introductory remarks about the core conceptual frames about this field of scholarship as a way of highlighting some of the core concerns of the various chapters.

Key themes and issues

In this volume we have been able to include a range of chapters that touch on key facets of current debates and preoccupations. The first chapter is by Kenneth Wald, and it explores the dynamics of the Arab American diaspora in the U.S. This is a group that has been the subject of intense interest in the past decade or so, and Wald’s account seeks to analyse their role in advocacy campaigns linked to the Middle East. In so doing he suggests that there is a need to allow for differences within diaspora groups in their level of commitment and involvement in the wider political community that they are notionally part of. This takes up a theme that has been highlighted in the work of Rogers Brubaker among others.

This is followed by Ayumi Takenaka’s exploration of the emergence and development of diasporic ties among the descendants of Japanese Americans in the Americas. Takenaka’s account links the mobilisation of diasporic politicised identities among the Nikkei communities to processes of assimilation and acculturation in countries of residence rather than to ideas of ancestry and homeland politics. In so doing he suggests the need to focus research agendas more squarely in the diverse political and social realities of countries of residence, rather than on the assumed ties of homeland based politics and values.

The third chapter by Christina Boswell and Oana Ciobanu continues the focus of Wald and Takenaka on the complexity and social context of diaspora mobilisation. Boswell and Ciobanu track the differences in transnational ties between migrants from Borşa in Romania who have moved to Italy and the UK. They argue that it is important to locate the forms of societal inclusion as a basis for explaining the divergent paths of the Borşa communities in the two countries. The theme of transnational ties is also the focus of the fourth chapter by Janine Dahinden on the intersection between globalisation and personal social networks of a sample of 250 inhabitants in a Swiss city. Dahinden’s account links up some of the broader preoccupations of other chapters in this section with the importance of locally based networks and interactions.

The fifth chapter by Òscar Prieto-Flores is concerned with the experiences of assimilation among the Roma communities in Central and Eastern Europe. Although many of these communities have a long presence in parts of Europe they have not been part of the mainstream research agenda in studies of race and ethnicity. Prieto-Flores’ chapter provides us with a suggestive insight into the experiences of these communities and the diverse patterns of assimilation we have seen in different countries over the past few decades.

This is followed by Pieter Bevelander and Ravi Pendakur’s study of the interaction between immigration status and social capital in influencing voting participation among immigrants and minorities in Canada (chapter six). This account suggests that civic engagement and schooling provide a good basis for analysing the voting behaviours among minorities in complex multicultural societies.

One of the themes that is to be found in a number of the chapters in this volume is the concern with moving away from the idea of minorities as a uniform group and situating the role of differences in forms of inclusion and exclusion. This is the core question at the heart of Rahsaan Maxwell’s account of differences in patterns of Caribbean and South Asian identification with British society (chapter eight). Maxwell draws on an analysis of survey data to explore the divergence between conventional wisdoms and empirical data about Caribbeans and South Asians in relation to their feelings of attachment to British society.

The seventh chapter by Gunnar Scheibner and Todd Morrison is a detailed empirical exploration of the role of ‘threat’ as a variable in shaping the evolution of attitudes towards Polish immigrants to Ireland. Immigration to Ireland, as opposed to the long history of emigration, is a relatively recent phenomenon and it has led to intense social and political debate in the past two decades. In this chapter two survey samples are analysed in order to explore the dynamics of both symbolic and realistic threats in shaping popular attitudes towards immigration.

In a number of countries in both North America and Europe the question of the future of second-generation ‘immigrants’ has become a prime concern for both researchers and policy makers. In particular, concerns have been expressed about marginalisation, downward mobility and segmented assimilation of second-generation youth. Willibrod de Graaf and Kaj van Zenderen use the case of the Netherlands to explore both research evidence and the role of policy discourses on this issue (chapter nine). Although their account finds weak evidence for downward segmented assimilation, they situate current debates about migrant youth in the Netherlands to wider concerns about immigration and the future of Dutch society.

References

BRUBAKER, ROGERS 2005 ‘The “Diaspora” Disapora’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 28, no. 1, pp.1–19

COHEN, ROBIN 2008 Global Diasporas: An Introduction, 2nd Edition, London: Routledge

PAPASTERGIADIS, NIKOS 1998 Dialogues in the Diasporas: Essays and Conversations on Cultural Identity, London: Rivers Oram Press

VERTOVEC, STEVEN and COHEN, ROGERS (eds) 1999 Migration, Diasporas, and Transnationalism, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar

WERBNER, PNINA 2004 ‘Theorising Complex Diasporas: Purity and Hybridity in the South Asian Public Sphere in Britain’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 30, no. 5, pp. 895–911

The diaspora project of Arab Americans: assessing the magnitude and determinants of politicized ethnic identity

Kenneth D. Wald

Abstract

This paper takes up Rogers Brubaker’s call to assess differences in diaspora commitment among members of ethnonational groups. The problem is approached through a case study of Arab-American advocacy on behalf of home country interests (the Arab–Israeli conflict) in the host society, the United States. Using a scale measuring politicized ethnic identity, the study examines the readiness of Arab Americans to incorporate Middle East concerns in their domestic political behaviour. Contrary to the image of Arab Americans as a monolithic bloc intensely mobilized on Middle East issues, a representative, national survey demonstrates substantial variability in the salience of the Arab–Israeli conflict to their domestic political attitudes and behaviour. The sources of this variability are consistent with constructivist theories of ethnicity. The greater the individual’s cognitive, social and cultural attachment to the Arab-American community, the higher the level of politicized ethnic identity.

