Roy, S. (2021, February 10). ‘To belong, or not to belong – that is the question?’ – Ethnicity as an Ethno-gendered Experience [Online]. The Sociological Review. https://thesociologicalreview.org/magazine/february-2021/migrations/to-belong-or-not-to-belong-that-is-the-question/ (original) (raw)
Related papers
2008
This paper reflects on the understanding of contemporary forms of identity construction within the fields of ethnicity, migration and transnational population movements. It casts a critical eye on new forms of identity hailed by the related notions of diaspora, hybridity and cosmopolitanism. The paper also reflects on the concept of intersectionality which provides a more integrated analysis of identity formation by arguing for the inter-connections between social divisions, such as those of gender, ethnicity and class. The paper argues that the concept 'translocational positionality' (see Anthias 2001, 2002a, 2002b, 2005, 2006, 2007) is a useful means of addressing some of the difficulties identified within these approaches. This concept addresses issues of identity in terms of locations which are not fixed but are context, meaning and time related and which therefore involve shifts and contradictions. It thereby provides an intersectional framing for the understanding of belonging. As an intersectional frame it moves away from the idea of given 'groups' or 'categories' of gender, ethnicity and class, which then intersect (a particular concern of some intersectionality frameworks), and instead pays much more attention to social locations and processes which are broader than those signalled by this.
Becoming Women: Awareness of Migration and Double Loyalty
Zeitschrift für Qualitative Forschung - ZQF, 2014
Based on two case studies of adolescent daughters of migrant and mixed families in Bavaria (Germany) and in Veneto (Italy), the paper aims to study how the daughters solve the conflicting interactions between the contents of the transmission and of the socialization. Focused mostly on gendered interactions and on a sense of belonging, the reflection investigates if and how structural elements (e.g.: family configuration, national context and migration trajectories of parents) impact on continuity and discontinuity in passing on values and other sets of information. The observation of “status passages” and “socio-ecological transitions” in and between private and public spheres thanks to the analysis of life histories are suitable to grasp the specific effects of handing down and its interaction with the socialization over generations. This approach entails the articulation of “time” (namely the interplay between past and present) and “space” (namely the private and public spheres) allowing retracing the outline of the “generational work” that each family performs consciously and unconsciously. In different geographical and socio-cultural contexts as well as in different family patterns, parenting and adolescent dynamics reveal common features. By pointing out the restructuration that adolescence imposes in life courses, we show that it is the meaning given to the parental experience of migration that entails specific form of “loyalty” due to emotional and juridical (de)nationalized belonging, as well as to previous experiences of socialization and discrimination. The originality of the reflection is connected to the patterns of the families compared. The authors widen the concept of migration classically employed in academia introducing the innovative concept of “migration of contact”. Keywords: migration – mixed family – adolescence – transmission – socialization – gender, denationalized belonging
IDENTITY DILEMMA: GENDER AND A SENSE OF BELONGING OR OF ALIENIZATION
2009
Özet Kimlik Açmazı: Toplumsal Cinsiyet Ve Aidiyet Ya Da Yabancılaşma Duyusu Düzey farklılığı olsa da hemen hemen bütün toplumlarda göçmenler genellikle ekonomik, konut edinme ve etnik ayırımlaşma sorunlarına neden olan bir üyelik ve aidiyet sorunu ile karşı karşıya kalkmaktadırlar. Göçmenler bir taraftan karşılaştıkları sorunların üstesinden gelmek diğer taraftan da yeni çevrelerinde dayanışma duygusunu yükseltmek amacıyla gündelik yaşam pratiklerini paylaşma mekânları ve mekanizmaları oluştururlar. Topluluk biçimlenişi mekanizmaları ve toplanma yer ve ilişkilerinin oluşturulması, ayrıntıda çözümlenmeyi gerektiren karmaşık etkileşim süreçleridir. Bu makale öncelikle kadın ve erkeklerin yeni çevrelerinde gündelik yaşam pratiklerinde aidiyet duygusunun biçimlenişini açığa çıkartmaktadır. Gündelik yaşam pratikleri göçmenlerin çevreleriyle ilişkileri, yaşadıkları ülkedeki siyasal sistem bilgisi, kendilerini yurttaş ya da yabancı hissetmeleri ve yabancı arkadaş edinme gönüllülüğü yaşanan topluma üyelik dinamiklerine odaklanılarak çözümlenmiştir. İkinci olarak da bu yazı, özellikle nitel verilerin kullanımı aracılığıyla kimlik oluşturma ve alt-topluluk biçimlenişi sürecinde kadınların rolüne odaklanmaktadır. Bu çalışma Türk göçmen topluluğu, özellilikle son dönemlerde Britanya'ya sığınmacı olarak yerleşen ve bu nedenle de dönmeyi pek düşünmeyen Kürt kökenli Türk vatandaşları üzerine gerçekleştirilen bir alan araştırmasına dayanmaktadır. Summary Despite the differences in its level, the reality is that in almost any society migrants face problems of membership and belonging that commonly result in economic, housing and ethnic segregation. Migrants construct places and mechanisms both in order to challenge the problems at hand and to share some of their life practices which increase their sense of solidarity in their new environment. The mechanisms of community formation and constructing meeting places and networks are complex processes of interaction which need to be analyzed in detail. This article primarily highlights the formation of a sense of belonging as it is expressed in women's and men's daily practices in their new environments. Daily practices were analyzed by focusing on the dynamics of membership including the migrants' relations with their environments, their knowledge of the political system of the country in which they live, their feelings of being an alien or a citizen and their willingness to have foreign friends. Secondly, this essay analyzes the role of women in the process of identity construction and the formation of a sub-community, mainly using qualitative data. The study is based on a field study of a community of Turkish migrants especially focusing on Turkish citizens with Kurdish origins those recently settled in Britain; who were migrate as refugee and do not expect to return.