Exasperated by the conceptual and linguistic bloat that has accompanied renewed interest in dispersed ethnonational groups, Rogers Brubaker (2005, p. 13) suggested an entirely new approach to the phenomenon:

rather than speak of “a diaspora” or “the diaspora” as an entity, a bounded group, an ethnodemographic or ethnocultural fact, it may be more fruitful, and certainly more precise, to speak of diasporic stances, projects, claims, idioms, practices, and so on. We can then study empirically the degree and form of support for a diasporic project among members of its putative constituency, just as we can do when studying a nationalist project. And we can explore to what extent, and in what circumstances, those claimed as members of putative diasporas actively adopt or at least passively sympathize with the diasporic stance.

This paper takes up Brubaker’s clarion call to assess the magnitude and sources of individual differences in diaspora commitment among members of an ethnonational group by examining one case of diaspora engagement in American public life.

In the United States, the ‘diaspora project’ of ethnonational communities often takes the form of vigorous advocacy of homeland interests in the political sphere. By raising public awareness, contributing to political campaigns, holding demonstrations, lobbying government officials and other activities, diaspora activists have attempted to enlist the United States on behalf of their ancestral homelands (DeConde 1992; Smith 2001). While scholars have debated the costs and benefits of diaspora involvement in the making of American foreign policy, this debate has often proceeded as if diasporas are inevitably mobilized around the priority of homeland interests. Witness how the authoritative Harvard Encyclopedia of Ethnic Groups listed ‘special interests with regard to politics in the homeland and the United States’ as one of the defining traits of ethnic groups (cited by Jiobu 1988, pp. 4–5). While some scholars have acknowledged variations in attentiveness to homeland needs among members of the ethnonational community (e.g., Shain and Barth 2003), they have neither measured the level of variability in homeland concern nor identified the sources of that variability among putative diaspora members.¹ Until such work is done, until – to return to Brubaker’s formulation – we determine empirically the centrality of the ‘diasporic project’ to nominal members of the group, scholars are likely to overestimate the cohesion of diasporas around homeland interests.

This case study addresses the centrality of the Arab–Israel conflict in the political orientations of Arab Americans. The concern is not principally what they believe about Middle East politics but rather their disposition to act – or fail to act – on that belief. The dependent variable thus represents the salience or centrality of the Arab–Israeli conflict in the personal political considerations of group members, the extent to which nominal members of this putative diaspora assign priority to the homeland when thinking about and participating in the host society’s political life. Drawing on constructivist theories of ethnic identity, it further develops and tests explanations for individual level differences in the political salience of homeland concerns.

I begin by exploring the role of diasporas as foreign policy actors and then consider Arab Americans as potential exemplars. Both anecdotal evidence and review of systematic studies suggest that the community has enjoyed relatively little success at promoting a sense of politicized ethnic identity due to its heterogeneous composition. The subsequent section introduces the constructivist theory of ethnicity and reviews the three domains where ethnic attachment is manifested. That is followed by a description of the data set, measures and hypotheses. After a detailed account of the empirical testing of the hypotheses, the article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for understanding diasporas as domestic political actors.

Diasporas as political actors: the case of Arab Americans

According to some theorists, the international system has entered an era of ‘transnational religion and fading states’. As nations are increasingly penetrated by global forces, losing their autonomy if not their sovereignty, the initiative in world politics has arguably passed to ‘epistemic communities’ defined by ‘common worldviews, purposes, interests and praxis’ (Rudolph and Piscatori 1997, p. 2). Ethnonational movements are among the key players in the new ‘transnational civil society’ described by Rudolph and Piscatori (1997, p. 255). A host of studies illuminate how mobilization by immigrants or minorities has tipped the balance in favour of the homeland from the platform of a diaspora’s host country (Ellis and Kahn 1998; Portes 1999). With the end of the Cold War, foreign policy has further devolved from the hands of a few elites to more open, democratic decision making, allowing ethnic groups to promote ‘multicultural foreign policy’ (Shain 1995).

At the micro-level, this phenomenon rests on the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. Introduction
• 2. The diaspora project of Arab Americans: assessing the magnitude and determinants of politicized ethnic identity
• 3. How diasporic ties emerge: Pan-American Nikkei communities and the Japanese state
• 4. Culture, utility or social systems? Explaining the cross-national ties of emigrants from Borşa, Romania
• 5. Are we all transnationals now? Network transnationalism and transnational subjectivity: the differing impacts of globalization on the inhabitants of a small Swiss city
• 6. Does the canonical theory of assimilation explain the Roma case? Some evidence from Central and Eastern Europe
• 7. Social capital and voting participation of immigrants and minorities in Canada
• 8. Attitudes towards Polish immigrants to the Republic of Ireland: an integrated threat analysis
• 9. Caribbean and South Asian identification with British society: the importance of perceived discrimination
• 10. Segmented assimilation in the Netherlands? Young migrants and early school leaving
• Index