Trajectories of Reinvention. Soulmates and a ‘Minority Culture of Mobility’
Ethnic Identity, Social Mobility and the Role of Soulmates, 2018
How do identifications develop over one's lifetime? What underlies social bonds, and what role do co-educated coethnic peers play? Can we speak of a 'minority culture of mobility' in the Netherlands? As much as identifications are not constant between different contexts, the differences between the childhood and adult phase in the previous chapter, Chap. 6, indicate that identifications are also not static throughout one's life course. In this chapter, I further explore how the participants' ethnic identifications change throughout their life course. Let us listen once more to Said: Well, I think, when you look back… Yes, I think-reflecting on the period at elementary school-…that you discover that you are actually different. In a negative way. Because I remember-Quite bizarre: sometimes I was not allowed to play at a friend's house. That's something that you don't understand at that moment. So, then you find out you are different. That is phase one. (…) Then, let's say, this period at high school, where you, let's say, SEE the opportunities and seize them, and where you realize that you're talented. You know, that you say to yourself: 'This is GOOD for me'. It sounds weird-no, it doesn't-that at the age of fourteen you notice the difference between you, the higher-educated pupil, and the lower-educated pupils of the school nearby. There is a huge difference, with those children smoking pot. So you notice THAT. This makes you realize: 'I want to stand out positively, I do not want to be like them'. So, basically-you then learn about your… identity-I don't know. But what you learn is indeed, in that secondary school period: no negative association with your own identity. That was a really fantastic period. What is important, is that-well-there I met with friends who did NOT see you as THE Moroccan, or whatever. You COULD play at their homes: sit… sleep over… you know… I enjoyed that period so much. Really great. Good memories. I did not feel different AT ALL. Of course, you realize you have a different background. But who cares?! You know: 'Enrichment.' Whatever….-but that wasn't the focus. (…)
2021
Movement of people within or between countries has taken place for millennia. Migration is a common phenomenon, where migrant experiences are known to be vast and varied. Although migration has been studied globally, there is a need to document personal migrant experiences to understand their struggles in order to build inclusive communities. This narrative describes the author’s transnational experiences and struggles in trying to grapple with her identity and sense of belonging.
Living on the borders of belonging: An editorial note
Coolabah, 2017
Copyright©2017 Cornelis Martin Renes. This text may be archived and redistributed both in electronic form and in hard copy, provided that the author and journal are properly cited and no fee is charged, in accordance with our Creative Commons Licence. This post-congress Coolabah issue entitled "On the Borders of Belonging" offers seven papers developed from presentations at the Go Between In Between congress, held at the University of Barcelona 18-22 January 2016. They offer different perspectives on identity formation but all deal with the potentialities and pitfalls, the enrichment and impoverishment, the empowerment and disempowerment that may flow from identitarian in-between positions, an area of inter and crossculturality Homi Bhabha famously coined "the Third Space" in "The Manifesto" (Wasafiri 29, Spring 1999: 38-40). Located between the known and the unknown, the homely and the unhomely, the national and the foreign, the Self and the Other, this culturally fluid, mixed, hybrid discursive space is the zone where more and more human beings, perhaps willy-nilly, find themselves in these times of globalisation. In Western societies, most of us have turned into cosmopolitans, or Weltbürger to stick to the Kantian term: citizens of the world, free to use our resources to travel abroad and imbibe gratifying experiences, presumably open to cultural difference.